Trauma Platform

2017

A stage, most commonly understood as a spatial platform intended for the execution of a specific act in front of a public, separates audience and public spatially as well as conceptually. It implies a hierarchical transmission of knowledge, from an active performer onto a passive viewer. This simultaneously spatial and conceptual line is what shapes the core of the exhibition: reflecting upon the conceptual meaning of borders in its broadest sense, the works shown redefine and re-stage its meaning within the arts and well beyond it.

The exhibited artworks question different kinds of demarcation lines and oppositions, starting from the one between the artist and his or her own work. This peculiar relationship poses questions concerning physicality, authenticity, and authority. The subtle line between artist and artwork, body and matter, idea and concretization is thus explored in the exhibition as an unresolved duality, expanding in some works even towards broader issues of geographical and international trespassing of borders. The location of the exhibition, with its theater and mirrored ballet room, carries the implied hierarchical borders within itself, marking the incapacity of the works to truly inhabit the space. This way, Staging the Inhabitable provokes a sense of irresolution, opening up to new ways of thinking about multiple pre-supposed dualities.