EN    DE

News and projects

Preview

CRASH!

Exhi­bi­tion
Kün­stler­haus Vien­na, Fac­to­ry
August 11th to 27th, 2023

Curat­ed by BLACK FERK STUDIO

Kün­stler­haus Vienna

ME/CFS is the name of a mon­ster: one that many peo­ple and their loved ones fight in Aus­tria and around the world. A severe and not rare mul­ti sys­tem ill­ness, for which there is no causal or acces­si­ble treat­ment up to date. Due to the Covid pan­dem­ic and the mil­lions of peo­ple affect­ed by Post (Long) Covid, this often unrecog­nised and triv­i­alised ill­ness is get­ting a lit­tle more pub­lic attention.

“To even try to realise this exhi­bi­tion despite this ter­ror is com­plete mad­ness” — this was one of the thoughts that were on the mind of Judith Schoßböck and Matthias Moll­ner in autumn 2021, when they decid­ed to trans­late their per­son­al stroke of fate into art — as a way of pro­cess­ing their expe­ri­ence and inti­mate insight into a silent and invis­i­ble world, in which mil­lions of peo­ple miss­ing from soci­ety (the #mil­lion­s­miss­ing) are mobil­is­ing their lit­tle ener­gy for dai­ly sur­vival and recog­ni­tion; of an ill­ness that dia­met­ri­cal­ly oppos­es the com­mon ori­en­ta­tion on moti­va­tion and per­for­mance, as any activ­i­ty or exer­tion is pun­ished with a wors­en­ing of symptoms.

In this exhi­bi­tion Moll­ner, Schoßböck (alias BLACK FERK STUDIO) and oth­er artists and cre­atives reflect on the real­i­ty of liv­ing with ME/CFS. To cre­ate art in this con­text becomes a spe­cial and risky activ­i­ty, as for suf­fer­ers of the dis­ease it is relat­ed to phys­i­cal con­se­quences. Sen­su­al and oth­er hyper­sen­si­tiv­i­ties are fur­ther chal­lenges to any artis­tic endeav­our or par­tic­i­pa­tion in a community.

Dis­played are var­i­ous artis­tic per­spec­tives togeth­er with fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the ill­ness in dif­fer­ent con­texts: from the per­son­al view of peo­ple affect­ed to the stand­point of soci­ety, from help­less­ness to activism, from the iso­la­tion of the indi­vid­ual to the col­lec­tive view, from the emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence of per­pet­u­al cri­sis to sci­en­tif­ic facts. The exhi­bi­tion tells sto­ries from the “night­side of life” (a term Susan Son­tag used for ill­ness), gives insights into cop­ing strate­gies, and seeks to utilise open­ness and dark-but-colour­ful humor against suf­fer­ing and neglect.

Project part­ner and sup­port:
Aus­tri­an ME/CFS society

Archive

A green figure with red fire rays on its head and black boots on its feet hangs tied to ropes upside down in a spiral construction. Several ants and a snake can be seen on the construction.

“Can anybody hear me?”

Group Show in the ip. forum

U4 Cen­ter, Stiege B, 2. Upper floor
Schön­brun­ner Straße 218–220
1120 Wien
Aus­tria

Open­ing: Thurs­day, Okto­ber 13th, 2022
Exhi­bi­tion dura­tion: Until mid-Decem­ber 2022
Cura­tors: PJ Maguire und Gabriele Baumgartner

In recent years, we’ve all had to aban­don or adapt our social habits and inter­ac­tions, cre­at­ing a domi­no effect in our present and future inter­ac­tion habits.

Artists have also had to adapt in order to be heard or seen and to be able to com­mu­ni­cate to the view­ers. Art is usu­al­ly a mouth­piece to com­mu­ni­cate issues that move a per­son in some way. In this exhi­bi­tion, we ask about the ways artists have cre­at­ed to be „heard“ and how oth­ers have tak­en the path of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in their artis­tic work to date.

“Congress of the Knowing”

Sep­tem­ber 9th and 10th, 2022
Pub­lic space under the Lentos Art Muse­um
Dok­tor-Ernst-Koref-Prom­e­nade 1
4020 Linz
Aus­tria

„A burn­ing stone. Why you need to know about ME/CFS“

The Black Ferk Stu­dio is pleased to be present with two instal­la­tions and a lec­ture per­for­mance at the “Con­gress of the Know­ing” in Linz. All inter­est­ed peo­ple can take part in the con­gress. Admis­sion is free, reg­is­tra­tion is request­ed: https://kdw.institute

On Sep­tem­ber 9th and 10th, the “Con­gress of the Know­ing” will take place in Linz under the Lentos Art Muse­um. Knowl­edge­able peo­ple from all over Europe will come togeth­er at this mag­i­cal place to exchange and share secret, spe­cial and unique knowl­edge. Events, debates and per­for­mances are open to the pub­lic and will take place on both days. The open space under the Lentos hence becomes a form of “demo­c­ra­t­ic knowl­edge zone” in a pub­lic space. Peo­ple will meet there to exchange knowl­edge with exper­tise and expe­ri­ence valu­able to oth­ers: sci­en­tists, artists, per­form­ers, researchers and experts in oth­er, spe­cial areas: such as peo­ple affect­ed by pover­ty, peo­ple with expe­ri­ence of dis­crim­i­na­tion, social­ly dis­ad­van­taged peo­ple, or peo­ple whose spe­cial knowl­edge has lit­tle pub­lic reach. The lec­tures and audi­ence dis­cus­sions address cur­rent dis­cours­es. There is also the oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain access to com­plex con­tent in a play­ful way through work­shops and inter­ac­tive formats.