A large red empty speech bubble stands on the sidewalk outside NXTHVN in Dixwell. Its object lies in “inviting visitors to rest, contemplate and reflect,” as an accompanying explanation puts it. But as it stands on Henry Street, it also feels like a portal, setting expectations for what’s in store for the rest of the show. Through it, one can see people milling about in the foyer of the gallery space — and beyond that, a commotion of mylar, and anyone who’s in it moving around like they’re in a snowstorm. What’s happening in there?
The red speech bubble is a piece called Josephine and Kazumi (Real Red), and it’s part of “The Truth Is I Am You,” a show created by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Ryan Alexiev and organized by Kalia Brooks, NXTHVN’s director of programs and exhibitions, running in the Dixwell gallery now through Nov. 20.
The show’s playful exterior is immediately entertaining, and, as it turns out, disarming. In the tradition of the best art with a light touch, it gets deftly at an elusive profundity about the fragile ways humans connect with one another by both hiding and revealing the truths they carry within then.
Context is provided in a room to the left of the entrance after entering the building, where NXTHVN has running a compilation of short videos made by The Cause Collective, of which Thomas and Alexiev are members. One of that collective’s projects, In Search of the Truth, involved the artists setting up what they called Truth Booths — large inflatable tents in the shape of speech bubbles, where participants could go and film themselves expounding on the prompt “the truth is…” The Truth Booths have made their way across the world for years, and the videos people have made, talking about their truths in a space that feels safe to do so, are powerful in their honesty, akin to StoryCorps, except with only one speaker. The video compilation at NXTHVN features speakers from the United States, South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Afghanistan, to name a few places, and the truths they tell take on even more power in the aggregate.
Speakers, ranging across race, age, and gender, tell some truths that might get them in trouble in any other contexts. They could spell the ends of personal relationships, or (particularly in Afghanistan) punishment from authorities.
There are the women in Afghanistan who tell the truth about life there — that for them, precious little changed between the fall and return of the Taliban, that the roots of their oppression went much deeper than a political regime. Another woman tells a deeply personal truth, that she has had three miscarriages and “I don’t want to try any more.” People keep telling her not to give up, she says, and at the point of the interview, it’s them, and not her experience that are the problem. She has made her peace with herself. “I hope people stop asking because I’m good with it,” she says. Another woman reveals that she never looks at herself in the mirror because she thinks she’s ugly; she says she’s never told anyone this, but is saying it now in hopes that other people who feel that way don’t feel so alone.
But then there are those who use the prompt as a chance for a motivational speech, an opportunity to tell listeners that the truth is they can be whoever they want. There are the people who are scared about their future and others who are excited for it. There’s a young man who tells his truth about how hard it has been for him to quit smoking. Another man is trying to kick drugs to be a better father to his young daughter. A young woman says “the truth is I love my family, I love my friends, I love being a part of the world we live in. Fashion is my passion. Plus-size all the way.”
Other people go for issues. “One truth I know is that the fossil fuel industry has America by the balls,” a woman says. For one woman, Jesus is the truth. For another man, atheism is. Then there’s a old man who drops what feels like a hard-earned perspective. “The truth is not to be discovered,” he says. We do not know it when we’re born, it hides from us all our lives, and it only comes out when we die. “I’m nearly dead,” he says. “So the truth will shortly emerge.”
It’s recommended to watch the video first, as it puts the experience of the main gallery in a meaningful frame. The concept is simple: a large room full of balloons in the shape of speech bubbles, blown around by fans. “This participatory installation invites the audience to complete the prompt ‘the truth is…’ on large balloons that float throughout the gallery space,” an accompanying note explains. There are Sharpies provided for the purpose. “The personal truths written on the balloons will become part of the collective experience of the exhibition, with messages added throughout the life of the installation.”
As of this visit, many visitors have taken the opportunity to write their truths on the balloons, declarations of love and sadness, hope and frustration. But the overall experience sends its own kind of message, too. There are a few metaphors about the truth suddenly made quite literal (the truth is just out of reach, the truth is all around you, sometimes the truth just hits you in the face). But it’s possible to imagine that the people who wrote all their truths down are still in the room, and that the gallery is just waiting for more people to arrive. Or, deeper still, it’s as if the gallery makes tangible what the air is like in any room crowded with people — their truths buzzing in the air around them, unspoken but insistent, affecting how they move, what they say, what they do. What would happen if we could read them all at once, if we all told our truths to one another all the time? Utopia or dystopia? Chaos or transformation? Do we want to find out? Or are our truths something to keep hidden, to only tell a few other souls — except, in cases like “The Truth Is …:” when we set them free?
The Truth Is I Am You runs at NXTHVN, 169 Henry St., through Nov. 20. Visit the gallery’s website for hours and more information.