Rebels. Renegades. Radicals. A plethora of labels may define what an iconoclast is. However, its quintessence lies in the journey between its historical etymology and its interpretation in more present contexts. Taken from the Greek Eikonoklastēs, meaning 'image-breaker', the term evolved from implying people who opposed religious veneration of 'icons' (from the Byzantine), to courtesans or subjects that would oppose monarchs, and in the present, ever softly, to pioneers in their respective fields of 'work', pushing boundaries and birthing newer paradigms.

An iconoclast's defining trait is the fragile bridge between heresy and dissent, between upending or offending the status quo. While widely accepted norms and ways of being are enforced and reinforced by a 'mass', the iconoclast is a lone wolf. Singularity in dissidence is thus essential to the “sway”, begging the question: Are disruption or dissent singular? Is creation? In turn, does the iconoclast render his own iconography? Are redundant icons replaced by more icons? If so, Marcus Brutus was an iconoclast in swaying the mobs against a tyrant; and so was Marc Antonio, in driving them to shed a tear for a proverbial son of the land, slain.

The relegation to “hero” figures is also the very machinery that drives this cycle of mass acceptance and dissent. This week, we question this singular agency of boundary pushers and glass ceiling shatterers; of creative iconoclasts bearing both faith and caution. From the late Indian architect Christopher Benninger's swan song, 'Great Expectations', lamenting the state of architectural education, to Arpita Singh's 'Remembering' at London's Serpentine, her first solo show outside India, to Louisa Gagliardi's 'Many Moons' surreally rendering 21st-century anguish, and an interview with David Benjamin bridging practice and research, we discover that creative agency often manifests in a unified face affronting the lives and memories of many.

So while dissent may be singular, dismantling is always collective. Creative renegades today stand at a critical juncture, responding to a world that continually places its faith in autocratic iconography. Between leaders, followers, messiahs, faithfuls, shrouded figures and faceless masses, resistance, though futile, is the bane of the many, not the one.