The Cloud of Unknowing

An installation by Paul Scerri

Valletta Contemporary, 13 November - 23 November 2024 

The cloud of unknowing is a spiritual concept originating from an anonymous 14th Century mystical text. It holds that absolute truth is always beyond the reach of human rationality and can only be approached when intellectual reasoning is relinquished. Transposed into a secular context the cloud of unknowing symbolises the grappling with forces that cannot be fully articulated. From within a space of ambiguity dreams offer fertile grounds for resistance and the non-rational revelation of truth. Paul Scerri develops these ideas in The Cloud of Unknowing (Matthew’s Dream). In this work childhood and adulthood exist side by side, collectivity and individuality, self, other, memory and fabulation, weave together into a complex tapestry that incorporates itself at the bedrock of everything which we can call ourselves. The subtitle refers to the birth of Scerri’s first nephew - Matthew - who, as it seems emerged inexplicably out of thin air, as if from a dream.