The Postnormal Times Exhibition is both an art installation and a pedagogic resource. It presents Postnormal Times as a call to arms: an invitation to challenge our assumptions and biases about the contemporary world and possibilities for the future. It is specifically designed to interrogate our sense of what is and is not ‘normal’; to explore challenges and potentials of our common futures; and to ascertain the values we need to navigate postnormal times.
Postnormal Times is both a description of and attempt to understand the rapidly changing nature of our world. Change itself is changing. It is also a transitional period where the normal, business-as-usual, approaches to our everyday lives are no longer functioning. We are forced to question everything we take for granted. Our systems have become increasingly complex, left to the mercy of chaotic events, and riddled with contradictions. While we struggle to cope with the fact that conventional ways of doing, being, and knowing have passed their sell-by days, newer, better ones have yet to emerge. Postnormal times is also a call to arms: an invitation to see the world for what it has become and to imagine how it might be different.
“All that was ‘normal’ has now evaporated; we have entered postnormal times, the inbetween period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have not yet emerged, and very few things seem to make sense.”
The Postnormal Times Exhibition is both an art installation and a pedagogic resource. It presents Postnormal Times as a call to arms: an invitation to challenge our assumptions and biases about the contemporary world and possibilities for the future. It is specifically designed to interrogate our sense of what is and is not ‘normal’; to explore challenges and potentials of our common futures; and to ascertain the values we need to navigate postnormal times.
The PNT Exhibition is composed of a few key parts. Postnormal times did not come out of thin air. It was not an instantaneous revelation. Like all things, it arose through a series of events, issues, and developments across time and space. The first part is a curated collection of contemporary events that provokes one key question:
What Just Happened?
The second component of the exhibitions explores the various elements of Postnormal Times Theory. PNT is the result of the overlapping of the 3C’s: Complexity, Chaos, and Contradictions, set to the backdrop of the 4S’s, Speed (changes are happening faster), Scope (changes have greater impacts), Scale (changes effect everyone down to the individual), and Simultaneity (many changes are happening all at once).
"In postnormal times, when it rains, it pours."
The third component of the exhibition is the Timeline. This consists of four iPads mounted on two monoliths (or as desired). Each iPad represents a period (Classic, Modern, Postmodern and Postnormal). Various artefacts – such as Truth, Meaning, Identity, Science, Medicine – are defined for each period in an entertaining and informative way. Together the two monoliths contain over 50 artifacts that continuously rotate.
The fourth component of the PNT Exhibition is the Menagerie of Postnormal Potentialities. These are characterised by the Black Elephant, Black Swan, and Black Jellyfish that are showcased with explainers and numerous examples of these phenomena in real life.
To give each exhibition its own local flavour, the CPPFS invites collaboration with the venue, other local organisations, and local artists to create a component of the exhibit that explores postnormal times as it is seen where the exhibit travels next.
So far, the exhibit has been showcased in Antwerp, Barcelona, and Kuala Lumpur, and looks to find new locations in a city near you. If you are interested in hosting the PNT Exhibit, please email info@cppfs.org
