CURA
In Transit Exhibition
In Transit presents CURA
28 November – 10 December 2023
Smolensky Gallery, Building 21, 23 Quay St, Manchester M3 4AE
Online exhibition: https://intransit.space/exhibitions/cura​
Supported using public funding by Arts Council England
Curator:​​
Featured Artists:
Cura showcases the work of women artists Arabel Lebrusan, Charlie Fitz, Latifah A. Stranack, Mira Hirtz and Naomi Harwin.
About the Exhibition :
"In Transit's first in-person exhibition about practices of care when making work.
Cura takes from the Latin word which means ‘to take care’ or ‘to help’. Cura showcases the work of women artists Arabel Lebrusan, Charlie Fitz, Latifah A. Stranack, Mira Hirtz and Naomi Harwin. These artists undertook In Transit’s residency where they explored how access can be a creative and intellectual consideration in their practice - moving past the checklist for meeting the needs of disabled audiences in museums and galleries.
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This exhibition is more than a display of art; it is a living research experiment. We invite you to be part of the process, to learn alongside us, and to help us test the effectiveness of creative access on audience engagement." - Text from Celina Loh
My contribution:
***Content warning: medical trauma, illness, surgery, death and suicidal ideation.***
In January 2022 I took part in the inaugural In Transit residency. A six week online programme in which we had sessions on digital accessibility, with a focus on improving the accessibility of our art practice and delivery. We also developed new work, uploaded our development process to a digital studio, took part in group critique sessions and attended artist talks and ended the residency with a digital group show. View my In Transit artist virtual studio here.
During the residency I focused on digital collage and audiovisual works, exploring how I could use these mediums to explore experiences of my illnesses. The residency ended with a digital exhibition, Nineteen Forty - 2022, which can be viewed here.
I took part in the residency at a point when I was preparing for my major neurosurgery in 2022 and reflecting on my first major neurosurgery which took place in 2019. For CURA, which took place after my second neurosurgery, the curator, Celina Loh and I decided to show some works created during the residency alongside some works I created after my second neurosurgery to create a dialogue between these two moments in time. The works and photos from the show are below.
At the beginning of my exhibition there was an envelope attached to the wall, enclosed was a printed version of one of my artist studio updates from the residency. You can read the text here.
Or you can listen to an audio description of the text below.
Thoughts on 'The Instant Of My Death', 2022, audio description
I have Classical Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome which is a genetic connective tissue disorder that affects almost my entire body. My connective tissue is more fragile, causing issues in my joints, organs, skin, bones, ligaments and bodily tissue. In the UK medical departments tend to focus on particular systems of the body, metaphorically dismantling the body into departments. My condition is porous, affecting my entire body, however in my experience these biomedical departments find it hard to understand a condition which has no interest in how modern medicine has chosen to divide the human anatomy.
As such, it can be objectifying when in these spaces, I am cut up and inspected but rarely seen as a full human being with a condition that is knitted into the fabric of who I am, my very DNA. I am my condition, it’s why I have large eyes and soft skin and also why I have failing organs and a collapsing spine, I experience the world through my body and I am my body.
For this work on pain I have focused on one section of my body enacting the same dismantling that is enacted upon me in medical spaces, expressing the alienation I experience from my body/self after continuous medicalisation. I have focused on my chest and rib cage. I have an unstable, twisted spine and loose, hypermobile ribs. My ribs move, slip and fold over one another. This causes the cartilage to become inflamed and I experience a condition called Costochondritis. Which is extremely painful and is often compared to the feeling of having a heart attack. I have this condition chronically. It burns, stabs, stings and feels as though something is filling my chest. There is a burning down the centre of my chest and a pressure from within my rib cage, as though something underneath my rib cage is expanding and ripping the cartilage in between the ribs apart.
Costochondritis, audiovisual work, 2023
Costochondritis, Print, 2022
An audio description track which includes; a visual description of the artist, description of the two works titled,
Costochondritis and some contextual information for the work.
For the physical exhibition next to the envelope my print was displayed next to a canvas strip with the audio-visual description of the film hand written on. To the left of that was a laptop on a plinth playing the audiovisual work. As shown in the two photos below from the private view.
The three images to follow are assisted-self portraits, created with medium format photography and digital collage, for the exhibition they were c-prints mounted on foam board. The assisted self-portrait is a term I coined to describe a particular method of collaborative portraiture I developed with my partner in art and life Oscar Vinter. The assisted-self portrait aims to give the subject greater autonomy over their representation. The term can be used to describe a collaborative photoshoot or a work which has been created by re-contextualising personal archival imagery.
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This mode of portraiture is an extension of the physical care and assistance I require to survive as a sick and disabled woman. It requires a pre-existing relationship between the subject and photographer in which there is trust, respect and communication. The mode aims to acknowledge human vulnerability and celebrate relationships of care and interdependence.
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For the series The Medical Muse I wanted to challenge the negative tropes about disability that I had been internalising whilst fundraising for neurosurgery and explore my nuanced disabled identity. We began creating the series just two and a half weeks after my second neurosurgery during the elation of post surgery steroids. In practice when developing an assisted self-portrait, I come up with a concept and ask Vinter to help me realise it. This way of working relies on consensual and transparent collaboration. Importantly, the assisted self-portrait requires a form of care that is led by the individual being represented. Learn more about The Medical Muse series here.
Disabled Power I,
Assisted-self portrait photography, 2022
Honour Vulnerability I,
Assisted-self portrait photography, 2022
Honour Vulnerability III,
Assisted-self portrait photography, 2022
An audio description track which describes The Medical Muse prints and the objects that accompany these artworks, as well as the context of the works
For the physical exhibition next to the prints we displayed to add a sensory element of touch to the piece. We displayed the dress I wore in one of the images, my cane also featured in the photographs and a wooden cube covered in my dogs hair, as I am touching his fur in one of the prints. Visitors were encouraged to hold, touch and feel these objects