THE NEW SUBJECT

  • Anastasia Alekhina, The Critisism of Violence 2.0, 2021
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470">About project
О проекте : 

The New Subject is a series of four interconnected exhibitions and accompanying public events about the evolving challenges of the body in connection to global biopolitics and technological developments, focusing on the legal, somatic and cognitive dimensions. Initiated by TOK Curators, the project is a two-year collaboration between the curatorial duo and four European art institutions: Konsthall C (Sweden), Kunsthal NORD (Denmark), Oksasenkatu 11 (Finland), and KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art (Germany). Each participating venue will feature an exhibition co-curated by TOK and local curator(s), addressing global body-related problematics while also acknowledging the specific contexts and challenges of the local communities. 

Drawing on the ideas of Achille Mbembe, who argues that today’s societies of control rely on the "manufacture of a new subject that is at once a physiological assemblage, a synthetic and electronic assemblage, and a neuro-biological assemblage," the project aims to decode and expose the repressive and manipulative mechanisms incorporated into various constituents of the contemporary state. By examining the body as a contested site for ideological and political power games, the exhibition series also aims to explore potential modes of existence that defy the coercive machinations of state engineering.

Under the umbrella title The New Subject, the four exhibitions will investigate how new medical technologies and biological enhancements impact our bodies and mind and the ways in which governments use policies to control and instrumentalize them. The project also explores how posthuman and post-anthropomorphic discourse is shaping our understanding of the body and its possibilities to navigate the world and the self more consciously.

The first exhibition, “Mutating Rights and Conditions of Living Bodies”, at Konsthall C responds to the notion of a sovereign body treated as disposable by corporations and governments. Through various artistic mediums the exhibition explores the ways in which power structures and state apparatuses impact the body, employing legislation as a tool for control, often leading to the violation of  rights and freedoms. By highlighting instances of violence and suppression carried out under the guise of legal frameworks, the exhibition challenges viewers to question the ethical and moral dimensions of such practices.  The artists look closely at how bodies are used as resources in the context of wars and technological/military/medical experiments, which often results in the exploitation and mistreatment of certain groups of people.