Imagining Health 2

25 May 2023

Photo: HFBK

Opening: Wednesday, May 31, 2023, 6 p.m.
Duration: June 1 to 18, 2023, daily 2 p.m. - 6 p.m. except Mondays.
Location: ICAT at HFBK, Lerchenfeld 2A, 22081 Hamburg.
https://www.hfbk-hamburg.de/en/projekte/imagining-health-art-health-and-history/

Health has always been a socially relevant issue and as a term is significantly more popular than illness - even though both belong closely together. This may be because the positive connotation of health is more compatible with a society focused on well-being, performance, and self-improvement. However, health and illness are constructed concepts that are subject to social and historical changes. Here, at the latest, the fragility becomes clear: What is healthy? What is sick?
 
Imagining Health 2 is the continuation of a multi-year artistic and scientific research project between the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg (HFBK) and the Centre for the Study of Health, Ethics and Society (CHES) of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Hamburg (UHH), which points to the intersections and potentials of mutual enrichment of disciplines that are supposedly difficult to reconcile. The ten projects developed specifically for the exhibition deal with the mental, physical and structural dimensions of health from an artistic perspective. In a broad range of content and form, they negotiate questions of injury, healing and change. Whether based on their own bodies, personal experiences or socio-historical developments, the artists share a critical and analytical view of the present.
 
The participating artists are Kyle Egret, Leo Elia, Matthis Frickhœffer, Benjamin Janzen, Jori Kehn, Sebastian Kommer, Andrea Laušević, Flora Fee Mayrhofer, Christiane Mudra, Juan Ricaurte-Riveros, Lea van Hall, Faun Vium.
 
The positions were selected on the basis of an internal open call by a jury consisting of Prof. Angela Bulloch and Prof. Dr. Hanne Loreck from the HFBK Hamburg and Prof. Dr. Ulf Schmidt and Dr. James Farley from the CHES of the UHH.

The exhibition was curated by Sjusanna Eremjan.