In his book, The Lonely Letters, Dr. Ashon T. Crawley writes, “But I want to think about entanglement as consent to be in ongoing collaboration, the collaboration fundamental to alternate modalities of existence. What would it mean to withdraw into one another as the condition for how we live and survive the brutality of an antiqueer, antiBlack world?” It is precisely his definition of entanglement, a form of consent to be with a world rather than to be in a world that suggests a dialogue of power. Although to Dr. Crawley, this power does not come out of an individual, but through a shared relation of beingness.
The group show i know this ending and I know it’s the end & I am full of beauty investigates such notions of consent and refusal as it relates to the shared power of beingness that exists amongst marginalized communities and the way we survive together. This exhibition is the practice of an “alternate modality of survival”; a conceptual framework of what it means to be, love, and fight in a world that only continues violence against Black/Indingenous/POC and queer communities. Essentially, the exhibition takes the concept of a “relationship” to the world we exist in and then analyzes, questions, and critiques such relationships. How are worlds created and how does love exist in these new places? Especially what does love look like through the rejection of this world and the expansion of another?
i know it’s the end & i am full of beauty is a group exhibition where two artists articulate their notions of worlding, endings, withdrawals, refusals, selfhood, and love. Even in the eve of a sorrow that has been felt for so long and is not recognized, a love exists somewhere. And here, may be the place.
Generously supported by
The Greater Columbus Arts Council and the Ohio Arts Council
Artists
Photographs by: Jake Holler