Unspoken We
Sarah Bayliss, Ninna Bohn Pedersen, Pippa Connolly, Susana Cámara Leret, Jason Dungan, Charlie Kerr, Freek Wambacq, Belén Zahera
As we push, pull and rub against each other, as we lean on things and chew over concepts and biological matter, our lives unfold. Acknowledging that contamination is an inevitable part of all human as well as material relations, Unspoken We takes the root meaning of this word as its starting point and grounding concept: to touch, pollute, handle, defile or be near. By doing so, the exhibition investigates the performative nature of collaboration and explores the impossibility to remain pure or resist the influence of others and one’s surroundings.
Yet, physical closeness has long ceased to be a given condition for interaction. As cyber platforms provide means to draw us simultaneously nearer and further away from each other, the exhibition space becomes a tool and recourse to provide alternatives to such modes of involvement. Sarah Bayliss (UK), Ninna Bohn Pedersen (DK), Susana Cámara Leret (ES), Pippa Connolly (UK), Jason Dungan (US), Charlie Kerr (UK), Belén Zahera (ES) and Freek Wambacq (BL) respond to the idea of a contaminated collective by inviting a sensory and direct experience of the artworks through performance, video, sound, smell and touch. Transforming the spacious potential of the W139 to act as a stage and scenography for artworks and audience, allowing the experience to fluctuate between states. The exhibition balances between the performative, the functional and visceral. Imitating the constant need to maintain unity through a lived and changing experience in order to encourage a clearer understanding of the palpable aspects of social and cultural exchange. To remind us of the importance of proximity between objects and bodies, of the necessity of touching and of being near.
Unspoken We reflects on the conditions of synergy by doing away with attempts of prior unification. Instead, assembling a narrative from scattered chapters where each character, space, word and page is a potential pollutant to the others. Influenced by the inconsistencies carried by each of its members Unspoken We lays bare the broken storylines and the inevitable gaps and black holes of translation and miscommunication.The exhibition dives beneath the surface of our cosmetic selves in order to manipulate and produce the flesh and bones of the non-homogenous and far from perfect body of the collective. In a vampiric feeding frenzy and a subliminal act of melting together Unspoken We invites for cross-contamination between the ‘I’ and the ‘other’ – exposing the fuzzy, infested and sore zones between bodies, artworks and concepts.
Events during Unspoken We
May 11 at 8 pm - Opening
May 26 at 8pm - Evening of analogue computation and electronic music
June 9 at 8pm - Concert Squares and Triangles (kindly supported by Statens Kunstfond)
June 16 between 1- 4 pm Children’s Art Workshop
Photography by Konstantin Guz
Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) supports the participation of spanish artist Belén Zahera in Unspoken We through the Programme for the Internationalisation of Spanish Culture (PICE), in the framework of the Mobility grants.