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if we want it
Collaboration with Melissa Q. Teng

Boston Convention and Exhibition Center
Curated by Boston CyberArts

June 24 – October 1, 2020

(Video) (Credits)

INSTALLATION VIEWS

if we want it, 2020. Multi-channel video on digital display (HD color, silent; 00:30 seconds), 80 foot tall LED marquee.

Art on the Marquee (31st Round), Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, 2020. (Credit: Mel Taing)

In popular U.S. media, “survival” often means winning at the expense of others, whether that be other humans, non-humans, collectives, or worlds. This drive to conquer and colonize echoes Western philosophers during the Enlightenment who framed Nature as something for Man to tame and master. Desires to administer our planet at scale have resulted in pollution, mass extinction, displacement, and climate change, diminishing our very likelihood of survival.

In this work titled if we want it, we share Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s framing of survival as collaboration. Tsing writes: “... staying alive—for every species—requires livable collaborations. Collaboration means working across difference, which leads to contamination” (2016). In this spirit, the piece collages together examples of symbiosis: a polyculture farm, coral reef ecosystem, impala and red-billed oxpecker, surfer and ocean.

Formally, we are inspired by Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s WAR IS OVER (if you want it) billboard campaign (1969), in which they aimed to commodify and sell peace, co-opting the language of politicians, companies, and celebrities. At the top of our piece, a running marquee advertises “Survival is collaboration,” in the 6 most common languages of Boston Public Schools: English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, Cape Verdean Creole, Cantonese, and Vietnamese. Each translator works their own meaning into this phrase (“Everyone is treated like family.” / “You can’t do it alone.” / “Life engages in cooperation with the earth.”), sometimes consulting parents or friends. Through this process, translations become an exercise in drawing worlds together. In contrast, we write “if we want it” only in English, the top global business language ranked by the International Monetary Fund in 2018, to question who is included and excluded in the “we” in regards to influence and major decisions affecting our survival.

By Melissa Q. Teng and Sopheak Sam

SOPHEAK SAM

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