Ode to Teachers

What do we lose when, guided only by reason, we push intuition and certain forms of knowledge to the margins – when we deny them the status of truth? Why have some ways of knowing been historically valued, whilst others forcibly erased or buried beneath the dust of history? Weaving together artistic research and practice, personal experiences and a dense web of references, artist and writer Goda Palekaitė recounts an encounter with knowledge uncovered through cosmological thinking, memory, transgression, intimacy and dreams. Written as a dialogue with those whom she calls her teachers, this experimental text brings forth the voices of myriad artists, writers and thinkers across cultures and centuries – including Venetian courtesans, Christian mystics in ecstasy and people displaced by colonialism and wars – who have been excluded from mainstream historical narratives. Palekaitė invites us to see the world through a lens of holism and complexity, and to resist normative categorisations; to reconsider our relationship with knowledge, to refine our questions and to fine-tune our senses