We Are and Are Not develops from an exercise, a term Emoe uses to describe her event-based participatory works. We Are and Are Not was made in participation with the Sligo Film Club and the local community. This film documents the group gathered to watch a public lecture by the thinker Jiddu Krishnamurti that was screened in the gallery space. We Are and Are Not was installed in the same space were the screening took place. We Are and Are Not blurs the distinction between the performer and the viewer, the self and the other.

We Are and Are Not responds to the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti was discovered as a very young boy by the theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater. He was groomed to be the new World Teacher but later rejected this mantle and withdrew from the Theosophy organization. Krishnamurti’s interests included psychological revolution, the nature of mind and meditation. He believed radical change was necessary for society and this could only take place through revolution in the psyche of every human being. He maintained that such revolution cannot be brought about by any external entity, be it religious, political, or social.

"If you are taught how to observe, you cease to observe. Then you have merely the technique of observation, which prevents you from actually seeing.” Ojai 3rd Public Talk 5th November 1966