Walls Breathe

Private View: Friday 30th October, 6pm - 9pm
Exhibition Open: Thursday 29th October - Monday 2nd November
Opening hours: Daily, 10am-5pm
Location: Gallery 2

We tend to think of the body as an independent entity with clear boundaries and relative stability. Look closer, and that independence is far from absolute: it is formed and sustained by overlapping networks of internal structures, matter, environment, infrastructure, memory, and relationships.

This web of interdependence frames the questions at the heart of the exhibition. How does an individual overcome the unease of shifting boundaries within an unstable system? How do they face a fluid identity, choose between what they possess and what they are compelled to learn, survive in a new environment or community, and find their way back to relative stability?

As the body struggles back and forth within a chaotic system, repeated experiences accumulate into a shell that sets us apart from others. Individual wisdom lets us grow the weapons and tools with which we engage the world. The environment teaches us how to change and stand apart, how to create and take. Can we now use this power to influence our surroundings? Will we sustain the system we inhabit, or rewrite it?

What will happen to the individual when the boundaries between the body, its materials and its surroundings become unstable?

How would the individual survive within an inevitable system when it has the activity to change something on the environment?