Don’t Call 

Editor: So, this mixed-media drawing is called "Don’t Call" by Daria Theodora. There’s something dreamlike about it—a telephone morphing with organic shapes. It’s quite striking. What's your read on it? Curator: It strikes me as a fascinating commentary on communication, or perhaps, the anxieties surrounding it in contemporary society. Given the title, it’s likely about more than just literal phone calls, it suggests a reluctance, perhaps a fear of connection. Editor: Connection? The organic elements almost give the piece a biomorphic feel... Is the old telephone an indictment on contemporary connection culture? Curator: Precisely! Think about the social and institutional role of telephones throughout the 20th century; instruments that literally dictated how much an individual was exposed to and impacted by larger sociopolitical climates through news, advertisements, or emergencies. And in the twenty-first, that social role shifted, becoming something altogether more immediate. Daria Theodora seems to acknowledge this dramatic shift through the surreal distortion of the old telephone against a dreamy setting. Editor: It’s as though the phone has become something…natural, something inescapable in its own right. The phone looks broken and corrupted. The receiver has transformed into a flower, is the communication now 'natural', but artificial, even rotten, as well? Curator: That's an interesting reading. It suggests that communication has become less deliberate and more ubiquitous, like a pervasive part of the environment that we didn’t ask for, and have little power to disconnect from. It seems there is no freedom anymore. It also evokes an image of waste through the distorted flower; that our personal lives may be exploited as capital through surveillance programs. Do you think that the black background invokes a sinister context for contemporary telecommunications? Editor: Perhaps that's the piece's strongest and subtlest commentary! I thought the black might be a dream space but considering the cultural shift you highlighted it does evoke the digital "void". Thanks! Curator: A useful perspective. Considering art’s relationship to the contemporary obsession with imagery and technology is incredibly critical. Thanks for helping me unpack Daria Theodora’s complex symbolism in “Don’t Call”.