by Craig Colby
Science fiction is filled with fantastic tales of alternative realities, worlds like our own that exist in the same space but are skewed differently. Mention Spock with a goatee to Star Trek fans and they’ll know you exactly what I’m talking about. Even more intriguing is that some physicists will tell you that alternative realities actually exist.
I know, without a doubt, that parallel dimensions exist. I’ve been there. And I can tell you how to get there too.
The world I went to looks physically the same. At first, I’d swear I was in the same place. Then things start to look different. Things I’d been told for years were no longer true. This is no rhetorical trick. I had stepped into a different reality.
Opening the Doorway
My access to this dimension opened with my contract to produce the Aga Khan Museum’s Lapis Benefit. The museum in Toronto is a collection of Islamic art and culture. I was hired to create a broadcast online, since we can’t gather in person.
I collaborated with artists, recording their performances. I also talked to participants in three panel discussions. All of this was familiar territory to me.
I chose the current exhibit, Sanctuary, as the background for the performances. It’s a collection of stunning carpets, each reflecting a different aspect of displaced peoples’ search for a home. I walked through it with Sashar Zarif, a dancer who would base his performance on the artwork. We talked about what he would do and how I would capture it. He gestured to the collection of carpets and said “this is my life.” I thought about what that life must have been like. When I gazed back across the exhibit the carpets didn’t look the same.
Moving Through the Past
I began to interview the panel guests. Novelist MG Vassanji talked about how western cultures placed a higher value on recording their history than in his homeland Nairobi: “If you don’t explore your past and find out who you are, then others will tell you who you are,” he said. Nigerian film producer Dayo Ogunyemi talked about the history of Africa: “In large parts of the world, the history was told by colonialism,” he said. Montreal environmentalist Chuk Odenigbo told me “The Europeans in colonizing the world, creating a monolith western culture, have forced the world to be the way it is today. A lot of indigenous culture incorporates humans as part of nature. Western languages separate people from nature. That influences the way we see the world.” The history I had been taught was now less convincing.
Rapper and visual artist Yassin Al Salman, or Narcy if you look for his work on iTunes (and you should) talked about how art can show a better future, but that art isn’t enough: “There must be a human act attached to the artwork to continue that trajectory. It must sit with the audience.”
His wife, author and artist Sundus Abdul Hadi took it a step further: “There is a future to articulate - equality and freedom are nice and important, but they need to be approached from a decolonial perspective. Then you can get to the deeper work - reparations, and justice. There is the real hard work of healing, ancestral healing,” she said. “The past 500 years have been harmful to communities that have suffered slavery and conquest. Generations of trauma have been passed down. The focus is healing but not just ‘let everybody feel good’. This is a reckoning of what healing means. Healing can be harder than living with the wounds.”
Existing in Otherness
Ekow Nikako, creates sculptures in black Lego, that project a gleaming future in Ghana, 1000 years out. He told me he had a formal education in art, but he didn’t absorb some of the formal work. It’s Eurocentric grounding didn’t connect with him. “There’s an otherness that I exist in.”
I thought about the world in which I had existed. I grew up a white male in a world run by white males. I was taught that colonists came to North America fleeing persecution to create a better new world. Settlers were portrayed as benevolent. The few years I went to school in the United States were loaded with the glory of self determined freedom. As I grew, I knew there was more to it than that. This was one side of the story, told by the people who had conquered North America. I was open to other ideas. I read stories and watched movies about different experiences. I listen to soul and blues every day. I have friends from different religions and races.
Still, my Facebook friends are a sea of largely white faces. Most of the conversations I’ve had about race, about Islam for that matter, have been with white people. My whole life had been marinated in whiteness. I have never existed in otherness.
The last few weeks were different. Conversations about the important topics in the world took place exclusively with people outside that sphere. The majority of the people I worked with were not white for the first time in my career. By coincidence, I was also reading White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo. I was steeping in other perspectives. The world I have lived in hasn’t physically changed. But it looks different.
The New Place
This new place is both exhilarating and embarrassing. I’ve looked at the work of the artists I’ve spoken to, listened to their music. It’s refreshing. Exciting. At the same time, I ask myself, “why has it taken me so long so see this world that has always existed?”. Now that I’ve been here, I can’t go back. I want to see more. Hear more. I like this new dimension.
So how do you cross this threshold? Unfortunately, the world is structured to divert you away. Social media algorithms feed you concentric circles of sameness. Your own world view is fed back to you over and over and over again. It’s a homogenous hell, and it will take some effort to break out. But not much. You just need to look for yourself.
Find books by people from a different background. Search for podcasts about history, art and world events that originate from other countries. Listen to what they are saying. You don’t have to agree. You just have to see the point of view. When you do, you’re there, in the alternative dimension.
My Shortcut
You can take my shortcut if you want. All the people I spoke with will present their views on The Aga Khan Museum’s Lapis Benefit, airing on YouTube September 24th at 8:00 p.m. The show will stay on the site forever. I’m sorry if that sounds like a plug, but this has been one of the most rewarding assignments of my career. It’s taken me to another place.
Crossing this bridge has never been more important. Right now, all of us have a calling in the world. We are being asked to care about other people, to help keep them safe. We’re hearing people cry out, asking that everyone is given the same respect. How can we do this stuck in a shrinking world of our own concerns? We need to inhabit different places to make all of our worlds better. To get there, we need to start listening. This alternative reality is just a thought away.
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Craig Colby is a television executive producer, producer, director, writer and story editor. He runs a storytelling consulting and production service for businesses. He can be reached at craig@colbyvision.net.