A Message From The Museum

The Museum of Hope in the Dark

“Your opponents would love you to believe that it’s hopeless, that you have no power, that there’s no reason to act, that you can’t win. Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away. And though hope can be an act of defiance, defiance isn’t enough reason to hope. But there are good reasons.” Rebecca Solnit’s Hope In The Dark.

‘The Museum of Hope in the Dark is a Forest Fringe project for 2018, commissioned by Latitude Festival; an installation to quietly illuminate the darkness of a Suffolk forest, concealing in a series of flickering beacons a collection of stories hidden in light.

Five artists were asked to reflect on the idea of hope. Their messages have then been translated into morse code and programmed into four flickering lights, ready to be deciphered by anyone with the patience to do so. The aim is that this collection of stories can continue to grow over time, with further artists offering their own reflections and the installation growing into a forest of blinking lights to illuminate the darkness across the UK and beyond.

We live in an error of bellowing loudness and infinite distraction. Amidst all this noise we want to try and find hope in small acts of patience and concentration. In the unspectacular effort required to sit and decipher the words these artists have written for you. In a sequence of lights that may appear to be failing but are actually working just as they need to.

The Museum of Hope in the Dark is a Forest Fringe project commissioned by Latitude Festival, and originally featured:

Sonya Lindfors & Maryan Abdulkarim, Hannah Jane Walker, Robin Deacon and Rachel Porter. It was premiered at Latitude Festival 2018, 12-15 July.’ [https://forestfringe.co.uk/project/the-museum-of-hope-in-the-dark/]

Commissioned by: Forest Fringe for Latitude Festival 2018.