David Waddell & Kelly Ulcak Ta Marmaruga

“Ta Marmaruga, loosely translated from the ancient Greek, describes the dazzling things that an escaped prisoner encounters in Allegory of the Cave from Plato’s Republic.

Our first encounter with the prisoners is in a dark cave illuminated only by a large fire. In front of the fire is a parade of puppets, which cast shadows onto a wall of the cave. This wall is what the prisoners have faced their entire lives. They are fettered to the stones of the cave and only know the wall they face and the shadows that dance along the wall as truth. In this tale one of the prisoners breaks away from his shackles and is set free; consequentially, he is confronted with a truth that lies beyond the world of illusion in the cave.Illustrated in this tale is the suggestion of seeing the invisible truths lying under the apparent surface of things and the notion that education is not putting knowledge into empty minds but making people realize that which they already know.

This project is an experimental collaboration; beginning with a simple premise and a literal narrative. Combining Ulcak’s quirky narratives and drawing style withWaddell’s abstracted and painterly stop-motions these two come together to attempt to tell a story about knowledge and knowing.”