[no title] 1983

Curator: This piece by Ian Breakwell, created without a title in 1979, layers a stark image reminiscent of religious iconography over a fragment of text. It’s a bit like a visual poem, isn't it? What leaps out at you? Editor: It feels… oppressive. The stark contrast, the Pieta-like figure, combined with that stream of consciousness text…it's heavy. How do you interpret that tension between the visual and the written? Curator: I think Breakwell is pointing towards the suffocating weight of history, of the stories we tell ourselves. The image suggests suffering, while the text hints at a kind of detached observation of the everyday, almost banal, world around it. Are we all just numb witnesses? Editor: So, it’s less about religious suffering and more about the suffering of… indifference? I hadn't considered that. Curator: Perhaps. Or maybe it’s about the way we frame suffering, package it, even. Makes you wonder what we choose to see, and what we ignore, doesn't it? Editor: Definitely gives you something to think about. Thanks!