BEYOND EXHIBITIONS ABOUT CARE

If there was ever a need to start caring for the world around us, the time is now. With an impending ecological catastrophe, and the repercussions of our colonial past and structural injustices in society now in the limelight, it has become increasingly evident that the current system is not sustainable. Consequently thinkers, creatives and politicians have taken it upon themselves to propose alternative ways of being in the world, based on care for each other and for the earth that sustains us. Many of these ‘new realities’ draw upon alternative spheres of knowledges, which in patriarchal structures have always been seen as typically feminine and inferior. Subverting the hegemony of “Western” reason and logic, emotions, intuition, tacit knowledge and the consideration of individual needs are positioned as the foundation upon which to build caring futures.

Inevitably, the art world itself has also begun to contend with this topic of care. There has been a flourishing of art practices, including those of Alberta Whittle, Tabita Rezare and Grace Ndiritu, theorising imaginative ways out. This preoccupation with care in the art world, however, is not limited to artists’ practices. Broadly speaking, it has expanded in two directions.

The first, is concerned with accessibility, equality and diversity in the art world, and includes tackling elitism in museums and institutions. The second trajectory can be described as a surge in thematic exhibitions about care. More specifically, exhibitions that inquire into the ‘times we live in’ and claim to instigate more caring realities. For example, the 2021 edition of Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) resolved to interrogate the history and repercussions of colonialism; acknowledge the violence and begin processes of repair. While Soil.Sickness.Society at Rønnebæksholm sought to tackle societies preoccupation with productivity, and the detrimental effects it has on both the health of humankind and the earth.

However, despite the intention of such exhibitions, more often than not, they amount to little more than an assemblage of artworks informing the public about topical issues. Put another way, the exhibition design and format fails to embody or make tangible the alternative realities advocated in the curatorial concept. It could be argued that exhibiting artworks that align with the curatorial concept and making public their ideas is enough. However, the discontinuity between the content of the works and the way they are experienced reduces the artworks to being merely theoretical, or undermines their intentions as utopian – hindering their affective capacity. Although to some degree their extended programmes are the means through which the exhibition statements is put into practice. However, if we rely solely on the exhibition programme then the exhibition itself become redundant. We need to rethink how we do curatorial work, so we can move beyond exhibitions that merely propose alternative realities and instead make exhibitions that start ‘producing’ these caring realities.

“We need to rethink how we do curatorial work, so we can move beyond exhibitions that merely propose alternative realities and instead make exhibitions that start ‘producing’ these caring realities.”

Until now, I have resisted writing about this for fear that it was just wishful thinking. It was only after I saw the recent exhibition m/other by Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology, that it became clear how we can better curate speculative futures. I was unsure of what to expect when I arrived at Sankt Elisabeth Hospital in Amager. The strange feeling in my stomach was equally the result of being in a sterile hospital environment, and the hangover of exhaustion that comes from working a double shift.

I followed the posters to the abandoned bed section in the Psychiatric Center. Entering shyly through the double doors, I was greeted by Ida Bencke, (one of the curators along with Laura Gerdes Miranda), carrying her child on her hip. A warm cascade of Danish spilled from her mouth and ushered me in. Despite not understanding what she said, I felt welcomed. In English, and a little embarrassed, I thanked her.

We had a momentary pause together. Kindly switching to my mother tongue, she explained that although they had not translated any of the texts, there were still works I would be able to engage with. I laughed, telling her I needed to practice my Danish, and picked up the curatorial text and floor-plan despite it being in a language I could not understand.

A corridor ran down the centre of the wing, with eight rooms branching off on either side. Following Ida’s prompts, I entered the first room on my left, where the walls softened into patchwork cloth. Text undulated across the fabric squares, which were part of a performance titled armes molles (Soft Weapons) by Loup Riviére. The three textile pieces formed a screen of protection around a colourful pillowed landscape by Elisabeth Kiss, which unfurled along the ground. Headphones were strewn across it, the cord trailed to a TV screen attached below the knee to the base of the wall.

Elisabeth Kiss, Hvem bærer dig?, 2021. Loup Riviére, Armes Molles (Soft Weapons), 2021. Photo: Amanda Bødker.

Aptly titled, Hvem bærer dig? (Who Carries You?), I offloaded my weight onto the cushioned floor piece and nestled down to watch Tabita Rezaire's, Sugarwalls Teardom. A child rolled around on the cushions beside me.

Humorously deploying early 2000’s internet aesthetics, the work confronted the violence inflicted upon Black womxn by colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist systems for medical research. At the same time, it put forward a method of healing through a combination of unlearning hegemonic narratives, and nurturing one’s spiritual wellbeing. I inhaled deeply as the protagonist of the work, a spiritual guru, guided a closing meditation that focused on healing our wombs. At exhibitions I usually become involuntarily stiff and silent. But here, I lounged deeply and breathed in a relaxedness that I carried with me throughout the rest of the exhibition.

The adjacent room hosted the aftermath of Signe Johannessen’s ritual, Braiding for Recovery. Suspended from the ceiling was a chandelier made from animal skeletons. Locks of both human and horse hair cascaded over the chalky remnants of the deceased. On the floor beneath, skulls were positioned in a circle. Holding space for our animal ancestors, they alluded to unwritten histories and tacit knowledge long suppressed. In the centre of the ring thick tresses, gently braided together, accumulated in a pile. Here human and animal became entangled, weaving together newfound connections and relationships. Under some sort of enchantment now, I became quickly submerged in Astrida Neimanis' poetic video lecture, So Tired, the Sea, in the next door room. A women anchored in sea kelp, swayed with the motion of the waves. I joined her in the wet, being forced to slow down as our bodies collided with water molecules.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “The Rhythm of Gray Whales Praying” for May Ayim. Photo: Amanda Bødker.

I re-emerged from my watery repose, facing a stained piece of white cotton hanging from the door of the neighbouring room. Printed on the fabric and addressing ‘the restless’, was an invitation to make use of the space. Dreamt up by Anna Rieder, Sidsel Welden and Olivia Lund, this room, Ømhedsaktivistisk Hvilerum (Sensitivity Activist Rest Room), is a space for rest, and is to be repurposed and adapted as the visitor pleases. There was a sense of immediacy encapsulated in how the room was dressed. Sky blue cotton sheets with fraying hems replaced concrete walls. A shabby looking mattress sat on the floor in the corner of the room. A scrap of fabric embroidered with the words ‘kærlig hilsen' (‘With Love’), hung above it. I lay down and looked up. Aged white cotton squares billowed from the ceiling. It was gently grubby here; a space in transition, for always in the making.

Anna Rieder, Sidsel Welden & Olivia Lund, Ømhedsaktivistisk Hvilerum, 2021. Photo: Amanda Bødker.

I exited the room as a mother and young child entered, adapting the space as it was needed for them. In the final room, Michala Paludan’s furnished tulle, Udvortes/indvortes (External/Internal), refashioned a cubicle curtain. A toothpick, surgical equipment and dried plants, had been laced within the netting. I recognised Chamomile, St. John’s wort, a radish, as ingredients used in traditional medicine and as herbal remedies for issues related to pregnancy and labour. Visible through the curtains, a chair was positioned in front of a television screening Mia Edelgart’s video piece, Redigerede fødsels-billeder, (Edited birth pictures). Together, the uncensored footage of childbirth and the delicately adorned curtains, put forward an expanded approach to medical care. I arrived at the hospital without having any knowledge of the concept or artists, and as it turned out, because of a language barrier, I couldn't supplement that by reading the curatorial text. Nevertheless, it ended up being one of the most enchanting exhibitions I have seen in a long time. Whether what I took from the show was the intention of the curators or not, from what I gathered, ’mother-ness’ was taken as a nodal point to assemble a new reality premised on care.

Michala Paludan, Udvortes/indvortes: for besværlig fødsel, mod kolik, til at uddrive efterbyrden, når koen skal kælve, mod ufrugtbarhed, for øget laktation, til at uddrive dødt foster, for smerter omkring navlen, til hævede bryster, mod overflødig urenhed, til abort, mod abort, mod kvalme, hvis grisen ikke vil blive drægtig, for gamle personer i barselsnød, mv., 2021. Mia Edelgart, Redigerede fødsels-billeder, 2021. Photo: Amanda Bødker.

Moving beyond conventional understandings of the term, here, ‘mother’ or ‘mother-ness’ stood for an expanded notion of kinship, one that goes beyond caring for one’s offspring and familial networks. This sort of care is a political project. It includes being attentive and caring about the world we live in; shouldering responsibility, and showing solidarity with those facing oppression. It is the type of care needed to produce the kind of sociality that we need in the face of climate crisis and social injustice. To activate these different notions of care, the selected works offered ways of engaging with the world outside secular narratives, and sought to restore connections to alternate histories, the earth, other communities, and different species.

Referencing ancestral knowledge, spirituality, herbalism, animism, and witchcraft, the works demonstrated how these alternative ways of knowing resonate within feminist, de-colonial, and environmental movements. Healing was also positioned as central to this care work. Many of the works guided you to lie down and rest, acknowledging that care is complex and requires allowing oneself to receive care in order to be capable of giving care.

Eva Tind, Mom, 2011. Photo: Amanda Bødker.

In addition to the contents of the artworks themselves, the curation played a significant role in making tangible this new caring reality. Specifically how the artworks were exhibited, the location of the exhibition, and how this influenced the public, all contributed to manifesting a real-time reality premised on care. Collectively, these factors conjured a sensitive, empathetic and fluid society, that allows for a plurality of voices and ways of knowing to exist side by side. To start with, each room hosted only a couple of artworks.

Normally I have to force myself to engage with an artwork, but here, the breathing space between each one naturally guided me to giving time to each piece. A lot of consideration had gone into grouping the artworks. Rather than there being a cluster of unallied works in a room, they were instead organised so as to consolidate one another.

Nanna Lysholt Hansen, Kore (Nammu), 2021 and Nanna Lysholt Hansen & Stathis Tsemberlidis, Dear Daughter/Sen_sing_Inannainanna (Russ, Shiva, Klein), 2019. Photo: Amanda Bødker.

Audio and video works were paired with soft sculptural pieces. I reclined on Elisabeth Kiss’s cushioned landscape, while following a guided mediation by Tabita Rezaire. Soft and raw aesthetics were combined, like Michala Paludan’s tulle curtains and Mia Edelgart’s video piece, to refashion the aesthetics of care. Each artwork shaped how the other was experienced and sometimes proposed something new. This, however, did not take away from the concepts and aesthetics specific to each piece. Instead, the considered marrying of artworks birthed a sense of togetherness in their differences; a being in solidarity with each other.

Mary Maggic, Genital( * )Panic, 2019-present. Photo: Amanda Bødker.

Building new caring realities requires not only creating more caring subjectivities but also rethinking our institutions. The curators did this by hosting the exhibition in a disused wing of the hospital; actively remaking spaces for healing. Importantly they did not design the space using cliche aesthetics of care. ‘Fluffy’ aesthetics – although used to emphasise care – can come across as utopian. In other words, as dishonest to the burdensomeness of care work and unrealistic to the work that needs to be done now. Instead, the curators worked with the space as it was, retaining its rawness. Cracks in the tiles and marks on the walls remained, truthful to the messiness of caring. As though demanding to practice care and healing now; actively doing the work in the ruins.

The location, spacial arrangement, and grouping of artworks, were all contributing factors to how the exhibition design complemented the ideas of the artworks on display. They helped forge an atmosphere of a new reality premised on care, solidarity and extended kinship. Along with this atmosphere, came a shift in how the public inhabited the space and interacted with the works. There was an undoing of the conventional, passive exhibition goer, into something more active and engaged. This was also in part because the curators took the role of more than logistical organisers and exhibition designers. They were facilitators, bringing together a public together around a concern for the future and guides for creating new way of being together. Not only were the public greeted on arrival, but the space was designed to accommodate children. This meant they welcomed individuals who are usually excluded from the public sphere because of parenthood. With this expanding public I ended up thinking about the demographic of the audience. Not in terms of age, gender and ethnicity, but in terms of who they are and what they do. Were they politicians, activists, medical staff, the sick, the tired, mothers, fathers, or architects? And what would this public do with the knowledge gained from the exhibition? How will they bring it into their daily lives, work or relationships?

Bobbi-Johanne Østervang, Et manifest og –, 2017/2021. Moderkage uden titel/Fossil madpakke, 2013/2014. Photo: Amanda Bødker.

The way we came together in this space made the exhibition feel more like a social protest of sorts. Today, spaces for political participation have extended way beyond party politics. Political forums now exist online, in coffee shops, bars, and on the streets. It makes sense that the exhibition, as a site for public gathering, can also be a political forum of sorts.

What the exhibition can do, however, which other forums cannot, is be sites for real-time experimentation. Curating an exhibition is first and foremost an attempt to manifest a concept. This is done not only by finding a fit between the thematic and the selection of artworks, but also through consideration of the exhibition format, location, spacial design, and mediation.

In other words, it is an attempt to simulate atmospheres and manifest ideas in an exhibition space. As this exhibition demonstrated, when these factors manage to consolidate one another, the exhibition can become a testing ground for political ideas. In other words, the political potential or the affective capacity of the exhibition multiplies.