Jani Leinonen We Are Sorry, 2013
Metal, plexiglas, neon lights 248 x 146 x 15 cm
Photography Vilhelm Sjöström Courtesy of Showroom Helsinki
‘How to listen to the other, to open one self, horizontally, to the other’s sense, without preventing the return to one self, to one’s proper way?’
This is a question French feminist and philosopher Luce Irigaray poses to us, to humanity. So how is it then in the contemporary age of mass media and with streams of information constantly seeping through our consciousness – or more possibly our unconscious – that we keep love alive? Are we too distracted today by technology to see the other person for who they really are, to truly fall in love and not to ‘return to oneself’ or recoil in a narcissistic and self-indulgent way? An Orwellian take on love may be a little extreme to apply to our society. We’ve still got it in us and our hearts are still beating, but our ways of connecting with one another and sharing our lives has inextricably changed, perhaps forever.