Artistic practices are a long-held tool to break the language barriers and communication obstacles with one another as well as within ourselves. Participatory art and co-creation have a long history of bringing together communities and helping them to openly speak about the issues, look for solutions, perform healing rituals or even address authorities and make tangible changes. In this spirit, the exhibition Outskirts of Care, organized in relation to Mental Health Awareness Month, will depart from institutional settings and explore the supporting activities performed within the community instead.

The exhibition presents two works—a participatory project, Fanonian Quilts, by artist and curator Frida Robles and a composition of three artworks, Whispers of living in a collapsing world, Magical World Globe, and Breathing Manuscripts for Peace, by artist-theorist Nisrine Boukhari.

Centered around the teaching of the revolutionary thinker, militant and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, Robles's Fanonian Quilts brought together Vienna-based individuals affected by racism who shared time and space in weekly sessions in the past three months, stitching together an open-ended quilt while listening to fragments of Fanon's books with the aim to create a space of togetherness without the need of communicating in a performative way with the quilt itself serving as a canvas for sharing ideas and imagery within the group.

While Fanonian Quilts were co-created with a group of participants (Joy Apata, Jasmin Behnawa, ujjwal kanishka utkarsh, Oscar Cueto, Vrishali Purandare, Ritchie Nuryanto Traag and others) before the exhibition, Boukhari's work requires from the audience an active spectatorship. The Whispers of living in a collapsing world offers not only the artist's strategies for maintaining hope and sanity when faced with the crumbling world but also contains multitudes of interpretations and hidden riddles, inviting the audience to revisit and rethink the meaning of presented writings.

Expanding the topic of community care through the public program, Lia García (La Novia Sirena) will present an iteration of her long-term project that explores identity and trauma through healing rituals and community engagement through a lecture called When the bullets took another course. The pedagogy of radical tenderness in contexts of war and a pedagogical workshop called Small pedagogical and artistic toolbox to heal the heart and Engy Mohsen will take us into the realm of falling in (and out) of love through a series of intimate encounters during the workshop Yourself, Other/s, and Other Other/s.

Outskirts of Care—the title referring to the distant, overlooked and inferior position of community strategies within the Western medical system—aims to contribute to the discussion concerning the redefinition and understanding of mental health problems by acknowledging the social, historical and political influences on our well-being as well as the power of community care instead of reducing it to an individual's issues caused by chemical imbalance treated primarily in an institutional setting.

HANDOUT

Public program

May 4, 1–4 PM
Yourself, Other/s, and Other Other/s - Workshop by Engy Mohsen (from How to Love Many in Many Ways)
How to Love Many in Many Ways is a selection of three exercises that one can perform and interact with to enact the feeling of falling in love—and possibly, out of love. The game involves physical touch, movement, and relaxation. The three chosen variations offer the players an intimate encounter to get to know themselves, other/s, and other other/s!

The number of participants is limited and registration is required. Please secure your spot by writing an email to barbora@improperwalls.com

May 8, 6 PM
Reading Circle with Frida Robles
To receive the text we will discuss during the event, please write an email to barbora@improperwalls.com

May 31
May 29, 6–8 PM
When the bullets took another course. The pedagogy of radical tenderness in contexts of war - lecture by Lia García (La Novia Sirena)

June 1
May 31, 5–7 PM
Small pedagogical and artistic toolbox to heal the heart - pedagogical workshop by Lia García (La Novia Sirena)

Nisrine Boukhari is an artist-theorist who lives between Vienna and Stockholm. In her art-based research projects, she uses language to invoke a distinctive mind's energy on discovering a new terrain of the imagination implicating the body and the mind in an immersive poetic and sensorial experience by using conceptual writing, fragmentation, and deconstructed narrative. She is a PhD candidate at the Artistic Research Department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Frida Robles is an artist and curator. Her artistic practice has varied from public art installations to performances to textual work. Her most recent performance, "Sessions with Frida. A performance on the possibilities of healing," was constructed around a psychoanalysis session on stage. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and currently teaches at the Theater, Film and Media Studies at the Vienna University.

Lia García (La Novia Sirena) was born in Mexico City, where she currently lives. She is a feminist apprentice, pedagogue, and performance artist. Her artistic projects have focused on weaving effective bridges between her own trans* experience and Mexico's social context. She has performed by occupying public space in multiple routes and wanderings.

Engy Mohsen Sarhan is an artist and curator who lives and works between Zürich and Cairo. In her work, she examines notions of ‘participation’ and ‘collectivity’ by creating frameworks that invite non-artists and artists to think about how spaces can be organized to include the ‘other’. While spatial thinking remains at the core of her interdisciplinary practice, she works—solo and collaboratively—with publishing as a central structure and conversation as a primary medium.