Kirsten Leenaars

In a series of five sculptural works in neon and vinyl text, Kirsten Leenaars looks back to the seminal text by poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht, titled Writing the Truth: Five Difficulties (1935). The artist pulls statements from the text and adheres them to the wall, each illuminated by a neon sign reminiscent of the Twitter logo. This reference to social media calls attention to the ways in which we receive our news stories now, and what we consider newsworthy. Social media plays an emboldened role in our daily lives and media content—whether fact, fiction, or somewhere in between—is increasingly pushed through these channels. The text by Brecht, while roughly 85 years old, yet acknowledges many of the same questions we struggle with today around “writing the truth.”