Nomas* Projects / Art, Dundee

To/From

The Way

TO/FROM

This project reflects on the idea of incarnation, of making present, of a coming presence. The season of Advent, the four weeks leading up to the Christian celebration of Christmas, marks this anticipation of the incarnation of the divine in human form, from heaven to earth, from God to the human. It is the implications of this movement from one place or state to another that these artists address, each in their own way, through their own means. Incarnating presence is a logistical challenge. The participants in this project lived and worked last year in Stockholm, including the curator. But as this project developed, as we talked about and explored what it might mean to incarnate our presence in and sent to Dundee, Scotland, from Stockholm, our collective—consisting of art students at Konstfack: University of the Arts, Crafts & Design & the M.A. Curating programme at Stockholm University—began to disperse: one to Dublin, Ireland, another to Cape Town, South Africa, and the curator, to the United States. Our presence—became mediated virtually—from our conversations to the transportation of the materials that would make present our presence, in absence.

And so, an exhibition appears at Nomas* Projects that incarnates a presence that is not. None of the artists installed their own work. Materials were mailed, transported by me and my curating colleague, collaborator, and partner, Dr Malin Holdar. To incarnate presence, from one place to another, whether the celestial realm or Stockholm, is to span a vast distance—geographically, emotionally, and spiritually. It is to invite and solicit failures, obstacles, difficulties, and miscommunication at every turn. The beauty of Advent, of a celebration of an incarnation, of spirit to matter, of one place to another, is the beauty that curls up amidst these messes of difficulties, frustrations, and failures.

And each of these artists have explored this more challenging side of the incarnation in their work, a side that is about the process of becoming incarnate, of transforming ideas in Stockholm, Dublin, Cape Town and incarnating them, like magic, in five windows in Dundee, Scotland. Rebecca Beyene’s cast tuna cans, packing peanuts, and the beat up box it was shipped in; Isabelle Sahba’s reliance on the postal service to display her postcards like an advent calendar from Stockholm to Dundee; the file folder that attempts to keep Bad Federation’s partners, Charlotte Keegan in Ireland and Nathalie Viruly in South Africa connected; Nanna Han’s failed ambitious experiment with a baptismal font made of pipe cleaners that resembles a shipwreck; and Zakarias Knigge’s attempt at teleportation that conjures the aspirations of Tesla and the mythological energy of witnesses to a magical incarnation. Each artist not only reflects on this subject of incarnation, or incarnating, of becoming present. Their projects try to do it, try to bring Stockholm to Dundee, to bring artists and curators from one part of the world to another. And in this way, to call this exhibition TO/FROM is to emphasize that this incarnation is a specific one, and on behalf of, or for the Dundee community—a gift to you from us. The gift of us, our creativity, our imagination, our desire to become present for you.

Of course, it didn’t really work. Or it didn’t work as we’d anticipated when we began to talk about this collaboration in March. Who could have predicted its difficulties? Its obstacles? And yet, who could have predicted its beauty, its intimacy, the trust that emerged among us through our miscommunications, lack of communication, mistakes, and failures?

And yet. And yet. Here we are. For you. And with a world becoming increasingly violent, isolated, nationalistic, restrictive, protective. Perhaps the world needs more attempts at incarnating presence from one part of the world to another. You may never meet us in person. But we’re out there. And we’ve been thinking about you. Trying to incarnate our ideas for you. And perhaps that’s enough. And perhaps that’s the poignancy of this time of year, Advent, when we can take comfort, no matter what our religion or lack thereof, that there are those out there for us.

Curator, Daniel A. Siedell, PhD