Objects of Care

CollaborationPhotographyAbstract ComicsGrids
Written By

2020

Objects of Care, is a dialogue between pluridisciplinary visual artists, Erin Curry and Anastasiya Zolotukhin proposed by Louisa Aarrass. This curation is a reflection on handmade objects and materiality, earthly materials rendered into the digital realm.

Keywords:

Agency, care, objects, tools, function, materiality, matrix, porosity, screen

Objects have agency. The agency to arrest the user's attention, projecting or sharing ideas beyond the material and matter itself. Becoming the flesh of the world or in the words of Bill Brown “something concrete that relieves us from unnecessary abstraction”. Objects can be explored in their ability to have relationships with other nonhuman and human beings, agency in their ability to make distances diminish; care shared. In reflecting on the dialogue started through Qanat Cura, this project aims to explore the way we experience moments of closeness in current times of obscurity. How objects play into moments of intimacy, of the everyday events as well as the bizarre, abnormal occasions of unusual times. This curation confronts the domestic sphere, now highlighted more than usual by our homebound bodies through the things that connect us, either physically or at a distance.

An object of care can be warped by the source of its need or origin and still function with perfection, or rather, with the perfection available to it. The objects in this exhibition are ones that transmute castoffs to treasure, literally and politically as appropriate. The idiosyncratic handmade object resists aspects of industrialization, while the homesewn mask signifies a failure of governance. Alchemical material relationships attend to social and political needs. Louisa’s spoons made of olive trees and junk wood seduce the primary gate of the body-- and the hand that carries it, a willing conspirator. Erin’s masks, in obscuring the mouth, reframe it as a perilous space while enacting protective qualities, among loved ones and strangers alike. Then shared through Stas’ digital constructions in the primary mode available to us: The rendered realm where handmade objects shapeshift, from pore to pixel. We use our hands to build, then build again, sharing our accounts of current life and material habitus with the matrix world.

The importance of attending to temporality is evident as we witness the un(making) of these cultural objects and the associated human-object interactions. The objects shared participate in global movements and cross international boundaries, making the journey alone. The movements along with the social life of these tools reveal to us our sense of connection and interconnection with people as we share these ‘things’ from some place of origin as gifts and protection. Something warm then, to share at distance.

Erin Curry Art Scanned Sketch of handspun Cotton and spindle over newspaper grid with glitches
Erin Curry Art Scanned Sketch of handsewn cloth pandemic mask grid with glitch
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