A Voice 2014 - 2015

Cast bronze ( lost wax technique)

hand-sculpted by WOLFS + JUNG

The raised fist carries within its clenched form centuries of human longing. Across continents and through the turning of ages, this simple gesture has spoken where words have failed, translating the untranslatable: the fierce hope that drives us to stand when standing seems impossible, the stubborn refusal to accept what is when we can envision what might be.

We live in times when the raised fist appears with renewed frequency in our streets and squares, when the ancient grammar of protest finds fresh expression in contemporary struggles. Yet these are also times when the forces that divide us seem to speak louder than those that might unite us, when fear too often drowns out hope, when the powerful tools of collective action risk being weaponised for ends that diminish rather than expand our shared humanity.

The three forms that comprise this installation stand as witnesses to these complexities. Rising in measured progression—the lowest bearing the characteristics modeled after Emmanuel's hand, the tallest reflecting Boyoung's form, and the central piece embracing the fluid territory between defined identities—they suggest that genuine movements for change require not uniformity but diversity, not the erasure of difference but its celebration in service of common cause.

In their silent arrangement, these sculptures create a space for reflection on what it means to raise one's voice, both literally and metaphorically, in our current moment. They remind us that the gesture of resistance is both deeply personal and inevitably political, both an expression of individual conviction and an invitation to collective action. Most importantly, perhaps, they suggest that the choice of how we wield such power—whether toward construction or destruction, toward justice or hatred—remains, always, our own to make.