"Although it's a timeless concept, I think the story of lost or abandon children trying to reconstruct some semblance of mythology and civilization is more pertinent now than ever, considering the fragility of times we live in," says Vochatzer.
For this was a defensive speech, delivered in many shades of grey as on Matthew Arnold's darkling plain, full of reminders of uncertain times, shot through with the fragility of the times, its most lasting message likely to be the promises of long hard roads ahead.
The World Economic Forum's announced theme, "Leadership in Fragile Times," could not be more appropriate, because the fragility of the times might be reduced by a broadening of global leadership.
The theme of time's fragility is communicated in several ways, including through the works' presentation.
But the effect is powerful, and the song brings a shiver of recognition at the fragility of life, the remorselessness of time.
Portia Munson sculpts and paints her way to messages of the "fleeting nature of time, the fragility of life, the representation of women, and our cultural obsession with disposable things," as stated in the show's description.
"This exhibition explores the images as art that seizes the fragility of a moment in time and asks us to imagine what these young lives might have been like after the picture was taken even what these workplaces would be like after the children were gone," Nemerov explained.
As the strands twist together, and present and past echo and amplify one another, a series of atemporal themes begin to emerge: the incomprehensibility of time and the fragility of memory; the strengths, failings and enigmas of fiction; misogyny, authority, entitlement and selfhood.
