Resilient Currents: On Communal Re-Existence — Forma — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 21 → April 25, 2024

In anticipation of La Collective, its future creation and solidarity center, Thanks for Nothing presents its first international exhibition, which focuses on socially engaged practices related to Central and South America.

With Seba Calfuqueo, Colectivo Ayllu, Carolina Caycedo, Patricia Dominguez, Regina José Galindo, Sonia Gomes, Jorge Gonzalez, iki yos piña narváez, Guadalupe Maravilla, Noé Martinez, Nomasmetaforas, Rangiñtulewfü, Rojo Negro, Angelica Serech, Maria Sosa, among others.

In 2024, Thanks for Nothing initiates the prefiguration of its future Art and Solidarity Center, scheduled to open in 2028 on the site of the former Hôpital Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. This ‘off-site’ program aims to showcase socially engaged artistic practices from the international scene. The exhibition Resilient Currents: On Communal Re-Existence inaugurates this cycle, accompanied by a rich program of conferences, screenings, performances, and guided tours aimed at audiences distant from the art world. Conceived by the independent curator Ilaria Conti for over three years, the exhibition highlights multidisciplinary practices that reflect the artistic richness of Abya Yala (a Kuna term for Central and South America as a constellation of sovereign non-colonial or decolonized spaces). The invited practices are characterized by a commitment to the communal.

Rejecting the limits of colonial systems of knowledge, the exhibition explores the working methodologies employed by the presented artists who acknowledge the urgency of practicing political, social, affective, and spiritual forms of action as part of a network of ethical relationships.

Carolina Caycedo, Multiple Clitoris Iguazu Cataracts, Brésil/Paraguay (détail), 2016 Courtesy de l’artiste & Instituto de Vision

Conceived by Thanks for Nothing and Ilaria Conti, the associated program punctuates the exhibition with regular events involving partners organizations based in Paris, such as La Maison de l’Amérique latine, Persona Curada, and Mazorca.

A word from the curator

“The exhibition embraces a methodological focus by highlighting artistic practices characterized by a commitment to the communal: a shared political agency and sensibility that, regardless of its being enacted individually or collectively, honors the interdependency that connects all beings and entities. The artistic and activist practices invited recognize the urgency of practicing forms of political, social, affective, and spiritual agency as part of a network of ethical relations, and articulate pluriversal forms of knowing and sensing rooted in sentipensar (sensing-thinking or feeling-thinking). Rejecting the limits of colonial knowledge systems, the artists honor the plurality of worlds and the diverse systems of knowing, sensing, and sense-making that communal processes engender.”