First a note about myself: I have a BA in art history. I completed one year in a graduate program in museum studies. I am a supporter and defender of the arts and museums. I appreciate art. I make room for all kinds of art to exist in the world. I accept there are works that I will not personally enjoy, but fully embrace those works as important to the culture. Some art isn’t safe, some art is challenging. Some art, just like some parts of life, is not for children.
We visited the ICA yesterday to take part in a program on the exhibition “When Home Won’t Let You Stay.”
First of all, this is a heart-rending exhibition. Not only is it about the experiences of people who must leave their countries, it is also about how other countries treat refugees. Most of the art displayed was excellent, introduced ideas, and evoked strong emotions and thoughts.
Source: BBHS
Toward the end there is a dark room with three monitors at a child’s eye level. There are headphones hanging from hooks below them and benches to sit on while watching. At first it appears to be relatively innocuous, certainly there’s no indication of imminent danger – one person on each screen in front of a neutral backdrop speaking. There are easy to read subtitles on each screen that can be read comfortably 15 feet away.
We passed through that room without stopping, to view “American Library.” Our guide mentioned mildly and in passing that there might be some difficult topics on the videos in the prior room and parents should use discretion. I understood that as a PG-13 kind of warning. I shepherded my 10-year-old son away from the doorway in “American Library” so he wouldn’t see the videos. However, while looking around the library together, I didn’t notice that he went back to the doorway to watch them.
Kids! AmIRight? They LOVE videos of almost any kind, if there’s a screen in a room playing anything, it grabs their attention immediately, like a Siren singing to Odysseus…who you will remember had to be tied to the mast of his ship to prevent him from throwing himself to the deadly Sirens.
The next thing I knew, my son was next to me visibly upset, beginning to cry, asking to leave. Downstairs as we waited for our group, he wanted to distract himself on my phone and by walking through the gift shop to look at cute things. When I was finally able to get him to tell me what he read on the screen, he told me a detailed, horrifying story of torture with a sexual element to it.
He could not participate in his group’s art making session, he was too upset. When I sat with him to encourage him, we made something together to help him process what he was feeling. Instead of a quilt square about our family’s migration stories, he made tear drops falling into a puddle, and told me and another parent that he’s scared because he’s small and not strong and doesn’t want to get hurt or die.
Source: BBHS
This is the third time we’ve gone to the ICA and my kids were exposed to excessively disturbing material in a way that was impossible to avoid, particularly because no appropriate warning was given. These were materials no functioning parent willingly exposes their kids to: NC-17 level imagery and descriptions of rape and torture. Both my sons still occasionally bring up a video installation that we saw over a year ago. I really hope this latest experience doesn’t have lasting effects on my younger son.
I don’t understand the curatorial decisions of a museum that welcomes families, but subjects the public to such extreme imagery and words, without warning and sometimes without a way to avoid those works and still visit the rest of the exhibits. It feels like intentional infliction of distress.
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