WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.819 You know, I was thinking recently about how we 00:00:02.819 --> 00:00:06.940 process big, earth -shattering historical events. 00:00:07.219 --> 00:00:10.460 When you think of a revolution... What is the 00:00:10.460 --> 00:00:13.380 first image that pops into your head? Usually, 00:00:13.480 --> 00:00:16.019 I mean, it is something massive, a statue of 00:00:16.019 --> 00:00:19.199 a general on a horse maybe or a giant mural. 00:00:19.420 --> 00:00:22.379 Right. Or those black and white photos of thousands 00:00:22.379 --> 00:00:24.839 of people filling a square where the individuals 00:00:24.839 --> 00:00:27.500 just sort of blur into this single grainy wave. 00:00:27.699 --> 00:00:30.219 Exactly. We tend to remember history in wide 00:00:30.219 --> 00:00:33.280 angle. It is huge. It is loud. And usually, you 00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:35.200 know, it is written down in a textbook long after 00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:37.320 the dust has settled. Yeah. That is the standard 00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:39.619 way we interact with it. But today for this deep 00:00:39.619 --> 00:00:41.420 dive, I want to look at something that goes in 00:00:41.420 --> 00:00:43.880 the completely opposite direction. We are looking 00:00:43.880 --> 00:00:46.500 at a piece of art that tries to capture the weight 00:00:46.500 --> 00:00:49.799 of a revolution, specifically the Egyptian revolution 00:00:49.799 --> 00:00:51.920 of 2011. Right. But it does it with something 00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:56.079 small, something fragile. Clay. Clay. Baked earth. 00:00:56.240 --> 00:00:58.600 We have got a lot of fascinating source material 00:00:58.600 --> 00:01:01.520 today, and our mission is to explore an installation 00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:05.260 piece called El Shab by the Egyptian artist Moataz 00:01:05.260 --> 00:01:08.329 Nasser. And I got to say, looking at the images 00:01:08.329 --> 00:01:11.489 of this work, it is disarming. It creates a very 00:01:11.489 --> 00:01:13.750 specific cognitive dissonance, doesn't it? It 00:01:13.750 --> 00:01:15.609 really does. It is not what I expected when I 00:01:15.609 --> 00:01:17.730 saw the topic of revolutionary art. You expect 00:01:17.730 --> 00:01:21.450 noise and grandeur, but Ilshab gives you silence 00:01:21.450 --> 00:01:23.629 and intimacy. This is not a monument you look 00:01:23.629 --> 00:01:25.629 up at. It is something you have to lean in to 00:01:25.629 --> 00:01:27.650 see. Let us set the scene for you listening at 00:01:27.650 --> 00:01:29.810 home since you cannot see this right now. We 00:01:29.810 --> 00:01:32.489 are not talking about a 50 -foot bronze statue 00:01:32.489 --> 00:01:35.920 here. Far from it. We are looking at 25. painted 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:38.780 ceramic figures. And they're small, only about 00:01:38.780 --> 00:01:41.640 27 by 6 by 10 centimeters. So roughly the height 00:01:41.640 --> 00:01:44.500 of a standard reusable water bottle. Or maybe 00:01:44.500 --> 00:01:46.280 like an action figure. A bit taller than an action 00:01:46.280 --> 00:01:48.959 figure, but yes, that scale. Hand -sized, intimate. 00:01:49.159 --> 00:01:50.939 And they are just standing there. They are arranged 00:01:50.939 --> 00:01:53.540 in clusters on shelves. And I think that size 00:01:53.540 --> 00:01:55.920 is the first crucial decision Nasser made here. 00:01:56.140 --> 00:01:58.260 If you make a statue 10 feet tall, it becomes 00:01:58.260 --> 00:02:01.260 a god. If you make it 27 centimeters, it remains 00:02:01.260 --> 00:02:04.030 a person. That is a really interesting distinction. 00:02:04.069 --> 00:02:06.670 It keeps it on a human level. But here's the 00:02:06.670 --> 00:02:08.590 challenge, and I guess this is the core of our 00:02:08.590 --> 00:02:12.770 deep dive today. How do these tiny, fragile figurines 00:02:12.770 --> 00:02:15.990 manage to hold the weight of something as massive 00:02:15.990 --> 00:02:19.629 as the Arab Spring? Because 2011 was not a quiet 00:02:19.629 --> 00:02:22.590 event. It was explosive. To understand that, 00:02:22.650 --> 00:02:25.969 we really have to start with the name. El Shab. 00:02:26.590 --> 00:02:29.050 Which translates to what exactly? It translates 00:02:29.050 --> 00:02:32.370 to... The people. OK. The people. In English, 00:02:32.449 --> 00:02:33.909 that can sound a bit generic, like a demographic 00:02:33.909 --> 00:02:35.849 category. You know, we surveyed the people. Right. 00:02:35.870 --> 00:02:38.189 Sounds clinical. But in 2011 in Cairo, that word 00:02:38.189 --> 00:02:39.969 had a completely different electricity, didn't 00:02:39.969 --> 00:02:42.050 it? Oh, absolutely. It was the engine of the 00:02:42.050 --> 00:02:43.710 entire movement. And you have to remember the 00:02:43.710 --> 00:02:46.550 soundscape of Tahrir Square. There was one chant 00:02:46.550 --> 00:02:49.069 that became the heartbeat of the uprisings, not 00:02:49.069 --> 00:02:52.370 just in Egypt, but across the region. Ashab yurid 00:02:52.370 --> 00:02:55.189 iskwetam. Ashab yurid. The people want to bring 00:02:55.189 --> 00:02:56.949 down the regime. The people want to bring down 00:02:56.949 --> 00:02:59.699 the regime. That is a powerful translation. Right. 00:02:59.780 --> 00:03:01.520 And look at where the emphasis lands in that 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:05.520 phrase. It starts with ashab, the people. For 00:03:05.520 --> 00:03:08.840 decades, the history of that region, and frankly, 00:03:08.919 --> 00:03:11.479 most regions, was defined by the names of leaders. 00:03:11.740 --> 00:03:15.219 The presidents, the kings, the autocrats. Exactly. 00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:18.979 The regime. But this chant flipped the script 00:03:18.979 --> 00:03:21.139 entirely. It said, the subject of the sentence 00:03:21.139 --> 00:03:24.979 is no longer the leader. The subject is us, the 00:03:24.979 --> 00:03:27.830 people. So by naming the piece El Shabnasir is 00:03:27.830 --> 00:03:30.789 essentially freezing that chant in physical form. 00:03:30.930 --> 00:03:32.770 He is grounding the viewer in that collective 00:03:32.770 --> 00:03:35.050 identity. He is saying, look at the grammar of 00:03:35.050 --> 00:03:36.909 the revolution. It was not about a new leader 00:03:36.909 --> 00:03:39.469 stepping up to a podium. It was about the collective 00:03:39.469 --> 00:03:41.979 body that flooded the streets. And that brings 00:03:41.979 --> 00:03:44.020 us to the figures themselves. You mentioned there 00:03:44.020 --> 00:03:45.740 are 25 of them on what we could call the main 00:03:45.740 --> 00:03:48.379 display. How are they arranged? You said clusters 00:03:48.379 --> 00:03:51.099 earlier. Yes, and that distinction matters quite 00:03:51.099 --> 00:03:53.639 a bit. They are not marching in a phalanx. They 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:56.479 are not in a military grid. They are in clusters. 00:03:56.840 --> 00:03:59.419 Like a natural gathering. It mimics the organic 00:03:59.419 --> 00:04:02.099 way people assemble in a protest. You go with 00:04:02.099 --> 00:04:05.159 your friends. You meet strangers. You form these 00:04:05.159 --> 00:04:07.300 little knots of humanity. It feels less like 00:04:07.300 --> 00:04:09.199 an army and more like a neighborhood just showing 00:04:09.199 --> 00:04:12.180 up. Precisely. Yeah. And the key visual element 00:04:12.180 --> 00:04:15.620 here is diversity. Our sources emphasize that 00:04:15.620 --> 00:04:18.259 Nasr was very intentional about showing that 00:04:18.259 --> 00:04:20.959 the people was not a monolith. It was not just 00:04:20.959 --> 00:04:24.100 young men or just workers or just students. It 00:04:24.100 --> 00:04:27.220 was everyone. It was everyone. The ceramics captured 00:04:27.220 --> 00:04:29.860 different postures, different energies. It represents 00:04:29.860 --> 00:04:32.259 that moment where society actually sees itself 00:04:32.259 --> 00:04:34.319 as a whole for the first time. And they were 00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:36.379 there for very specific things. I think we need 00:04:36.379 --> 00:04:38.500 to talk about the demands because the artwork 00:04:38.500 --> 00:04:41.829 is essentially a physical manifesto. The list 00:04:41.829 --> 00:04:43.889 of motivations for this assembly found in the 00:04:43.889 --> 00:04:46.149 source material is pretty powerful. They were 00:04:46.149 --> 00:04:47.889 demanding the end of a tyrannical government. 00:04:48.069 --> 00:04:51.629 They wanted freedom, human dignity, social justice. 00:04:51.810 --> 00:04:54.350 Big abstract noble concepts. But then there's 00:04:54.350 --> 00:04:57.509 one that hits differently, bread. Yes, bread. 00:04:57.689 --> 00:04:59.730 It seems so simple compared to social justice, 00:04:59.829 --> 00:05:02.009 but in this context, bread is not just a side 00:05:02.009 --> 00:05:05.589 item. It is everything. In the context of the 00:05:05.589 --> 00:05:08.620 Egyptian revolution and in this artwork. Bread 00:05:08.620 --> 00:05:11.519 is interpreted as life. There is a visceral connection 00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:14.100 there. If you cannot feed your children, the 00:05:14.100 --> 00:05:16.560 social contract is broken. You are not just protesting 00:05:16.560 --> 00:05:19.000 for an idea. You are protesting for your survival. 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:22.920 Exactly. Bread is life. It grounds the politics 00:05:22.920 --> 00:05:25.779 in the belly literally. It reminds me that revolutions 00:05:25.779 --> 00:05:27.639 do not just happen because people read political 00:05:27.639 --> 00:05:30.560 theory. They happen because people are hungry, 00:05:30.759 --> 00:05:34.199 hungry for food and hungry for dignity. And that 00:05:34.199 --> 00:05:37.870 hunger. creates a very real physical risk. This 00:05:37.870 --> 00:05:40.170 is where I think El -Shab does something incredibly 00:05:40.170 --> 00:05:42.670 brave. It would have been very easy for Nasser 00:05:42.670 --> 00:05:44.949 to make these figures look heroic. You know, 00:05:44.949 --> 00:05:47.470 chests out flags waving perfect, untouchable 00:05:47.470 --> 00:05:49.670 revolutionaries. Like the old propaganda posters 00:05:49.670 --> 00:05:51.790 we have all seen. Right, but he didn't do that. 00:05:52.009 --> 00:05:54.310 When you look closely at these 25 figures, they 00:05:54.310 --> 00:05:56.310 are not perfect. Some of them are bearing wounds. 00:05:56.569 --> 00:05:59.829 They are actually injured. Yes. The artwork specifically 00:05:59.829 --> 00:06:02.699 depicts the physical toll of the protest. that 00:06:02.699 --> 00:06:06.060 is a stark choice for an artist to make it is 00:06:06.060 --> 00:06:08.800 it acknowledges that this was not a parade it 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:13.360 was a conflict by including the wounds on these 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:16.879 ceramic bodies he is refusing to sanitize the 00:06:16.879 --> 00:06:19.230 memory He is saying, yes, we stood together. 00:06:19.629 --> 00:06:22.350 Yes, we demanded dignity. And yes, we bled for 00:06:22.350 --> 00:06:24.810 it. It adds a layer of fragility that I think 00:06:24.810 --> 00:06:26.850 is really important. We talked about the material 00:06:26.850 --> 00:06:29.569 earlier. Ceramics. If I knock one of these figures 00:06:29.569 --> 00:06:31.709 off the shelf, what happens? It shatters into 00:06:31.709 --> 00:06:34.189 a dozen pieces. And human bodies are the same 00:06:34.189 --> 00:06:36.589 way. That is the metaphor, isn't it? The medium 00:06:36.589 --> 00:06:39.110 perfectly matches the message. The resolve of 00:06:39.110 --> 00:06:41.170 the people might be strong, like fired clay is 00:06:41.170 --> 00:06:43.939 hard, but it is also brittle. It can be broken 00:06:43.939 --> 00:06:46.459 by force. It highlights the vulnerability of 00:06:46.459 --> 00:06:48.759 a fleshy human body standing in front of a tank 00:06:48.759 --> 00:06:51.379 or a police baton. It does. It is beautiful, 00:06:51.459 --> 00:06:54.500 but it is also incredibly tense. You are looking 00:06:54.500 --> 00:06:56.220 at them and you almost want to reach out and 00:06:56.220 --> 00:06:58.300 protect them. Which brings us to the part of 00:06:58.300 --> 00:07:01.060 the installation where that protection fails 00:07:01.060 --> 00:07:04.100 completely. Yeah. We need to talk about the other 00:07:04.100 --> 00:07:06.240 shelf, because up until now we have been talking 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:08.660 about the shelf of hope or the shelf of unity. 00:07:09.269 --> 00:07:11.810 But there is a separate shelf in this installation, 00:07:12.069 --> 00:07:15.029 and the tone there is not about unity at all. 00:07:15.129 --> 00:07:17.529 It is about trauma. This is the turning point 00:07:17.529 --> 00:07:20.009 of the work. If the first shelf is the chant 00:07:20.009 --> 00:07:24.509 that people want, the second shelf is a regime's 00:07:24.509 --> 00:07:26.649 answer. This part depicts a specific incident. 00:07:27.029 --> 00:07:29.790 It is known as the girl in the blue bra. A moment 00:07:29.790 --> 00:07:32.470 that went absolutely viral globally. Can you 00:07:32.470 --> 00:07:34.430 describe what is actually happening on this shelf 00:07:34.430 --> 00:07:35.990 for the listener? Because the description we 00:07:35.990 --> 00:07:37.790 have from the sources is gut -wrenching. It is 00:07:37.790 --> 00:07:41.040 violent. The porcelain figures here depict a 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:43.519 woman. She is a limp body lying on the ground. 00:07:43.639 --> 00:07:45.740 She is not standing like the others. She has 00:07:45.740 --> 00:07:48.379 been knocked down. And she is being dragged. 00:07:48.579 --> 00:07:51.680 Dragged by whom? By three officers. Specifically, 00:07:51.680 --> 00:07:54.420 our sources identify them as officers of the 00:07:54.420 --> 00:07:56.319 Egyptian Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. 00:07:56.620 --> 00:07:59.639 So you have three men in uniforms swarming one 00:07:59.639 --> 00:08:02.160 unconscious woman. And they are stomping on her. 00:08:02.180 --> 00:08:04.300 And in the chaos of this violence, as they are 00:08:04.300 --> 00:08:07.379 dragging her abaya, which is her long conservative 00:08:07.379 --> 00:08:10.100 outer garment, has been torn off or pulled up, 00:08:10.120 --> 00:08:12.759 exposing her blue bra. It is such a shocking 00:08:12.759 --> 00:08:15.379 violation. You have the conservatism of the abaya 00:08:15.379 --> 00:08:18.000 contrasted with the vulnerability of the exposed 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.660 underwear all happening while she is being beaten. 00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:24.779 It is an image of total helplessness and brutality. 00:08:25.240 --> 00:08:27.439 And remember, this is also rendered in that same 00:08:27.439 --> 00:08:30.560 delicate ceramic. That fee is jarring. To see 00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:33.259 something that violent frozen in porcelain, porcelain 00:08:33.259 --> 00:08:35.179 is what you make teacups out of. It is supposed 00:08:35.179 --> 00:08:38.259 to be refined. That juxtaposition is the entire 00:08:38.259 --> 00:08:41.820 point. If you saw this scene in a gritty news 00:08:41.820 --> 00:08:44.539 clip, you might flinch and look away. But when 00:08:44.539 --> 00:08:46.539 it is frozen in porcelain, it becomes an object 00:08:46.539 --> 00:08:49.149 of contemplation. It forces you to stare at the 00:08:49.149 --> 00:08:51.309 dynamic. You have the protectors of the state 00:08:51.309 --> 00:08:53.450 actively assaulting one of the people they are 00:08:53.450 --> 00:08:55.309 supposed to protect. Why do you think Nasser 00:08:55.309 --> 00:08:57.509 separated the scene? Why not put her in the middle 00:08:57.509 --> 00:08:59.570 of the cluster on the main shelf? I think it 00:08:59.570 --> 00:09:03.049 is about focus. If she were just one of 26 figures, 00:09:03.269 --> 00:09:06.289 she might get lost in the crowd. By isolating 00:09:06.289 --> 00:09:10.470 her, he puts a spotlight on the violence. He 00:09:10.470 --> 00:09:12.690 is saying you cannot celebrate the unity of the 00:09:12.690 --> 00:09:15.149 first shelf without acknowledging the horror 00:09:15.149 --> 00:09:17.820 of the second shelf. They are two sides of the 00:09:17.820 --> 00:09:20.480 same coin. It is the shelf of violence staring 00:09:20.480 --> 00:09:23.220 down the shelf of hope. And it represents the 00:09:23.220 --> 00:09:24.820 specific gendered violence of the revolution, 00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:28.080 too. It was not just a political struggle. For 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:30.480 women, it was often a struggle for bodily integrity 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:32.700 in public spaces. You mentioned this was based 00:09:32.700 --> 00:09:34.860 on a viral video, and I think that is a crucial 00:09:34.860 --> 00:09:36.919 detail for you listening to understand. This 00:09:36.919 --> 00:09:39.820 did not come from the artist's imagination. Millions 00:09:39.820 --> 00:09:42.419 of people watched this happen on YouTube or Facebook. 00:09:42.700 --> 00:09:44.320 It was one of those moments that defined the 00:09:44.320 --> 00:09:46.240 visual memory of the crackdown. But there is 00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:48.360 a difference between a video and a statue, isn't 00:09:48.360 --> 00:09:50.659 there? A video you watch for 30 seconds, you 00:09:50.659 --> 00:09:52.299 feel sick, and then maybe you scroll down to 00:09:52.299 --> 00:09:55.139 see a cat video or a news update. It disappears 00:09:55.139 --> 00:09:57.549 into the feed. The digital world is fleeting. 00:09:57.649 --> 00:10:00.929 It is ephemeral. It washes over you and then 00:10:00.929 --> 00:10:04.169 it is gone. But by turning that video into a 00:10:04.169 --> 00:10:07.330 sculpture, Nasser made it permanent. He solidified 00:10:07.330 --> 00:10:09.389 it. Solidified it entirely. In the sculpture, 00:10:09.649 --> 00:10:12.789 the soldier's boot never comes down. But it also 00:10:12.789 --> 00:10:16.250 never stops threatening to come down. The woman 00:10:16.250 --> 00:10:18.210 never gets up, but she also never disappears. 00:10:18.690 --> 00:10:22.250 It freezes the trauma in tile. It creates a physical 00:10:22.250 --> 00:10:24.470 archive of something the regime might have preferred 00:10:24.470 --> 00:10:27.320 to be forgotten. It is a way of saying we saw 00:10:27.320 --> 00:10:29.100 this and we are not going to let you delete it. 00:10:29.159 --> 00:10:32.080 Precisely. It transforms a fleeting news cycle 00:10:32.080 --> 00:10:34.360 into historical evidence. I want to zoom out 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:36.440 for a second and place this in time because the 00:10:36.440 --> 00:10:38.779 timing of when this art was released is really 00:10:38.779 --> 00:10:41.779 interesting to me. The big explosion in Tahrir 00:10:41.779 --> 00:10:45.480 was January 2011. This piece, El Shah, was first 00:10:45.480 --> 00:10:48.740 displayed in 2012. The year after. The morning 00:10:48.740 --> 00:10:51.019 after, so to speak. That was the vibe in 2012. 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:53.200 It was a very complicated year. Based on the 00:10:53.200 --> 00:10:55.460 historical context and our sources, it was the 00:10:55.460 --> 00:10:57.440 year of Egypt's first democratic presidential 00:10:57.440 --> 00:10:59.840 election. So on one hand, you had this incredible 00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:01.700 high. The system was actually changing. People 00:11:01.700 --> 00:11:03.580 were voting. Right. But on the other hand, you 00:11:03.580 --> 00:11:05.679 had the realization of the cost. The economy 00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:08.399 was struggling. The security situation was volatile. 00:11:08.740 --> 00:11:11.200 And the trauma of incidents like the blue bra 00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:13.840 beating was fresh. So the art is coming out right 00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:16.080 in that messy middle. It is not looking back 00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:19.029 from 10 years later with nostalgia. It is reporting 00:11:19.029 --> 00:11:21.429 from the trenches of the transition. It captures 00:11:21.429 --> 00:11:24.610 that specific anxiety. The hope of the elections 00:11:24.610 --> 00:11:26.889 mixed with the memory of the beatings. Both things 00:11:26.889 --> 00:11:28.809 were true at the same time. And tell me about 00:11:28.809 --> 00:11:30.710 the exhibition where this was shown. The title 00:11:30.710 --> 00:11:33.090 of the show itself feels like a commentary. It 00:11:33.090 --> 00:11:35.509 was curated by Foss Cabra, and the exhibition 00:11:35.509 --> 00:11:37.830 was titled No to the Invasion Breakdowns and 00:11:37.830 --> 00:11:40.389 Side Effects. Breakdowns and Side Effects. Wow, 00:11:40.590 --> 00:11:43.190 that sounds almost clinical, like a medical diagnosis. 00:11:43.429 --> 00:11:46.139 It does, doesn't it? It suggests that the revolution 00:11:46.139 --> 00:11:48.700 was not just a victory, it was a systemic shock, 00:11:48.919 --> 00:11:51.840 a breakdown. And the violence, like the blue 00:11:51.840 --> 00:11:54.259 bra incident, that was a side effect. It frames 00:11:54.259 --> 00:11:56.500 the whole event, not as a fairy tale, but as 00:11:56.500 --> 00:11:59.299 a painful, necessary, messy procedure. And where 00:11:59.299 --> 00:12:02.399 is the piece now? Has it stayed in Egypt? No, 00:12:02.419 --> 00:12:05.740 it has moved. As of 2022, it is part of the Bargeal 00:12:05.740 --> 00:12:08.529 Art Foundation's collection. And we know it has 00:12:08.529 --> 00:12:11.090 been displayed at the Salsali Private Museum 00:12:11.090 --> 00:12:14.750 in Dubai. So it has left the street. It left 00:12:14.750 --> 00:12:16.990 the site of the trauma and entered the world 00:12:16.990 --> 00:12:19.309 of the museum. Which is the natural life cycle 00:12:19.309 --> 00:12:21.909 of revolutionary art. It starts as a scream and 00:12:21.909 --> 00:12:23.889 it ends up as a lesson. It becomes a way for 00:12:23.889 --> 00:12:26.230 future generations and for people like us looking 00:12:26.230 --> 00:12:28.029 at it from the outside to understand what happened. 00:12:28.490 --> 00:12:30.629 It is funny we started this deep dive talking 00:12:30.629 --> 00:12:33.250 about textbooks and wide -angle photos, but I 00:12:33.250 --> 00:12:35.889 feel like I understand the emotion of 2011 better 00:12:35.889 --> 00:12:38.990 looking at these clay figures than I do reading 00:12:38.990 --> 00:12:41.669 a timeline of events. Because the timeline tells 00:12:41.669 --> 00:12:43.830 you what happened. The clay tells you who it 00:12:43.830 --> 00:12:45.549 happened to. It brings it back to the bodies. 00:12:45.669 --> 00:12:47.730 History is just bodies. It is people standing 00:12:47.730 --> 00:12:49.950 together and people getting hurt. Elshab strips 00:12:49.950 --> 00:12:52.710 away the politics and the rhetoric and just leaves 00:12:52.710 --> 00:12:55.250 you with the human beings. The 25 standing tall 00:12:55.250 --> 00:12:57.879 and the one lying on the ground. And the simple 00:12:57.879 --> 00:13:01.120 desires that drove them. I keep coming back to 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:03.740 bread equals life. It is such a grounding thought. 00:13:03.940 --> 00:13:06.259 We can get so caught up in the ideologies of 00:13:06.259 --> 00:13:07.879 these conflicts. But at the end of the day, it 00:13:07.879 --> 00:13:10.440 is usually about someone saying, I want to live 00:13:10.440 --> 00:13:13.159 with dignity. I want to eat. Yeah. I want to 00:13:13.159 --> 00:13:15.620 be free. And I do not want to be beaten. It is 00:13:15.620 --> 00:13:18.379 the most basic human contract. And this artwork 00:13:18.379 --> 00:13:21.200 shows us what happens when people demand that 00:13:21.200 --> 00:13:23.500 contract be honored. It is a powerful reminder. 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:26.980 You know these figures are small, just 27 centimeters, 00:13:27.320 --> 00:13:30.279 but the shadow they cast is huge. And heavy. 00:13:30.460 --> 00:13:32.659 You asked earlier, can a piece of pottery hold 00:13:32.659 --> 00:13:34.879 the weight of a revolution? I think the answer 00:13:34.879 --> 00:13:37.559 is yes. I think so, too. It holds it because 00:13:37.559 --> 00:13:39.740 it refuses to look away from the ugly parts. 00:13:39.919 --> 00:13:41.860 It gives us the beauty of the people, but it 00:13:41.860 --> 00:13:43.779 forces us to look at the girl in the blue bra, 00:13:43.899 --> 00:13:46.299 too. And that is the definition of an honest 00:13:46.299 --> 00:13:48.590 memory. Before we wrap up, I want to leave you 00:13:48.590 --> 00:13:50.690 listening with something to chew on, something 00:13:50.690 --> 00:13:53.190 to explore on your own. We live in an era that 00:13:53.190 --> 00:13:55.429 is obsessed with the now, the refresh button, 00:13:55.590 --> 00:13:58.529 the live stream. We consume trauma in real time, 00:13:58.629 --> 00:14:01.370 pixels on our feeds, but pixels die, servers 00:14:01.370 --> 00:14:05.990 crash, links rot. But ceramics last. Archaeologists 00:14:05.990 --> 00:14:09.370 are still digging up pottery from thousands of 00:14:09.370 --> 00:14:12.210 years ago. Exactly. So here's the question for 00:14:12.210 --> 00:14:16.149 you to mull over. How does turning a viral video, 00:14:16.330 --> 00:14:18.289 which is something designed to be watched and 00:14:18.289 --> 00:14:21.710 forgotten, into a static, physical object change 00:14:21.710 --> 00:14:25.370 how we remember a revolution? Does the act of 00:14:25.370 --> 00:14:27.769 making it physical make it more real than the 00:14:27.769 --> 00:14:30.250 video itself? Does it force us to reckon with 00:14:30.250 --> 00:14:32.409 it in a way a screen never could? I think it 00:14:32.409 --> 00:14:34.789 might. It is a lot harder to scroll past a statue 00:14:34.789 --> 00:14:37.120 standing right in front of you. Indeed. Thank 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:38.720 you so much for guiding us through this. It is 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:40.759 a heavy topic, but an important one. It was a 00:14:40.759 --> 00:14:42.659 privilege to discuss it. And thank you to everyone 00:14:42.659 --> 00:14:44.879 listening. We will see you on the next deep dive.