Overton(e) Window is a collaboration between Isabella Salas and MIchael Merserau explores the shifting boundaries of political acceptability and public discourse, drawing from the Overton Window—a framework that defines which ideas are considered mainstream or radical at any given time. Structured in three movements, the work reflects on key events of 2020 in the Americas, where moments of solitude, uprising, and uncertainty redefined societal norms.

The piece traces pandemic-induced isolation in Solitude, the eruption of mass protests and collective action in Resonance, and the uncertain futures shaped by climate crises, Indigenous resistance, and political upheavals in Hope. As the Black Lives Matter uprisings, environmental catastrophes, and contested elections reshaped public consciousness, what once seemed impossible became urgent and necessary.

By reframing the Overton Window as both a sonic and political threshold, Overton(e) Window transforms past events into a tension between acceptance and disruption, silence and uprising, memory and projection, questioning the forces that shift societal limits and define the imaginable.

Presented at

2022_ VISIONS DU REEL _ Maison de Culture Claude Leveille [CA]