Curated by Aaron Wilder, Unstable Language is an online-only exhibition hosted by Amos Eno Gallery on Artsy.net from October 20 to December 1, 2025. This exhibition invited artists to reflect on art’s power for change and resisting harmful narratives.

 

Our understanding of the world around us is based on language, the filter through which we understand ourselves and others. Our understanding can be skewed by governmental, media, and other institutional actors through efforts to redefine terms to forward a biased agenda, censoring or distorting facts, and framing perception through propaganda. The ultimate goal of these institutions is to engineer our behavior so that we act in ways compliant to and complicit in the perpetuation of systems of dominance and control.

 

Saying or doing something that challenges the status quo has the potential of altering what can be thought of as acceptable. This is why societal norms are fortified by powerful systems, including threats of shaming, prosecuting, and abusing anyone who seeks to rock the boat. Paralysis from how overwhelmingly intricate and pervasive the system can seem is the intended effect. One doesn’t have to fully understand or take on the entirety of the system. Waiting for the ideal theory, leader, or revolution only benefits institutions of power and their continued domination of us.

 

Art, as a kind of language, has the power to reinterpret and rearticulate relationships between the individual and established norms, providing a substantial opportunity to resist institutions of power and the dominant narratives they shout. Just as art enables new ways of seeing, it amplifies our voices. Art provides the platform to put us on a level playing field so that we can shout back louder. Art, as an unstable language, is powerful because it is full of potential for challenging harmful dominant narratives. If we can see ourselves as capable of enacting change, we can use our voices to disrupt today’s system. We face a future full of possibilities. It’s time to speak and to act.

 

Unstable Language showcases how artists use their work to speak and act against oppressive narratives and reclaim reality. Participating artists are Tyler Alpern, Sandra Cavanagh, Lulu Luyao Chang, Charles Compo, Isabella Covert, Annika Fricke, Ann Guiliani, James Hannaham, Scott David Isenbarger, Cecil W Lee, Nasrah Omar, Kasia Ozga, Sean Riley, Jean Seestadt, Christopher Squier, Clark Stoeckley, Chanya Vitayakul, Emma Werowinski, and KR Windsor.