In Medias Res / Into the Middle of Things
Jan 30 – Feb 28, 2014
A Shared Exhibition by Jacqueline O Rogers & Matthew Talbot-Kelly
Matthew Talbot-Kelly
The turn of phrase “In Medias Res” (in the middle of things) presents some evocative ideas and questions. That things are unfolding; incomplete; in process. And that the residual story of these things is ongoing and unfolding. The phrase also implies that one is engaged, occupied, focussed on the present, the sense of looking neither forward or backward. A beginning implies a gathering of energies, an end evokes a sense of completion, of being “over”. The middle of things is the present, the here and now. I also like that the phrase implies a centre around which activity takes place. To be in the middle of things is where the action is, to be immersed in the creative waters, to be inside the circle.
The wisdom that one should appreciate the journey as much as the destination also comes to mind. The phrase raises the question if there are any true ends to things. Or beginnings. Our journey carries on, never completely stopping at any station. Instead we move from one thing to another seamlessly. A perceptual continuum.
To be in the middle might also refer to our age, being in the middle of our lives. Certainly this is where Jacqueline and I find ourselves today, in our middle age. It is a good place to be
Jacqueline O Rogers
Because we are born into a continuum, we are, each and every one of us, dropped into the middle of a story, at every given moment of our lives, from birth to death. In life, we must always be open and willing to respect the mystery of the unforeseeable – to turn left when we planned on turning right… For better or worse, unpredictable elements are built into the journey of living, and endlessly place us in the middle of new stories.
For me, this notion applies equally to the process of making something within the journey. Because we live in an ever changing world with many always evolving middles, I find it useful to be ready to unexpectedly renew and exchange the kinds of metaphors we use to describe it. Process oriented art is shaped around mystery – always steering us back to new middles, always offering up endless new ways of placing the this, and the that against us as we attempt to define and redefine ourselves through our work, in relation to the world.
The same way we don’t have to understand what life means in order to live it, so to, we needn’t understand what’s inside ourselves to let it come alive on the page. By accepting that we are part of an endless stream of change, and that anything we produce is subject to the irrevocable laws of change, makes everything possible. Therein lies the great adventure of both living a fluent and imaginative life, and staying open to inscrutable acts of creativity within it.