Sicktopia
FRI 18.10.- SUN 17.11.2024
Opening: THU 17.10. 2024 at 18H
Opening hours:
THU-SUN
15H-19H
With works by: Marina Hendrychová, SOMA ARCHIVES* with Sickness Affinity Group, Lauryn Youden
Where do we find ourselves in the future where we are all sick?
The exhibition works with the state of sickness as a starting point for participatory and collective world-building and as a platform to claim for a non-ableist society. A world where the definitions of sickness, disability, health and healing become questionable, blurry and porous through acknowledging the complexity and the power dynamics behind this fragmentation. A world that generates embodied wisdom and transforms fragility in mutual care and support. An initial open node for compassion towards each other, care, and cooperative futures of all the oddkin.
Live the other body live the body of the other
When I am sick, you are sick too
we are entangled chanting
When you are sick, I am sick too
Sickness as a form of being
Resistant and persistent
we are all wounded healers coming
Sicktopia is an utopist place where we stay radically sick, we do so and invite the visitors to the space of archivist/activist collective SOMA ARCHIVES that emerged from Sickness Affinity Group. SOMA archivists recreated the ground level of the gallery into a body archive and archive of a body, into “an unsorted place of pain and pleasure, of possible and yet unknown realities“ that “tell stories of experiences of illness, disability or chronic health conditions.”
On the upper floor then Marina Hendrychová and Lauryn Youden guide us further to the depths of staying sick on a more spiritual level as two wounded healers. Wounded healer is a term from astrology for planet Chiron that represents a centauric master of medicine who could heal others but never could heal himself. Marina makes imaginative fairytales and stories through visual essays and objects where entities with chronic illnesses live in unimaginable worlds and long for breaking free from the chronic state. Lauryn Youden creates space with her objects that present “alternative healing practices and traditional medicine as well as her personal experiences and forgotten forms of radical care and Crip knowledge.“
Accompanying events:
- Thursday October 24, 2024, 6pm:
Curatorial Tour
- Saturday, October 26, 3 - 5.30pm:
Workshop altars as archives: embodying grief, care, and solidarity by Noah Gokul from SOMA ARCHIVES: We invite you to bring objects of significance, spiritual presence, comfort, and care that have helped you through this heavy period of grief since last October. We will add them to a collective altar, and they can be taken home afterwards
- Sunday, November 3, 2024, 4.30 - 7pm:
echo°o°o - collective worldbuilding with Magdalena Emmerig
- Friday, November 8, 2024, 6 pm:
Descriptive tour with Franciska JC Schmitt
- Saturday, November 9 2024, 2.30 - 4 pm with breaks:
Workshop Slime
We are meeting in a group of up to 7 people to make and discuss slime. Digging into consistency.
We will provide the materials and try to create a relaxed atmosphere with different seating, lighting and participation options. Participation can take place in the group via German and English spoken language and/or a printed guide in German/ English. Please let us know if you would like to come here: sicknessaffinity@systemli.org
- Thursday, November 14, 4 - 6 pm:
Workshop Imagining Decolonial Archives:
Exploring disability and narrative in the context of Palestine, Noah Gokul from SOMA ARCHIVES and special guest
Free registration: produktion@acudgalerie.de
- November 15, 2024, time tba:
Performance by Lauryn Youden
Accessibility information:
The space is wheelchair accessible, and there are several forms of access for the exhibition available, including audio descriptions, visual descriptions, DGS (German Sign Language), braille, captions, language translations and a descriptive audio tour.
There is a ramp to access the Gallery Space.
During the exhibition there will be a stairs elevator chair to access the upper floor of the gallery. A person will be in charge of using and helping with this technical device.
Toilets are on the first floor of the building and the lift to access is not working. There is a City Toilette close to the building: https://goo.gl/maps/i9QWBeEXAcsUjthw5.
There will be covid masks and hand sanitizer available for people coming to the opening. Check here for more information: https://acudmachtneu.de/spaces/galerie/#about
We took a ‘Messy Access’ approach to the exhibition, to see that access work is a dynamic and on-going process created collectively. Each work has at least two senses represented (e.g. by touching and seeing, or smelling and hearing etc.)
We invite you to help us to co-create this space together and let us know your needs or wishes at any moment during the exhibition days. In this way, we can share and build the access work we all need and wish to grow.
Content information: Contents of the exhibition include themes about ableism, pain, mental health, medical industrial complex, genocide and oppression.
Altar invitation: We invite you to share an object of significance to your experience of sickness/disability, a visual of a crip elder/family member, or a talisman of spiritual presence to our altar. You can bring it to the opening or anytime you visit the exhibition.
* SOMA ARCHIVES with Sickness Affinity Group is a project initiated by Maria Morata with Noah Gokul, Lisa Ness, Lo Moran and Lucie Schroeder.
German Sign Language introduction text about SOMA ARCHIVES
Curated by Alžběta Čermáková, featuring SOMA ARCHIVES with Sickness Affinity Group
Sicktopia is the fifth chapter of the exhibition series Echoing Futures - On Practices of Radical Imagination at ACUD Galerie. The series contains six exhibitions and an accompanying programme.
Team
Artistic direction of the series: Linnéa Meiners
Curation: Alžběta Čermáková, Gabriela Matuszewska and Linnéa Meiners
Press: Franciska JC Schmitt
Production: Miriam Döring
Exhibition design: Torsten Oetken
Social Media: Gabriela Matuszewska
The exhibition series Echoing Futures - On Practices of Radical Imagination is supported by the multi-sector funding programme of the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.
