What is okay?

Okay is that which is acceptable, yet not fully satisfying.

How comes that okay is, according to BBC News, the most used word in the world? Is okayness buffering global mood swings, forcefully absorbing ecological dread, violence, peace, pleasure and progress, the ultimate form of acceptance facing constant doubt? —Okay, soothing. Are you really okay when you tell me that you are? Am I really asking? Does okay allow for criticality? In which sense is okayness an intuitive way of engaging with a given situation, and to what degree is this intuition based on embodied narratives that sense, express and reproduce normativity. A measuring tool not only to survive but to sustain a common-sense way of living. Is okayness ideological?

Isn’t there a difference between acceptance and affirmation?

Can being okay with something also become a way of being with others that still allows for responsibility, response-ability, without calling for permanent progress, growth and proliferation?
—Can okayness be a desirable state?

What is okay? is a question that has been bothering us for quite a while. It is one of those questions that mostly produced more questions which materialised in a text and installation as part of an exhibition When a Wave Rolls Out and the Next Has Not Yet Broken, curated by Elmar Mellert, at Akademie Schloss Solitude’s project space in Stuttgart.