Yoshua Okón: 2007-2010, is a collection of five of the artist’s emotionally charged, multichannel video installations as part of YBCA’s Big Idea “ENCOUNTER: Engaging the social context.” Yoshua Okón’s video installations are built on improvisational narratives created by the artist and his collaborators, mostly non-actors willing to participate in a game of social chance that may easily spiral out of control. Centered around emotionally charged expressions of power and contemplations of fear, death, sex and nationhood, these works provoke viewers to consider questions of social conduct and the behavior of individuals within systems of social restraint. Okón further challenges viewers to question their own attitudes towards power, ethics and prejudice, particularly as they relate to class and race. Maintaining a belief that humanity holds within its grasp a complex web of fears and desires, Okón places psychological violence on the stage with absurdity and humor. The rather serious antics that unfold yield to audience reactions of shock or disbelief, while at the same time providing a space to laugh at one’s own frailties. Okón’s works are both performative and interactive, in that they are not complete without the participation and complicity of the audience as they react to what they experience on screen.