Chronologies and Circumstances: Between Individual and Collective Trajectories

About

In our contemporary moment, displacement is a defining characteristic—either due to climate change, geopolitical developments, or public health crises—forcing individuals to occupy new physical and mental positions. This shift in positionality can afford a better vantage point to understand the past, observe conditions shaping the present, and potentially help chart alternative trajectories for the future. From this new outlook, a host of questions arise: How much control do I have over my own life and the course of human history? Is humanity on a slow, steady march towards progress, or must individuals consistently reaffirm or win back hardfought truths, values, and ideas? Can we measure civilizational growth, and if so, what are the widely accepted metrics? What are the conditions necessary to bring about significant social, political, and cultural change?

"Chronologies and Circumstances" brings together the work of Kunstraum studio
members as well as former and current artists-in-residence to probe these questions
and spur critical dialogues about selfhood, agency, historical forces, and
individual/collective timelines. In media spanning painting, drawing, watercolor, digital
art, sound, photography, and video, these multidisciplinary artists give form to, reflect
upon, and contend with some of the forces, structures, and systems directing our
lives—often in imperceptible ways. Significantly, the exhibition presents the
perspectives of artists from different generations and cultural backgrounds, bringing into
sharp relief that some societal forces and institutional structures disproportionately
impact certain groups. Like the strategies employed by the artists, the exhibition itself
asks viewers to be conscious of how movement between works is an exercise in
adopting diverse dispositions to gain a sense of one's own bearings.