Temporary Spaces
Comprising of a large lip, folded from blankets, an archive of fragmentary research materials, and the print publications ‘Muhatap’ (‘Interlocutor’), the section forms a permeable body of works. It opens up the Temporary Spaces class’s collaborative process of speculating, discussing, creating and sharing space on the topic of Queer Ecologies, a field best described as an open invitation to intimacies with other things and beings. To critically and creatively reflect upon, expand and deconstruct ideas on nature, queer theory and sexuality, on transanimalities, utopic gardens, feminisms, etc. we have developed works of various media and temporalities that address queer ecologies and invite others to interact or to ‘interlock‘.
Exhibition
Interview
The Temporary Spaces class took part in Conditions of a Necessity, The Exhibition with a presentation of body of works that included a suspended lip fashioned out of blanket, research material, videos and collective publication on the topic of “Queer Ecologies” (writ-broadly). Can you elaborate on this extensive material and the connections between the works?
Comprising a large lip, folded from blankets, an archive of fragmentary research materials, and the print publication ‘Muhatap’ (‘Interlocutor’), the exhibition formed a permeable body of work. It aimed to share the collaborative process of speculating, discussing, and creating collective space on the topic of Queer Ecologies, a field best described as an open invitation to intimacies with other things and beings. We worked on various ideas of nature, queer theory, and sexuality and developed interconnecting and interactive works of various media and temporalities that invite others to interact and to ‘interlock’.
Following our conceptual framework, the connection between the individual works is not something to be crafted, but a necessary condition of their becoming. Interaction and interdependence are thus vital prerequisites for this exhibition that reflected on transanimalities, utopic gardens, shared spirits, etc. in an encompassing space of various temporal dimensions.
Thereby, Muhatap, our archival publication brings together thoughts and ideas in the form of texts, sketches, photographs and fragments of various texts, research and discussions around the vast landscapes of queer ecologies. It was spatialized on a large table to include material objects, time-based media, and finds into the exhibition space. The lip — our common soft object — is shaped out of blankets and aims to reclaim the sensual signifier as a symbol of queer sexuality and for speaking back.
The title Conditions of a Necessity emerged from a very specific moment in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, where the first part of the project manifest as a gathering at the Kunsthalle in which the Temporary Spaces class was a participant. The artists present for the second phase of the project, however, were almost entirely new to the context. Can you tell us about the translation/transition process between the class years, and how this informed how you evolved a working methodology into the exhibition?
Transition processes and our collaborative methodology are always together; they are intimately intertwined to open space for changes over time. As a collaborative, our works draw their sustenance from the evaporating footprints of participating, leaving, joining individuals.
The blanket lip is a physical manifestation of our experiences, a reflection of our different consciousness imprints. Connected by thread, mediated by patches, it is shaped the in-form of our gatherings with participants from different schools and classes.
As the work of the Temporary Spaces Class is fundamentally research-based, it can be translated and transformed into different media and formats to create diverse reflexive aesthetic experiences. Thus, sharing knowledge about critical theory, ancient philosophy, feminist and queer theories, socialist architectural utopias, and more, Temporary Spaces is a platform for collaborative work across bodies, disciplines, and institutions.
The blanket, which was created as a group project in the Gathering and was later sculpted into the form of a lip in the exhibition, seems like a helpful relay point to discuss the specific process of constructing collectivity within Temporary Spaces. While at the Gathering the blanket was a mediator in bringing bodies together - expanding the collective outside the class - in the Exhibition this was mutated into an atomized, abstracted part of a body - lips. Can you talk about how the collective methodology developed over time from the Gathering to the Exhibition, between and across the different constituents of the classes?
The blanket created a space underneath that could be shared by everyone, including artists, visitors, and curators, as they came together. Its transformation into a lip distanced from the visitors embodied the programmed transition from ‘Gathering’ to ‘Exhibition.’ Thus, the lip is the result of the transformation that the material matter undergoes when entering the museum space as an exhibit: it is removed from life, and togetherness becomes possible only symbolically.
While the lip serves as a sensual/erotic signifier of queer sexuality and as a symbol for speaking out loud, it also reflects the process in the Temporary Spaces Class, which underwent a conflictual and even painful transformation as some participants left while others joined. The process of (re-)forming, in this case, folding, pressing, and fixing the blanket into a lip, is always connected to a certain force, whether it be material, social, or political.
The Temporary Spaces class was one of the classes that did most of the production collectively - both for the Gathering physically in Baden‑Baden, and for the Exhibition, prepared largely remotely in Bremen. How did the context of Baden‑Baden as well as being inside of an art institution as a collective production space affect your approach to creating works?
The conceptual framework of “Temporary Spaces” perceives encompassing space as a changing object to be explored. It focuses on interand intra spatial modalities, providing the opportunity for the Temporary Spaces Class to gather with artists from other schools in an institutional interior during and after an isolating pandemic in Baden‑Baden. The interaction and exchange, the intimacy of sharing a blanket, affected the Temporary Spaces Class through the creation of changing processes, such as stitching, reading, and performing. The institutional space was enabling.
For the “Exhibition” at Kunsthalle Baden‑Baden, the lip was one element that we wanted to use as a pediment placed on the entrance of the Kunsthalle to counter its masculine classicist architecture. It could have functioned as an invitation to come inside, connect, and use the space collectively. From an architectural perspective, the lip would have addressed the border between the institutional inside and outside, challenging ideas of institutions and monuments. The lip, exhibited inside and suspended from the ceiling was still able to react to the classicist space of the Kunsthalle, was connected with our publication and the blanket from last year’s collective gathering at Kunsthalle Baden‑Baden, as well as the ideas of domestic revolution, queer ecologies, and a larger interconnectedness.
Gathering
