Shaking the Habitual

7 March – 30 April 2020

Athena Papadopoulos — Byzantia Harlow — Carlotta Bailly Borg — Celia Hempton — Jala Wahid — Juliana Huxtable — Patrizio di Massimo — Shannon Bool — Suzanne Treister

Repetitive narratives of an oppressive past
influence the formation of stereotypes
that shape
or reject
collective id

Legacies of
adapted
and deeply embedded in our culture
tradition
and history
revisited to reclaim ownership over them
and confront the complexity of our reality

Stories we are told
built up by intervening hands
again and again and again and again

The same situation is consumed
again and again and again and again

Embedded within the politics of desire
of sexuality
freedom
being
and support
values are assigned to certain

 

The single story remains(1), lingers
sets the tone, shapes the desire

Desire to fear
Fear to alienation

And who is able to express their desire?

Who is deserving?

Who gets heard?

How did we get here and where are we now?

Structures of power and oppression

Suppressed desire

“The world had to be ‘disenchanted’ in order to be dominated”(2)

Exposed meaning behind folk stories and mythology
subverted through engaging with methods of “unlearning”

´The way things are´ simply can no longer be

A perception of how we see the world and treat each other
A collective resistance towards change

A song for desire
A song against the wreck
A dance to unbraid this thing around our neck

(1) The danger of the single story (talk), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
(2) Caliban and the witch: women the body and primitive accumulation, Silvia Federici

Poem by Despoina Tzanou