​POLITICS OF THE BOUNDARY
The mechanics of exhibiting beyond hope

Entering the Room
First step into the sanctuary

The politics of the boundary are the politics of space. Hope is about space. How space is structured helps determine your sense of safety and belonging. What does it mean to fit in a room? Meaning is where all your experiences balance. One's world can change with the addition of experiences, some of those experiences are the shared stories of others. The more a story reaches you, the more it changes what you see. To be at peace we need our experiences to belong equally alongside the experiences of others. Otherwise there is a fight for dominance. Integration is key to understanding where things fit equally.

The co-curator is the one who opens the key. This is because there needs to be a link. A bridge to one perspective and another. I don't stand as a single curator, I look for the added perspective of an appropriate sounding board. In my eyes curators don't work alone; there is a constant co-curation, with many and all. It is a constant weighing up of the balance in all relationships. This is about the space: the walls, floor, the objects in that space: the furniture, artwork, and the people that come in and out. It's a huge sounding board and echo chamber. The curator is the person who has tested out the currency of the space. Has let everything talk to everything else in the room. Listened and found the language of the combination of relationship factors. The decoding of ambiance. I use a charting system I call the oneness chart. You list everything in the room. You find what fights. You remove it. What's left is the show.

For me an exhibition needs a clear sound. It has a ring that rolls out with the impact of each new footstep. A resonant harmony that unfolds because of the integration of the space. Clarity exists as a crossroads. A pause. The number zero. With each footstep you get your bearing, and from that bearing you are free to fly.

Getting Stuck
Boredom and becoming make an entrance

When there is nothing left to give, nothing you can act on or change. When you are so stuck you can't move at all. There is the flipping point where you leave everything behind. You die to the old forces driving you and open up. This turning point is a symbol of return, yet in itself it creates a crossroads of pause. It is at this crossroads that vistas open and opportunities appear, worlds can change and collide. Our viewpoint between self and other hangs in the pause, and discourse starts. Because instead of blind action we listen. Unities are formed. The mechanics of exhibiting beyond hope are about the space beyond possibility.
 
Doing The Work
What happens next

Here's what happens when you open a relationship. If we belong anywhere it is to each other, as realities we have made together. Experiences are shared. This junction, and connection to others, is what enables flow. The vistas we see are the vistas we belong to. Art opens vistas. A basket. A painting. A cup. A song. They are doors and windows to other realities. The realities of the artists that made them. Past and parallel. They are portals where you can perceive the light of another. Energy and inspiration. From which you build your new world. Your new reality.

As an artist I strip everything back. Again and again. The layers come off until the work has somewhere to stand. A bearing. A core. A marker that everything else orbits. As a curator I do the same. I strip back each artist, each artwork, to its barest form. So it can be placed. After placement, the work does the rest itself. It opens up. It talks to the surrounding work, the walls, the people. The work for me after that is making sure the objects in the room are pointing in the correct directions. Some artworks need to face others, some harmonise and echo, and others need to shift the viewer's direction and place their attention somewhere else. Everything that enters this space becomes part of a dance of light and energy. When I watch visitors walking around an exhibition I see a fluctuating star of light, reaching out to touch different surfaces, casting shadows, and lighting up corners that the mere presence of the sun or overhead lights can't do.

The State of Sanctuary
Thunderclouds and the move into existence

The work of a curator needs to be to stop someone in their tracks. For as long as the pause of the observer exists. For as long as the listening silence is honoured. There can be an exchange. Growth for both. I experience the world as living. Each object, each artwork, breathes when given the space. It emits a light. The light grows with each encounter. Each relationship. The gallery is where this happens. The room is what gives space. The light stretches out. Grows and changes moment to moment.

The Ongoing Connection
Feeding and Nurturing

Wander and wonder are roaming roots, wriggling up from the artwork through a trunk of hoping enquiry. Each conversation, each act of perception, listening, seeing, smelling, touching, is a branch. The room grows with us, the art and the viewer. We breathe the room in. A relationship is formed. A third thing, made of both. Not separate. Together. This is how space is created, how newness is created. It grows and extends what already is. Art has a lot of invisible children. We all fall in love with beauty. We relax. We balance. We breathe easier in the presence of something that's pleasing to us. Pleasure is very important. Happiness is how we know we belong. Nothing is selfish at this point, we share the same air. Everything is affected by every other thing. The work moves the air. The air moves the person. The person moves the room. True value is where alignment happens. Strip it back to that point and you find freedom. Possibility. It is how we create a stable world. A foundation we can move from, with agency, power and individual expression.
 
The Crucible
And defining point

Imagine walking through a forest and coming across a grove of parted trees. You enter that grove and settle down. You take some refreshment and sit. Waiting. You are at a gathering point of reflection. There was enough focus in the space to draw you to it, and enough focus for you to wait and see what would happen by being there. As you sit in your waiting stillness animals come and creatures come, all drawn to the same opening. An opening in time as well as in space. Each creature was simply there, moving through the trees, and happened upon your space and your time. The opportunity you discover as you close your eyes is oneness. Each insect becomes a portal because it is a coordinate. Part of the puzzle opens up before your eyes, before you perceive a thing. The pattern of the room is in every small movement. Each insect. Each blade of grass. The room is a pattern you can see if you stop. To open up is to come to a stop, and to come to a stop is to open. From that point every angle becomes petals flowing out from a rippling tide. If there is enough focus on the moment in any room, the ripples take shape. They become something. Formulate and evolve into new perspectives, new patterns to distinguish old patterns. Any release of emotion turns the tide. You see the same room differently. Opening is release. Create an opening from the tension held within and you have a spring. So stir the pressure cooker, gather it in. Open the roof of the habits that keep you stuck. Turn a new corner. Go somewhere new with someone else. This is a death that goes in, not out. You fold. You go under. And from under, you come out somewhere else. This is how we move through a room. This is how we get bigger than it. And we grow beyond our world. Into a universal sanctuary.