Make love by a trash can

Make love by a trashcan is an expression I overheard ; in New Jersey people say it. I’m sure it means well, but it’s probably bad. When I wasthinking about this show, I thought about how we work and what we do, and this expression resonated more and more with the existing dynamics in this field. It made sense to think for a moment that the difference between making love or performing sex had something to do with what I aimed to express. To make love is an action of hope and connection - where we do it is the problem.

Making love is one of the most beautiful and intimate things we can share with another human in a non verbal act as opposed to performing sex, which is just that, a performance. A mere action or series of automated movements no complex being is capable of doing.

The works presented in this exhibition share a common drive, an urgency to communicate with love and tenderness, a curiosity to explore intangible territories, and new ways of communication ; the possibility of communicating anew is what sustains their narrative. The exhibition is charged with symbolic language, outweighing formal modes of communication or the need for the concrete as a proposition for a changeover of power. New tools for combat and communication may be developed in a world where listening has become increasingly rare and an alignment between ancestral tools and contemporary technologies is becoming growingly necessary.

Noelia Portela, Saint-Denis, June 2019.