Katie Knight
Helena, Montana
A Parable: The Answer is in Your Hands, 2018
Cyanotype Book

Who is complacent when their children are in danger?
Everyone’s children are in peril.
Who is complicit when their own children seem safe?
No privilege can protect.
How much insurance can assure safety?
No purchase can calm the storm, quench the fires, reverse extinction.
Whose children suffer?
Our children.
What will they experience as they become adults?
The answer is in your hands.

I printed my photographs on to fabric using the antique photographic cyanotype process. Images of children who hold emblematic objects represent the young and future generations who inherit the consequences of our actions. In their eyes, I see questions, doubt, and hope. My grandson, Kai-Biko, helped me make this book by writing the words of the title onto pages he tore from a neo-Nazi book of propaganda.

This accordion-fold book is a flexible sculpture intended to stand upright. It can take many different positions. As a clockwise swastika, it refers to the ancient Eurasian symbol for divinity or spirituality, the Buddha’s footprints, the Persian revolving sun, the Dine symbol for healing. Swastika is a Sanskrit word that means conducive to well-being, auspicious. Alternatively, you could position the book into the counter-clockwise form of the reviled Nazi symbol. A choice must be made. We are at a critical juncture as a nation and a species. Will we succumb to fear and greed, or will we unify in a global movement to protect the rights of all beings on the living planet? The answer is in your hands.

Bio
Katie Knight’s innovative, emotionally compelling art takes many forms: photography, printmaking, sculpture and writing. She believes that pairing socially relevant content with beautiful compositions contributes to a dynamic, evolving culture. She createsart in her studio in Helena, Montana, and has been exhibiting her work since 1980. While serving as Curator of Education at the Holter Museum of Art, Knight spent three years curating Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate. Since then, she has managed the exhibition tour and provided educational programs at host venues. Knight earned an MFA in 1999 at the University of Minnesota, where she received the prestigious national Jacob Javits Fellowship to support her visual arts practice and the use of art within context of human rights education. Knight is a full-time art teacher.

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