The Coming Community

The Coming Community brought together three artists and artist collectives – Grace Ndiritu, Andrea Zittel and the Karrabing Film Collective – alongside a public programme including Grace Ndiritu’s fashion label COVERSLUT©.

The Coming Community drew from Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s theorisation of community as one of singularities; one which continuously shifts and reforms itself; one which is not bound by fixed groupings of nationality, religion, geography; one which accommodates difference. Thinking through Agamben in a contemporary context asks us to consider, ‘How do we want to be?’ As the climate change movement Extinction Rebellion’s chorus of protest echoes ever louder around the globe, the question may already be obsolete. We are in a climate emergency, the planet irrevocably altered by human activity and extractive capitalism’s depletion of natural resources. The artists’ projects in the exhibition draw from diverse geographies, and each envisions community or collective strategies for living together in the face of global political and ecological instability. Rather than just critique the structures within which they operate, these artists propose embedded practices of adaptation to their ecologies.

The projects brought together for this exhibition foregrounded what could happen to our environment if we don’t rapidly begin to take action and adapt to a changing climate and febrile geopolitics. At the time of writing, US Democrats bring impeachment proceedings against their climate-change-denying president; the UK Supreme Court finds against its own prime minster; Anti-Extradition protests rage in Hong Kong; Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro sits back as the Amazon rainforest burns. Institutions will not save us. Yet, in Agamben, we find hope. From his theorisations of community came a ‘coming politics’ – a vision of the collapse of the border between politics and life. Each artistic voice formed a temporary chorus of investigation into how we might ‘be’ differently; how we might promote justice, equity, reparation and adaptation. The poet, the antagonist, the activist – The Coming Community is all of these singularities at once.

Exhibition images © Damian Griffiths.

Artists

Andrea Zittel

Andrea Zittel (b.1965, Escondido, California, USA) received her BFA in Painting and Sculpture from San Diego State University (1988) and MFA in Sculpture from Rhode Island School of Design (1990). In the early 1990s she first established her practice in New York. One of her most visible projects in New York was A–Z East, a small row house in Brooklyn that was turned into a showroom and testing ground for her prototypes for living. In 2000 she moved back to the West Coast, eventually settling in the high desert region next to Joshua Tree National Park where she founded A–Z West. A–Z West is the current site of her studio practice, as well as other ongoing living experiments including the Wagon Station Encampment and the Institute of Investigative Living. In 2002 Zittel co-founded High Desert Test Sites, a series of experimental art sites in the high desert that supports works by both emerging and established artists. She continues to serve as the director of this non-profit organisation.

Grace Ndiritu

Grace Ndiritu (b.1976, Birmingham, UK) studied Textile Art at Winchester School of Art and attended De Ateliers, Amsterdam between 1998–2000, where guest tutors included artists Marlene Dumas, Steve McQueen, Tacita Dean and Stan Douglas. Ndiritu has undertaken residencies at Delfina Studio Trust, London (2004–06), International Residency, Récollets, Paris (2013), MACBA (Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona) & L’appartement 22, Rabat, international residency (2014), Galveston Artists Residency, Texas (2014–15), Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, Paris (2016–17) and Thalie Art Foundation, Brussels (2017–18). Ndiritu took the radical decision in 2012 to only spend time in the city when necessary, and to otherwise live in rural, alternative and often spiritual communities. This was to expand her research into nomadic lifestyles and training in esoteric studies such as shamanism, which she began over 18 years ago. Her research so far has taken her to both Thai and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, permaculture communities in New Zealand, forest tree dwellers in Argentina, neo-tribal festivals such Burning Man in the Nevada desert, a Hare Krishna ashram and the Findhorn New Age community in Scotland. Her research into community life has so far resulted in the founding of The Ark: Center for Interdisciplinary Experimentation in 2017.

Karrabing Film Collective

Karrabing Film Collective (est. c 2010, Australia) is a grassroots Indigenous media group consisting of over 20 members. They approach filmmaking as a mode of selforganisation and a means of investigating contemporary social conditions of inequality. Screenings and publications allow the Karrabing to develop local artistic languages which allows audiences to understand new forms of collective Indigenous agency. Their films represent their lives, creates bonds with their land and enables them to intervene in global images of Indigeneity. Their films and installations have been exhibited at Contour Biennale, Mechelen, Belgium; Berlin International Film Festival Forum Expanded; Hallucinations, Athens at documenta 14; Sydney Biennale; vdrome.org; e-flux Supercommunity at the 56th Venice Biennale; Doc’s Kingdom, Lisbon; and Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, among others.

Banner Image: Andrea Zittel, Wagon Station Encampment, 2012. Courtesy of Andrea Zittel and Regen Projects, Los Angeles. Image: Courtesy of Lance Brewer