Hearts and Minds

Civilization and barbarism are never far apart. As the spoils from subjugating distant countries fill closets, living rooms, and dinner tables, citizens of the empire are encouraged to witness the "improvements" offered by their way of life bestowed upon the many invisible hands responsible for producing it. Employing the tools of public relations to invert standard meanings into their opposites (slavery = freedom, war = peace) the minds of those at home are massaged while villages abroad undergo “pacification”.

Living within a kind of informational breakdown, many are now questioning how we got here. Linking past to present through artwork and archival material that collectively address links between the diversions of consumerism and techniques of propaganda in the service of empire, Hearts and Minds, a joint project of Carriage Trade and Rectangle, Brussels, reflects on the inseparable rapport between public relations and social control both abroad and at home.