shadow work

Curated by Mitra FakhrashrafI with equity consultation by Chloe Kirlew-Geddes

You are standing in a line that bends and curves. You reach the front of the line and lean your body against the service desk; a moment of rest. The clerk greets you curtly, you smile. She asks for your name, your email, your date of birth, and your place of residence. You comply. She asks for your phone number. “I don’t have one right now.” Your request cannot be processed without one. “But I don’t have a phone.” A long moment passes. The line leading to her desk is still bending and curving. You make something up, the computer accepts it, your request has been processed and you await results in the coming 10 business days.

shadow work engages the formal and informal and mundane and arcane ways that classification systems attempt to contain the messy realities of our lives and, by extension, shape our conditions. Confronting a seemingly omnipresent datafication, Imogen Clendinning, Allan Pichardo, Swarm, Tamil Archive Project (Krish Dineshkumar, Nithursan Elamuhilan, Vasuki Shanmuganathan), and Hexstudio & Zoe Osborne experiment with Augmented Reality, algorithms, net art and poetry to present propositions for new, “life-giving” languages. Read the exhibition essay here.

Accompanying programs: “We’re All Here in Time”: Artist Talk with Swarm, Making a Solar Server: DIY Eco Media Art workshop with Imogen Clendinning, Grounding Meditation with Chloe Kirlew-Geddes, and “Portals, Not Homes” Artist Talk with Tamil Archive Project.

Presented by Vector Festival at InterAccess Gallery from July 6 to August 5, 2023.

Photo documentation by Natalie Logan.