One of the elements that became quite fundamental during the recent period is the need for self-care. Since a long time, with Audre Lorde we have learned that self-care is an act of political warfare. This time of necessary confinement has shown again and in a new dimension the radicality of her words. The domestic space, as a conceptual and architectural framework, can be seen as a container for life. It is a domain that is demarcated by visible and invisible structures, by interfaces that regulate the flows of information and materials. It is also the inner space of the self, the space of rituals, morning routines, celebrations of joy, practices of health and the rhythms of the body. In her exhibition at TIER, Irene Fernández Arcas introduces installative elements into the space that institute a flow of ideas and resources related to the inner space of the home and the mind. Through a series of activations, including a durational plant cutting exchange that everyone is invited to participate in, the exhibition emphasizes different facets of her practice. She proposes this constellation of materials and affects as a laboratory to develop a domestic ritual, an invitation to create a space of one’s own, a holistic space to connect with processes of commoning. In this way, she recovers elements of joy and astonishment from the forgotten rhythms of life, and indeed before the institutionalization of the domestic space and rationalization of the body as a discrete element separable from the complex whole. Self-care as a counter-disciplinary ritual might be one of the ways the artist is researching to restore those rhythms.
TIER The Institute for Endotic Research. Donaustr. 84, 12043 Berlin. http://theinstituteforendoticresearch.org
Image: Linus Mullerschön