SOULS OF A MOVEMENT

Many are remembering the reason why they decided to be here at this time: to dismantle an obsolete system and build a new one. The collective process we are embarked on, and the painful series of events that started unfolding in 2020, are inviting us to embrace a personal revolution with universal resonance.

Our global structures were built on innumerable, cumulative lies—and lies cannot stand next to truth. That’s why the powers that be are desperately attempting to suppress any challenges to their world views. But hunger for truth is greater than hunger for power. We know this because people across the planet are starting to feel and choose differently. 

We are witnessing the collapse of a corrupted regime that tries to sell us easy, pre-packaged solutions to attain “happiness.” It tells us to follow external authorities; to do what others are doing; to stop questioning; to settle for what’s comfortable; to embrace the inevitable future it has created for us.

During this process, we can caution each other against idols, leaders, and technologies that compel us to hand our power over to them instead of teaching us to trust the guidance of our inner voice. Saying “but I didn’t know” is no longer an option. 

Now more than ever, we must use our discernment to see through the deceit of a system that hijacks words like compassion, care, unity, progress, peace and respect to push power-hungry, divisive, inorganic, warmongering, self-serving agendas.

This inversion comes hand in hand with a false dichotomy, often expressed as "left" vs. "right," which reduces human connection to "us" vs. "them" and prevents the unity required to overcome. True power lies within each and every one of us.

Humanity has arrived at a point of no return in a binary game: we can either walk the path towards our physical, mental, and soul liberation or stay imprisoned in fear. We are being stripped naked to our cores, down to our individual and collective depths, to finally acknowledge our shadows and unresolved traumas, integrate them, and transcend. 

The dam has cracked, and the waters of a new timeline are flowing. We can all dive in. It’s up to us. We are the souls of a movement. 

Since first drafting our mission statement, Chinatown Soup has maintained an open door policy for artists and activists engaged in social justice movements. 

We are proud to carry on critical conversations with this month’s installation at Soup Gallery, which identifies a quantum shift in the representation and energy of those who dedicate themselves to the Great Work of resistance. 

Exhibiting artist Carlos von der Heyde acknowledges this trajectory through his Instagram photo-documentary project Souls of a Movement. This series explores the ways in which protestors can embody a core set of values and principles such as humaneness, personal sovereignty, reconciliation, and truth-seeking across evolving contexts, times, and spaces, and transcend ideological divides to forge new hybrid paths.

The brief post captions that accompany each image create a common thread that delves into realms as diverse as cultural commentary, social critique, consciousness, and metaphysics, and invite the viewer to use self-knowledge, critical thinking, and trained discernment as a platform to create new realities. 

This project will be open to the public June 9 - 26, 2022. Please join us for a panel talk on Saturday, June 18th from 5-7pm. RSVP here.

Carlos von der Heyde is an Argentine photographer based in New York. Since 2020, he has been working on Souls of a Movement, an ongoing Instagram photo-documentary project (@soulsofamovement) on the protagonists of various social protests that have intermittently erupted in New York, Washington DC, London, and other cities, around racial justice, bodily autonomy and medical freedom, gender identity, freedom of speech, war/peace, mass surveillance, and other human rights issues.