As long as humans have existed, the search for answers has existed. This is how humanity has been able to evolve into knowing beings. Our not-knowing still encourages research and science, where knowing things is held in esteem.
Without knowledge, we could not function properly in a world that demands much of us. At the same time, we cannot do without ignorance, without ‘not-knowing. First, because it is simply impossible to know everything. Second, because if we were all-knowing, we would probably be constantly overstimulated. To find a balance between knowing and not-knowing in an increasingly complex world, we create a workable reality: enough knowledge to function, and enough ignorance not to get stuck.
Without knowledge, we could not function properly in a world that demands much of us. At the same time, we cannot function without ignorance, without ‘not-knowing’
Everyone is ignorant in certain areas, and that is not a bad thing at all; after all, no one can be ‘knowing’ in all areas. Yet the not-knowing continues to gnaw at people: What about that? What should I do with this? What does it mean? These are all recognizable questions, not all of which can be answered by knowing. Fortunately, answers are not always needed to fill the gap of not knowing. That not-knowing can also become bearable by making or experiencing art. Art (visual arts, literature, theater, film, music, et cetera) can question the not-knowing and make it visible. It can be a search for what we can know, or at least a beginning of knowing, or a way to get a grip on the void between knowing and not-knowing.
Art can question the not-knowing and make it visible
This quest is not unique to artists, and there is a need for it, especially in uncertain times. People's natural tendency to fill their not-knowing with knowing is not only responded to with science and art. A common response to not-knowing is also that of subjective knowledge. This does not have to be a problem at all and can even be helpful, but it does become a problem, for example, when the filling in of the not-knowing is done by people who deliberately manipulate and who, moreover, have a lot of power, a lot of followers and a lot of decisiveness. We all know the historical as well as current examples.
Science explores what we don't know (yet) and comes up with an answer. Art does not offer answers to the not-knowing, but gives form to it
Science explores what we don't know (yet) and comes up with an answer. Art does not offer answers to the not-knowing, but gives form to it. Would the world be a better place if many more people could more easily accept the gap of ‘not-knowing’ through art and thus find a form for their not-knowing? Art that shows possible new and unknown worlds, that makes experiences recognizable and shareable, that questions what we don't know well, and that points us to all sorts of things and possibilities we may not have considered before. Art that comforts us and gives us a place. If more people filled their not-knowing with art, perhaps fewer people would fill their not-knowing with bite-sized beliefs and assumptions.
English 
Dutch