The Mene Mene Tekel Parsin group exhibition at Cambridge’s Wysing Arts Centre ran May 21 to July 9.
Curated by Jesse Darling, the show opens up the space between words and language, exploring the “legible and unintelligible” to replace and unpack the power of symbolism. The show features work by Sarah Boulton, Stanley Brouwn, Gordon Hall, Evan Ifekoya, Sulaïman Majali, Imran Perretta, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Özgür Kar, Claire Potter, Rosa Johan Uddoh, Hannah Weiner, Constantina Zavitsanos and Darling themselves.
The works brought together explore language and words to unpick “the legacies of imperial scientific fundamentalism” and the violence of naming (and therefore claiming) bodies. Through its power, symbolism and obscurity, the exhibition looks at “propagandist deployment of slogans” and words within digital capitalism and legibility as a form of control as well as its place within divinity; “the unsayable equates to the sublime.”**
