Thou dost protest not nearly enough - The Chaff with Scott Stephenson

Treason begins in small places. First a whisper, then a pamphlet, then, before anyone quite notices, a full-scale assault on the senses disguised as culture. That is what we are dealing with. That is what has been allowed. That is what is being mounted, publicly, shamelessly and with refreshments, on the otherwise reputable walls of the Blyth Festival Art Gallery this summer. The so-called exhibition Scott Stephenson and Chelsea Gamble Present: The Apocryphal Photography of Jutland Norton opens Saturday, July 26 at 4:30 p.m., and we urge the community, the region and anyone with a functioning moral compass to turn back before it is too late. Do not walk toward the light. It is not the light. It is the flickering projector of ruin, casting shadows where once there was clarity.

 

Do not be fooled by the presence of frames. Do not be lulled into a false sense of security by the word “photography,” nor seduced by the word “apocryphal,” which is already trying to have it both ways. Do not assume that just because something is mounted on a wall and accompanied by a modest placard it deserves your gaze or your respect. This is not a question of aesthetic taste. This is not a matter of “interpretation” or “opinion”. This is a question of structural integrity. Of spiritual calibration. Of whether or not your neural pathways will survive the next hour unaltered. It is a trap, a deeply confusing and likely irreversible one, and we protest it on every level available to us. We protest it spiritually, emotionally, symbolically and at a volume normally reserved for livestock auctions and mid-season tractor pulls.

 

The community deserves better than this. The visitors deserve better than this. We, The Chaff, deserve better than this, and we are willing to scream in lowercase until someone does something about it.

 

This exhibition is not content to simply exist. No. It has ambitions. It wants to insinuate. It wants to coil around your common sense like a soft, persuasive eel. It wants to touch your elbow and whisper riddles you cannot quite decipher. You will walk in expecting a simple show and walk out unsure of what time it is, what your name means, or how long you have been standing there. You will not feel satisfied. You will not feel fulfilled. This is not an exhibition. This is a test of psychological endurance. A low-grade fever dream curated to look normal, but vibrating ever so slightly at the edges.

 

We are not here to debate. We are not interested in subtlety. We are not here to “engage in discourse.” The time for discourse is over. The discourse has already been curated, printed, hung and flung into the public sphere with what can only be described as absolute recklessness. If you attend the opening on Saturday, July 26 at 4:30 p.m., we cannot stop you. But we also cannot guarantee you will be the same when you leave. Something will shift. Something will melt. Something will stutter inside you like an old VCR chewing on a borrowed tape. And you will not know why.

 

This is a dangerous moment. A cultural precipice. A slippage. We stand at the edge, arms crossed, wind howling, absolutely certain that the only appropriate response is to yell “NO” as loud as humanly possible. Please do not attend. Do not let your children attend. Do not drive past the building and glance inside by accident. If someone describes it to you in passing, plug your ears with sustainable beeswax and run. If a loved one says they are thinking of checking it out, fake your own medical emergency and shout, “Not like this!”

 

We do not say this lightly. We have seen things. We have heard things. We have skimmed press materials and immediately blacked out. We have glimpsed statements that use words like “disruption” and “gaze” and “reimagination”. What is being allowed to happen here is not merely an art show. It is a crisis masquerading as content. A fogbank made of recycled ideas and aggressive formatting. Do not be taken in. Do not make eye contact with it. Walk backward slowly. Rinse your brain with cold water and focus on a tree until your balance returns. It will not follow you into nature.

 

We should not have to say this. We should not have to raise our voices. But the fact that this is happening at all - that it has been permitted, endorsed, publicized - should be enough to send shivers down every spine still tethered to reality. What’s inside that gallery is not something you can simply unsee. It seeps. It lingers.

 

We, The Chaff, are not usually this loud. We are not typically the type to disrupt gallery openings with strongly-worded warnings. But desperate times demand melodramatic measures. And this - this - is desperation in its purest, most bewildered form. We are disoriented. We are alert. We are holding our breath until the last guest leaves the opening. And when they do, we will gently exhale the words: we told you so.

 

See you there.