More than ever, we need to look after each other, one another, and to take care of ourselves. How can this spirit of care constitute a productive way of working together institutionally, organisationally, curatorially? One concrete way PUBLICS have been doing this is through its “Parahosting” Program, which began in the Autumn of 2018, and has grown into a key method of decentering its own curatorial authorship, and as an essential means of working together without boundaries or containment. Through “Parahosting,” PUBLICS continues to support its para-sites, its para-institutions, its para-guests, and has grown into a flexible, evolving, expanding, and sometimes messy, program of residencies, performances, hybrid exhibition forms, talks, and discursive events.
ACROSS THE WAY WITH… is one example of the evolution of “Parahosting.” This year-long project with curatorial studio Shimmer in Rotterdam began in 2020 with a co-hosting of a small exhibition of three sculptures by artist Gordon Hall, alongside a library intervention and a performative collective reading at PUBLICS space. Through an extended dialogue about listening and reading aloud, the project evolved into a continuous living archive of informal, recorded readings of, with, and about intimacy in the public domain with readings by invited readers from across the world.
Intimacy is troubling, fleeting, and challenging to speak about— and more especially to enact. ACROSS THE WAY WITH… explores intimacy’s obscurity to reach over and into the works and words of Alaa Abu Asad & Ulufer Çelik, Alireza Abbasy, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Adelaide Bannerman, Dagmar Bosma, AA Bronson, Ruth Buchanan, Fayen d’Evie & Elizabeth Boon & Sofia Lo Bianco, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Amalle Dublon, Dehlia Hannah & Nadim Samman & Julian Charrière, Jason Hendrik Hansma, Gordon Hall, Niko Hallikainen, Flis Holland, Sasha Huber & Faith Mkwesha, Çağlar Köseoğlu, Élisabeth Lebovici, Grace Ndiritu, Kira O’Reilly, Abdullah Qureshi, Raqs Media Collective, Sarah Rifky, Himali Singh Soin, Matthew Stadler, Isabelle Sully, Eloise Sweetman, and Mia You, amongst others.
As a growing archive of online readings ACROSS THE WAY WITH… projects and experience of the voice, the rhythm of a body, the poetic and artistic forms of writing and how these forms of intimacy can be “voiced” publically. For reader and listener alike, we share the act of being read to, to experience the intimate texture of the voice, the rhythm of breathing, the digitized voice streaming to you. ACROSS THE WAY WITH… is a resource, a place available to contemplate, to flesh out the possibilities of access, an intimacy that goes beyond our networks, and walls.
ACROSS THE WAY WITH… archive is available on Shimmer’s website and new readings will be released throughout 2021. All readings are provided with closed captions.
PUBLICS is a curatorial agency with a dedicated library, event space and reading room in Helsinki, Finland. Under the artistic direction of curator Paul O’Neill, with program manager and curator Eliisa Suvanto, PUBLICS explores a “work together” institutional model with multiple overlapping objectives, thematic strands and collaborations.
Shimmer is a curatorial studio that experiments with exhibition-making in time and in space. Originating from the curatorial and artistic practices of Eloise Sweetman and Jason Hendrik Hansma. Enriched by our geography, Shimmer shares and fosters artistic networks in Rotterdam, across The Netherlands, and with the International art community.
