Testing the Tongue

There is something delicious about the sound of whispering in the ear. It is intimate, secretive, and conveys a sense of privileged empowerment.

Filipino artist Emmanuel Garibay has caught this effervescent moment of delight where a listener catches the first breath of a new disclosure. We can just make out the glisten in the listener’s eyes, the pleasure that is awakening in their face, and the movement of their hair. There is a physical sense of ecstasy as we read the signs of the body filling up with this morsel of special knowledge. Information is power, especially in an environment where there is mistrust, rumour, and suspicion.

In the context of the social and political life of the Philippines there is a strong colonial imprint that orders social class and access to information. The status quo is well preserved by those in power. Speaking otherwise is not welcome, therefore rumour and secrets proliferate. In his work Garibay will often use irony and even parody to deflate the power of those who speak with assumed authority. His works often puncture the self-importance of the religious and political norms of his culture. This work reminds us, as listeners, that we are invited to engage an ethical framework, and not simply operate as an echo chamber for gossip.

The title of this work in Tagalog is salin which could be translated ‘to sift’. This is the human capacity for discernment, where one weighs up the relative truth of claims being made in the public realm. Listening is not just a matter of paying attention to the interesting, or even scandalously juicy, bits of the story, but to sort out the trustworthiness of the words, the speaker, the trajectory, and resultant affect of such speech. In a media-driven culture spin is the only constant. Words become a means to draw our attention away from the truth and facts of the matter. We are told what we want to hear. Crowds tend to form around shared anxieties. Crowds want their questions to be turned into a chorale of sweet and comforting tunes, that are easy on the ear. James 3:5 reminds us that ‘the tongue is a small member, but it boasts of great exploits’ (NRSV). Such boasting needs careful scrutiny by a well-tuned ear.

References 

Garibay, Emmanuel. 2011. Where God is: The Paintings of Emmanuel Garibay, New Haven: Overseas Ministry Study Centre)

This formidable object was designed to be worn around the head. Called a branks or scold’s bridle, the manufacture of such headpieces arose in Britain from the 1500s and their use spread across Europe, until they were last deployed in the workhouses of the 1800s.

This object was designed as a form of social control through public shaming for those with wayward tongues, such as those thought to be gossips, those speaking insults or malice, or those who simply nagged or complained too often. The headpiece was worn as part of a public procession ordered by a magistrate. Many of these objects included a small length of metal that could be inserted into the mouth to firmly press the tongue down, so no speech could be uttered. In this state the wearer could neither drink nor swallow properly for the duration of this public parade of shaming.

In practice these scold’s bridles were used mainly on women. In this cultural period women were less able to speak in public or even to speak for themselves. This object was clearly designed to silence those women who had used their tongue to speak, and in speaking to assert any independence, wit, or wisdom that questioned the order of things.

Employing the tongue is a natural human response to dismantling pomposity and power. For subjugated people there is a tendency to speak otherwise, to find through scoffing, irony, or coded speech a means of asserting freedom from those who seek to enforce their silence.

This object is rather terrifying evidence of a form of control based on gender. One can only imagine the circumstances of the many women who would have been forced to wear this particular headpiece and their resulting public humiliation. In contrast to the forced silence this object threatens to achieve, there is a time for swearing, cursing, and cantankerous speech, especially if it is in the face of oppression and inhumane control. There is a time for tongues to be let loose. As the novelist Arundhati Roy (2004) states: ‘There’s really no such thing as the “voiceless”. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard’.

References

Roy, Arundhati. 2004. ‘The 2004 Sydney Peace Prize Lecture, 4 November 2004’, www.sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=279 [accessed 5 September 2019]

Australian artist Warren Breninger has long been concerned with the gestures of the human figure. The human form in his work, carries the mundane and earthed experience of flesh while also expressing a connection to what is holy and divine. This is forcefully presented in this work, made up of multiple panels, giving the viewer a close-up view of the mouth and its wildly expressive tongue that spells out a range of emotions from ecstasy to horror, and every possible state in between. It is as if the tongue is aflame, ‘set on fire’ (James 3:6).

Like up a filmic close-up, these works draw us in to the intimate space of the mouth, the place where humans spit their insults and express their deepest intimacy. These are the gates of prayer where every human person expresses their frustration, pain, delight, and hope. The artist turns off the sound in this moment and invites us to contemplate the tipping of the tongue, at times in power and at other times lost in blubbering gibberish. We are invited to look into this space that is a site both for the sacred and a place for resounding curses and declarations of violence.

Prayer when uttered out loud lets loose the primal desires, hopes, and frustrations of the human body. It creates stuttering in the finest speeches and interrupts the best prepared intercessions. Prayer is grief, fear, desire, and love, as it tumbles out ecstatically through human lips. The instability of this moment is heightened through Breninger’s process of working somewhere between photography and drawing, emphasizing certain gestures or in turn erasing, scraping back the glossy surface of the paper. The image seems wet, dissolving, still in a state of change. The apprehension of this unstable space causes anxiety for the viewer who would prefer a commanding moment that establishes control.

Rather than being pushed to the edges of the frame, such anxiety might serve as an instructive place from which to speak or pray. Through such limping speech it might be possible to recover our deepest humanity with respect and tenderness. Despite its sometimes appalling nature, our fleshly speech might be the place where we hear the simple syllables that spell out the meaning of love. Love is always a better flame.

References

Artist website: www.warrenbreninger.com.au