Sleep/Work/Leisure/Live/Dine/Cook, 2023
Sleep/Work/Leisure/Live/Dine/Cook was a non-exhibition and a short-durational residency. My living space was converted into a laboratory and playground for others to test out ideas and modes of display. I invited 20 friends and artists to think of/through ideas within the structure of my condo unit. Coinciding with me moving out, and in the spirit of Arab hospitality, I allowed them to take over and intervene with the pre-existing domestic functions of the space. As opposed to a white cube, the spatial context was the driver of idea formation and its material manifestations.
For a while, before organizing this project, I’ve been questioning contemporary engagement with art, and equally, the ways in which art engages with us. How do we draw the lines when defining an experience as art? Are these demarcations always necessary? Cultural and critical theorist, Homi Bhabha, considered the emergence of hybridity and in-betweenness as a sign of the times. As I too was in a transitional phase, somewhere in-between here and there, the method in which I chose to re-condition my body is by inviting the traces of others into the space, and to shape the way both I - as the inhabitant - and my guests - the viewers - engage with the space. I encouraged the participants’ traces to also exist in the in-between by encouraging, embracing and showcasing “process”, rather than working towards displaying a pristinely finished work. By organizing this collective project, artistic processes becomes a mechanism to question predetermined meanings around space. Essentially, I wanted to spatially experiment with alternative possibilities beyond the limits of the hegemonic institutionalized exhibition formats of today. It was an attempt to find moments of access when making sense of/through art.
Traces by Afnan Farooqui, Audrey Ammann, Aya Hanafieh, Bhavika Sharma, David González, Enzo Sun, Husna Farooqui, Jared Rishikof, Jasmine Yu, JES, Joy, Joyce Joumaa, Kian Gannon, Lou Rose, Maddie Rossetti, MIA, Nadine, Paula McLean, Sarah Jihae Kaye, Tristan Sauer