BFA Rietveld Academy, Thesis Award Nominee

Title “Let me tell you the truth”150 pages


Abstract: This dissertation offers an analysis of the politics of truth and speech, taking into account the historical influence of gender, identity, race, caste and colonialism in the access to the truth-claim. In order to offer a disruption to the often abstract and conceptual discussion of critical theory, this paper uses three narratives as satellite stories to the academic investigation of the themes proposed. These stories also anchor the author and the reader to what is truly at stake - the realm of human experience.

Extract: “You see, the act of determining something as truth is bipartisan: it requires an active part that claims that something is the actual state of things, and a passive part that accepts it as such; a truth claimer without an accepter is just a theorist (conversely, a theorist with an accepting audience may effectively be considered a truth-teller). For the active part of the equation, the intention is of extreme relevance: the truthfulness of the truth-teller, meaning the intentional honesty of the one telling the story, absent of intentionally deceptive will, is almost constitutive of the truth and a pre-condition for its acceptance; (…) - and yet, from the passive part, there isn’t an equivalent threshold: against overwhelming evidence, the passive part of the equation can somewhat not accept (i.e., not believe in) the truth-teller. Much as vision, accepting the truth seems to be an act of choice: just as we only see what we look at, we may only accept what we choose to (hear) - that act, in itself, likely to be affected by what we know or what we choose to believe (to be most likely probably true).”

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COLOPHON

Text & Research: Vivian Cintra

Tutor: Q.S. Serafijn

Co-advisor & Editor: Delphine Bedel

Graphic Design: Daniel Iglesias Gonzalez

Proofreading: Devon Genser

Font: Badass Libre Fonts by Womxn, spearheaded by Loraine Furter