A Manual for Saving Head
Solo exhibition at Zalucky Contemporary, Toronto, Canada. November 23, 2019 – January 25, 2020
Excerpt from exhibition text:
- I have been reading about how the formation of thought
happens in the process of speech, specifically when in
conversation with another person. I walk around the house
vacuuming, talking to myself, rehearsing potential
conversations, at least trying to articulate out loud what I
intend to say, or what I could say, or what responses I could
possibly have in conversation so I don’t lose myself. Perhaps there
is socially or culturally something about the way that I am coded
that means I struggle to make space for hesitations in the process of
dialogue. As if we can’t afford the time. As if the conversation, the
opportunity for those thoughts, is so urgently dependent on that one
moment of conversation. As if what we think, what we experience,
is at risk of abandoning us if we don’t instrumentalize them, ASAP.
Don’t sleep and turn it into something. Give it an end. Conclude! As
I write to you Ruth, I realize even this is a kind of rehearsal for our
conversation. Even though together we did consent to an unfolding,
an indeterminacy, an ongoingness. Even then, I rehearse. –I take days
to respond so yes, “rehearsed” carries over even here. I already
wrote you this: My old vacuum just died (donated from a European
friend who hated her vacuum, is very picky, bought a new one and
gifted this old one to me, poor soul, who only used a broom). I bought
a cheap new model: ridiculous, sexy looking, and much lighter.
I’m re-learning how to clean my house with it. My house is never
cleaner than when I have other work to do. On a recent housesitting
stint, I used their name-brand vacuum to clean some of the dust
they overlooked. It felt like a severe imposition. I try to repurpose/
massage that anecdote into something worthwhile for you, reader.
Read the exhibition text written collaboratively by Ruth Skinner and Lili Huston-Herterich here.
Read an exhibition review by Tatum Dooley in Artforum here.
