Will You Sit Down?

Thank you for taking the time to engage with this installation. I would appreciate if you could answer a few short questions for me.

Which chair most represents your political leaning?

Red Chair

Blue Chair

What do you think about the “other side”? What do you think those on the other side think about you?

Have you experienced a relational loss with someone because of political differences?

Yes

If you’re in the Huntsville, Alabama area, would you be interested in participating in a mediated conversation with someone across the aisle from you?

Artist Statement.

Over the last few years in America, very strong feelings on both sides of the political aisle have reached a tipping point. A recent poll from John Hopkins revealed that about half of Americans don’t just disagree with their political opponent- they consider them “downright evil.” This is frightening, because the moment we consider someone evil, we’ve dehumanized them and placed them outside the realm of our concern. What a heartbreaking and dangerous moment in our history where we would prefer to do without someone just because we disagree with them ideologically.

My concern for my neighbors is that we are so severed from one another based on whether we vote red or blue, that many of us have given up on the idea of being in community with one another. Most of us have experienced fractures in relationships because of political differences. Some of us have agreed that we just won’t talk about it, but yet we long to be known and accepted for who we are. I have begun to wonder if the simple act of pulling up a chair might be the challenge that this moment is demanding of us.

This piece is intended to force the question, Will You Sit Down? upon the viewer. Once it is understood what each chair represents, the viewer is forced to wrestle with this challenging question, and of what their answer might be. They can’t help but imagine themselves sitting in one of the two chairs, and maybe even imagine someone from the other side of the political aisle take the other seat. Two people who are usually talking AT or ABOUT one another in online arenas are here confronted with this intimate meeting of two people in real life. This is not an invitation to a debate. Instead, I encourage the viewer to imagine a conversation in which you move beyond the talking points, where you look the other person in the eye, and get curious.

It is my feeling that we need these kinds of encounters now more than ever. I’ve heard of many people deciding to cut off people from their lives because their politics seem irreconcilable. I want to urge us that we must commit to these difficult relationships now more than ever. Engaging with curiosity and empathy are the keys to building the currency of trust that is missing right now, and that could save our country. Politicians and those in power alone profit from our divides - what if those on the other side are the very ones that will help us build a better tomorrow? Can you even imagine it?

So, will you sit down?

I conceptualized Will You Sit Down while enrolled in a Community Organizing course in which I was given the assigned to create a community-based peace building initiative. As I was thinking about it, I was also studying the tragic story of Cain and Abel, which l is a story of the world's first murder occurring between the world's first siblings. This occurred not long after the story of creation, when we were given a sense that all of life was created in an interconnected web of relationships, which God called ‘tov m’od’: “so very good!” Once Cain felt threatened by his brother, he said to hell with this interconnectedness and moved straight to “every man for himself!” I wrote a research paper on Cain and Abel, in which I argued that being our brother’s and sister’s keeper has huge implications and relevance to our current political divides today. If interested, you can read it here.
Here are a few other resources that I recommend for learning more about peacemaking in a conflict - fueled world:
- The Enemies Project on YouTube is a series of conversations between two people which are led by seasoned peacemaker Larry Rosen. These conversations are very similar in format and tone to what I had in mind with Will You Sit Down?.
- Global Immersion, a global peacemaking organization, has foundations in the Jude’s-Christian faith and trains people to be everyday peacemakers in their context.
- American Friends of the Parents Circle and the Combatants for Peace are both working within the Israeli-Palestinian context to build bridges between the two peoples for peace.