The Palliative Turn
Künstlerhaus Bremen
09.07.–03.10.2022
with Carla Åhlander, Louise Ashcroft, Simon Blanck, Christoph Draeger, Kasia Fudakowski, Anna Gohmert, Annemarie Goldschmidt, Teal Griffin, Harry Haddon, Ethan Hayes-Chute, Lars-Erik Hjertström-Lappalainen, Keith Larson, Per Hüttner, Nina Katchadourian, Alex Kwartler, Karin Kytökangas, Mathias Lempart, Dafna Maimon, Marit Neeb, Laura Pientka, Sascia Reibel, John-Luke Roberts, Xavier Robles de Medina, Lydia Röder, Ruth Rubers, Maxwell Stephens, Anna M. Szaflarski, Nala Tessloff, Jana Thiel, Olav Westphalen, Gernot Wieland.
Kuratiert von Nadja Quante in enger Zusammenarbeit mit Kasia Fudakowski und Olav Westphalen
Rahmenprogramm:
Freitag, 08.07. 19 Uhr
Ausstellungeröffnung
Begrüßung: Janine Behrens, Geschäftsführung
Grußwort: Carmen Emigholz, Staatsrätin für Kultur der Freien Hansestadt Bremen
Einführung: Nadja Quante, Künstlerische Leitung
Anschließend APT Manifesto, Performance von Maxwell Stephens
Samstag, 09.07.
15 Uhr Palliative Zeichensitzungen mit with Olav Westphalen
17 Uhr Ausstellungsrundgang mit APT-Mitgliedern
Sonntag, 10.07., 12 Uhr
Spaziergang auf dem Riensberger Friedhof mit Jana Thiel
Mittwoch, 27.07., 18 Uhr
Führung mit Frederik Preuschoft
Mittwoch, 28.09., 18 Uhr
Kuratorinnenführung mit Nadja Quante
Freitag, 30.09.
19 Uhr Vortrag von Livia Paldi
20.30 Uhr Videoscreening mit Beiträgen von Christoph Draeger, Nina Katchadourian, Olav Westphalen, et al.
Samstag, 01.10.
11 Uhr Letzte Hilfe Kurs mit Lydia Roeder (DE)
15 Uhr Workshop mit Louise Ashcroft: NO KIDS (EN)
16.30 Uhr Ausstellungsrundgang mit APT-Mitgliedern
18 Uhr Performance von Per Hüttner: Duet with a Dying Plant
19 Uhr Offene Runde mit APT-Mitgliedern
20 Uhr Palliatives Abendessen (Anmeldung unter galerie@kuenstlerhausbremen.de)
Kasia Fudakowski and members of the Association for the Palliative Turn warmly invite you to
Pogo Bar:
An Evening On The Palliative Turn
10 March 22, 9 pm
in English
Venue: KW, 4th floor
An Evening On The Palliative Turn, hosted by Kasia Fudakowski with members of the Association for the Palliative Turn (APT). APT is a loose collection of individuals who describe themselves as ‘palliatively-curious’ in exploring approaches to cultural life with death.
But do not be afraid, the evening at Pogo Bar is no wacko night of wellness interspersed with cultish end-of-days chanting, not all night anyway. With a focus on the cosmically comic side of saying goodbye forever, An Evening On The Palliative Turn proposes a mix of comedic monologues, costumes from curtains, cartoons, songs, empathy, improvised theatre, tombstones, generosity, films, live music, laughter, and removals, as well as a guaranteed end.
The evening’s host, Kasia Fudakowski, is a visual artist who’s interest in The Palliative Turn stems from her exploration of both the comic and horrific nature of limits. She will be joined by Simon Blanck, Annemarie Goldschmidt, Ethan Hayes-Chute, Karin Kytökangas, Mathias Lempart, Dafna Maimon, Kevin Napier, Leila Peacock, Rattelschneck, John-Luke Roberts, Xavier Robles de Medina, Lydia Röder, Anna Szaflarski, Nala Tessloff, Marcus Weimer, and Olav Westphalen.
Initiated by the visual artist Olav Westphalen, who coined the term Palliative Turn, APT was founded in 2020 by a group of diverse practitioners including artists, comedians, palliative practitioners, health care specialists, designers, philosophers and climate scientists in reaction to the pervasive assumption that we humans can fix all our problems and escape our certain fate. More concretely, APT asks; ‘What if our ambition to control and manage not just our own lives but even the planetary climate’s equilibrium is just the latest symptom of what has been wrong all along?’ (Westphalen). By taking its starting point from the practice of palliative care as a model for art, APT asks if an acceptance of our impending end, might not in fact be the first step to living better.
AFASIOTOPIA* or
The Palliative Turn
With Annemarie Goldschmidt (Kinesiologist, DK), Kasia Fudakowski (artist, UK), Dafna Maimon (artist, FI), John Luke Roberts (comedian, UK), Simon Blanck (artist, SE), Lars Erik Hjertström Lappalainen (Philosopher, SE), Dr. Keith Larsson (climate researcher, USA), Lydia Roeder (palliative care expert, DE), Olav Westphalen (artist, DE/SE)
September 18 to 20, 2020
at Salon am Moritzplatz, Berlin
What would happen, if we began to think of art as a practice that helps us leave this life behind? A process that prepares us for the fact that individually and as a civilisation we will cease to exist in this form rather soon? In a three-day symposium, a group of artists and thinkers might lay the groundwork for the forceful declaration of the ‘Palliative Turn’ in art.
Narratives, art works, films that are trying to usher in profound change are plenty. Many of them are smart, sensitive, beautiful. But they are generally based on the assumption that somehow, through education, reason, technology or social action, we can solve our problems. They are curative rather than palliative approaches. What if this assumption of our capability to fix things were just another facet of the self-aggrandizing species-exceptionalism that got us into trouble? What if our ambition to control, not just our own lives, but even the planet's equilibrium is just the latest symptom of what has been wrong all along? And, finally, could acceptance of our predicament, learning how to let go and eventually die well, be a first step towards learning how to live right? Living right, one might guess, would imply a less destructive presence. (This is, ironically, where hubris might sneak in again).
This symposium has been initiated by Olav Westphalen and is funded by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee.
Press release for AFASIOTOPIA, 2020, Foundational Symposium, Salon am Moritzplatz, Berlin
*A Foundational and Speculative Invocation of the Office of Palliative International Art
Nu är du död
(Now you are dead)
Simon Blanck
2020
Porcelain photograph on a piece of tombstone. The photograph is of two skulls in a museum display. They are lying there facing each other and I found the scene quite moving, love that transcends death and time. I made a porcelain photograph of the picture, the kind of porcelain found on tombstones with a portrait of the deceased. I put the porcelain on a piece of second hand tombstone that had been discarded from a local cemetary.
Kirkenes Tire Burn
Olav Westphalen
2010
John Luke Roberts
Ways to Foster a Healthy Relationship with Death:
A Non-Hierarchical List (Ongoing)
Breed worms. Leave instructions in your will for these worms to be buried with you once you die.
In the meantime, give the worms names, talk to the worms, confide in the worms.
In other words: befriend the worms that will eat your carcass.
Before flushing, hold a funeral for each bowel movement.
Wear black, light candles, make a speech, invite guests.
Carry a portable speaker playing the ‘beep beep’ of a hospital heart monitor at all times.
Sit on your hand until it goes numb. Contemplate that hand.
Buy a number of pets with different life expectancies
(e.g. from stick insect, through cat, through parrot, to turtle).
This will help you maintain regular contact with loss throughout your life.
Have a tombstone carved with your name and date of birth. Carry it with you everywhere.
Keep a skull handy in your living room to look at. Get a smaller skull for when you’re travelling.
Keep your food waste and let it rot.
Close your eyes more often. Close your ears as well.
Eat a spoonful of soil once a week.
Sit in a wooden chair and look at a tree. Then, sit in the tree and look at the wooden chair.
Repeat, until you reach some level of understanding.
Date a mortician, or undertaker, or coroner. Look deep into their eyes at any opportunity.
Simon Blanck
The Sarcophagus of My Dreams
2020
In connection with the first meeting of APT I visited the the royal mausoleum in Charlottenburg and was infatuated with Queen Louise’s sarcophagus. I took a series of photographs of the very captivating marble drapings on the sculpture. I consider theese photographs to be the first images I made in the spirit of the Palliative Turn.
Pallwitz
2020
Rattelschneck
Titanic Magazin
Eingereicht als “Abstract” für ein Forschungprojekt zum 13. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Palliativmedizin, 2020. 4. Platz der Teilnehmerbewertung im Wettbewerb für wissenschaftliche Poster.