Like everything alive that we try to hold forever brings the work of seven artists together to reflect on ways that our human bodies exist in relation to non-human objects. These relationships are complex and interconnected, showing us how the systematic collection, consumption, and contextualization of objects impacts our understanding of self and others.
Through photography, sculpture, and video, the artworks in Like everything alive that we try to hold forever start to navigate the many issues that come with being human. Some artists conduct their exploration from an internal perspective, studying issues of identity, likeness, and self-authorship. Others reckon with the role of imposed knowledge systems in defining what is (and isn’t) human, addressing the biases and harms that are often entrenched within systems and collections under the guise of neutrality. By drawing parallels between the legacy of archaeology, colonialism, the potential of AI, digital technologies, and the ever-blurring line between the self and the other, Like everything alive that we try to hold forever seeks to thread the complex reality of the human experience.
Originally presented in 2023 at Esker Foundation in Calgary, Canada, and produced as a traveling exhibition by ICI, the exhibition will engage with each hosting art space through artworks that access the limits of human experience, push against it, or gesture toward a transhuman future.
