“I am attracted to ellipsis, to the unsaid, to suggestion, to eloquent deliberate silence …”
Louise Glück in her 1995 essay „Disruption, Hesitation, Silence“
The group exhibition features work from artists in authoritarian and democratic countries and is a joint reflection on censorship and repressive mechanisms at play. Featuring artists from
countries and backgrounds as diverse as Iran, Belarus, Turkey, Russia, China, Switzerland,
Lithuania, Italy and US, it dwells on the issues of self-censorship, power dynamics and things we often don’t say or simply can’t.
The works on display in the exhibition speak of the aesthetic power of erasures, actively
transforming them to take control over actions that could leave one feeling powerless. Through
photography, textiles, video, poetry, paintings, and installations the artists turn these enforced
silences and erasures into thought provoking, bold, artistic statements and offer space for
public debate and intimate exchange.
Curatorial Concept
UnSaid is a cross cultural curatorial collaboration with OnCurating Project Space. Curators; Maria Sorensen, Lara Sutter, Lynn Guo, Frances Melhop + Melhop Gallery, Evgenia Kostinskaia, and Zahira Mozafari present their latest exhibition UnSaid. Diesnstegebaude Art Space, Zurich, Switzerland.
Artist Statement
Absence #13 consists of an embroidered contour drawing of an empty female body. Floating outside the body are all of the parts we cannot show for various reasons. These parts are
currently censored by social media and web platforms that alone decide what constitutes art and what is pornography or self-censored for safety and for other reasons.
The stitched figure is part of a series titled Common Threads, a salute to the 60’s – 90’s Feminist icons who used their body as material for their artwork, in this case the artist is referencing Ana Mendieta and her spaces of bodily absence that she created in her work.
The advances for women made by the Feminist artists and the overturn of Roe versus Wade case in the USA in 2022, suggests we might be moving backwards, losing some of their hard-won victories, such as autonomy of our own bodies.
The piece Absence #13 became playfully interactive as women visiting the exhibition inserted themselves between the canvas backing and the linen embroidered body.
CURATORIAL TEAM
Evgenia Kostinskaia, Maria Sorensen, Lynn Guo, Lara Sutter, and Zahira Mozafari
Frances Melhop + Melhop Gallery (absent)
