Editorial: The Holy Fluff When we were contemplating the theme of Supermarket 2022 several months ago, things seemed to be getting somewhat brighter, with the Covid-19 pandemic receding, and the prospect of the coming year filled with a glimmer of hope for warmer, softer, simpler months. A lighter existence where we could perhaps let go a bit, enjoy art, meet new people, and slowly find our way back to normal, so to say. The idea behind the Holy Fluff reflects this recent mindset: the optimistically light-hearted and joyous with the serious and searching; a vision that sees our existence as one always intertwining the playful with the serious and spiritual. That is the ongoing contrast of our lives; our need for believing, questioning, uniting, connecting with something beyond the daily reality with the longing for a carefree and pleasurable existence. When driving I once saw a car pass by with a bumper sticker that said “Are you on the Right Path?’ – for certain a religious seeker of truth behind the wheel. But whether I am on the road or not, the sticker and the question often come to my mind. Was it a genuine imploring on humanity, or just a desperate off-handedly judgmental shout in the dark? Is this not something we have all experienced? Or, rather, is this not something we do all the time, wishing for someone to tap on our shoulder and say, look, this is a good path you are on, this is how you go about it, this is where the key is hidden? In a way, I feel like I want to paste a reminder like this in front of my eyes and carry it around as an impossible halfabsurd daily reality check. And then you wake up one day, not spirited away on a cloud of fluff as wished for, but, alas, 6
drifting off uncontrollably on some heavy nightmarish thundercloud. Suddenly the question Where are you going? becomes much more existential. In just a few weeks the situation has once again shifted, with a war in Ukraine that has affected millions of lives and raised a wave of admirable solidarity – but, also, hand in hand with bloodthirsty mongering and militantism across the society. At Supermarket we feel deeply for the people and artists of any invaded country and condemn any kind of military attack on a sovereign country, and in our small ways do all that is possible to support them. What I find somewhat disturbing though is that it takes a war to make us most united – that we need an enemy to be able to stand together as communities. That hatred and black-and-white dichotomy are seemingly necessary to position ourselves in the world with the others. Is this really good enough? Perhaps idealistically, I believe that the true unity and capacity for solidarity should lie in us being able to share certain inner values on life, love, art, beauty – not formulated around our definition of evil, crime, punishment, ugliness, even if they come inseparable. For this reason I see the idea of the Holy Fluff remaining valid in the light of the current world crises. Not only the one in Ukraine, but also, to name another disastrous humanitarian catastrophe, Yemen, or one of the many critical socio-political and environmental threats we see across political spectrums and the continents. That is, the idea that we need to be able to see the meaning and unite both when it comes to serious decisions and actions, but also when it comes to the small, daily things.
