Shaun Leonardo: When Silence Speaks Louder Than Words
Shaun Leonardo, a Brooklyn-based artist from Queens, discusses societal expectations of manhood, particularly around minority groups, in his work. In his virtual presentation to the students of Sacramento State, San Diego University, and SJSU, he opens up about a program at the core of his practice: Assembly--a diversion program for court-involved youth. In this space, Leonardo became, “invested in the possibilities of storytelling that are embodied rather than told.” The artist believes that when stories are channelled and translated through the body, it offers “a different kind of truth.”
Leonardo demonstrates this belief by starting off his presentation with a “frozen silent gesture.” He asks the audience to study his pose without “leak[ing] into interpretation of the image.” The audience should only describe what they saw. He ends this exercise by saying that the ways that we see are never pure, because we always bring baggage with us. His point being that some stories are often clouded by trauma, so they are difficult to be narrated with words.
A still from Shaun Leonardo’s video
These are just a few of the examples of people gesturing what they want to say; you see hands covering their face, a position of begging or prayer, and arms cradling or hugging.
He emphasizes this point by showing a powerful video about a young man who was previously in juvenile detention and that he connected with. In this video, you hear parts of a conversation between the young man and Leonardo while clips of people using their body language to tell their stories are played throughout. Leonardo explains that “we start to see our own stories in the other person’s gesture.” He adds that stories that are told through gestures are truer than the words because our bodies don’t lie. All the clips were silent, yet so much was said through their bodies: the cries for help, the loneliness, the regret, and the pain. This was indeed a different kind of truth.
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