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ANTIDOTE
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DANCING WITH THE DEAD

Khadim Ali, Soojin Chang, Dr. Fiona Foley, Dr. Mojgan Habibi, Pieter Hugo, Lindy Lee, Pierre Mukeba, Sarker Protick, Stanislava Pinchuk, Jemima Wyman

Presented in partnership with the Lock-Up, Newcastle

June 20 – August 9, 2020

 

Named after the infamous Madagascan/Malagasy ritual of Famadihana, Dancing with the Dead presents ten National and International contemporary artists whose narratives illuminate the convergence of memory and corporeality within a larger constellation of death and its surrounding multitudes — physical death, spiritual death or cultural death.

The traditional Madagascan process sees families and loved ones exhuming bodies from tombs, carefully re-wrapping, then lovingly dancing with their corpses. Dancing with the Dead takes this context as a point of discussion to give light to the intersection of death, society, intimacy and culture; and to furthermore approach death with a stronger sense of nuance, allowing the potential to view aspects of dying, regeneration and endings as transgressive metaphors. It is sombre, yes — but it is also transformative, let us re-imagine death.

Dancing with the Dead presents a timely and deeply meaningful proposition for sharing in a communal and cathartic activity, that shines light on the paradoxically unique and universal experiences of death and endings. Each artist in this exhibition brings a specific layer, texture and approach to this collective dance.

Press:

  • Mutual Art
  • RUSSH
  • Art Guide
  • Art Almanac
  • Newcastle Herald

Essays:

  • David Hansen – La mort apprivoisée
  • Curatorial Essay – Grace Partridge and Emma-Kate Wilson

 

 
Installation Photography by Fourth Street Studio.

weareantidote

#antidoteloves ~ Propelled by precious memories of #antidoteloves ~ Propelled by precious memories of loved ones lost, Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto creates in order to preserve and cherish those sacred remembrances too often forgotten with time, and is best known for his painstakingly crafted salt installations which he often shapes into labyrinthine patterns. Pictured: documentation from his 2021 major solo exhibition at Setouchi City Museum of Art and the title piece ‘Sakura Shibefuru’ — wherein Yamamoto crafted over 100,000 fallen cherry blossom petals out of salt.
#antidoteloves ~ Zhang Huan’s 1995 performance p #antidoteloves ~ Zhang Huan’s 1995 performance piece “To Add One Metre To An Anonymous Mountain.” To Add One Meter was inspired by an old saying, 'Beyond the mountain, there are more mountains'. Huan explained at the time. "It is about humility. Climb this mountain and you will find an even bigger mountain in front of you. It's about changing the natural state of things, about the idea of possibilities.”
#antidoteloves ~ New York–based artist and poet #antidoteloves ~ New York–based artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña has just been selected for Tate Modern’s annual Turbine Hall Commission, where an artist presents a large-scale new work in the main entranceway to the London museum. The site-specific work will open in October and run through April 2023. An acclaimed poet who has authored over 15 collections of poetry, Vicuña is known in the art world for a practice that spans painting, sculpture, and performance and deals with themes of the precarity of life, human fragility, ecology and environmentalism, and social justice, typically showing how all of them are intimately connected and interwoven with each other.

Her best-known sculptures are her “Quipu” series, large-scale hanging installations in brilliant colours that take their name from and are connected to the ancient Andean method of communication via knotting colored fabric. Vicuña’s work often associates the quipu with the gendered female body, as seen in the work pictured, 'Quipu Menstrual', recently shown at the 13th Shanghai Biennale. Originally conceived as a prayer for the glaciers destroyed by mining, the installation parallels such a potent consequence with the power of menstruation and the vivacity of the female body as a metaphoric resistance to greed, violence and humankind’s intervention in nature. @tate @ceciliavicuna ❤️
Congratulations to @kellygellatly and Bronwyn John Congratulations to @kellygellatly and Bronwyn Johnson on the release of Art + Climate = Change II: An illustrated collection of artworks and essays that shine a light on how art can imagine a sustainable future and call for action on climate change— and thank you for featuring @kawitavv on the cover.

Art + Climate = Change II presents the work of Australian and international artists across a broad range of exhibitions, performances and events from Climate's Art + Climate = Change 2019 festival. Essays on the climate emergency by artists, curators and arts writers help us imagine a world where we protect and care for the earth, from the river systems, oceans and lands to the air we breathe. In a world vastly changed by the impact of a global pandemic, these socially engaged artists and writers demand immediate and effective action on the climate crisis.
#antidoteloves ~ Dhaka-based architect @marinataba #antidoteloves ~ Dhaka-based architect @marinatabassum, who has been described as a pioneer for a new generation of architectural thought, calling for a focus on ‘architecture of relevance’. 

"I have learnt the fundamentals and values of good architecture from the Western-centric education system. But in practice, I re-evaluated all my learnings and appropriated them according to the context I practiced in. Every region must appropriate architecture education and practice based on their context and time. One needs to go through a process of unlearning to define one’s own architecture practice, process, and language."

Tabassum is currently working in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, in south-east Bangladesh, and designing mobile modular houses for ultra-low-income people in the country’s coastal areas. Pictured: Her Aga Khan Award for Architecture winning project 'Bait ur Rouf mosque' and the socially and environmentally responsible 'Panigram Resort' in the Ganges Delta. This resort was built in line with the local vernacular architecture: thatched bamboo huts on mud floors that are positioned around traditional Bengali courtyards.
#antidoteloves ~ The inspiration for the Bondi Mem #antidoteloves ~ The inspiration for the Bondi Memorial’s ‘Rise’ artwork came from the very site it stands upon, where the dark chapters of LGBTQ history the memorial commemorates took place. Designed by artist John Nicholson of Brisbane’s @uapcompany, ‘Rise’ honours the victims of the gay hate murders that occurred in Marks Park and the clifftops of South Bondi, as well as at locations across Sydney, from the 1970s to the 1990s. 

‘Rise’ is series of stone terraces which replicates the exact topography of the rock face strata of the cliffs below Marks Park, where a number of gay men were assaulted and thrown from to their deaths. The artwork memorial instead symbolises the inversion of the experience of the victims, with each of the six terraces representing steps that climb towards the horizon and the sky, and as a pathway forward from the history of violence.
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