Artist: Sharona Franklin
Exhibition title: Axioms of Care
Organized by: LambdaLambdaLambda
Venue: LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, Belgium
Date: September 9 – October 16, 2021
Photography: Isabelle Arthuis / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist, LambdaLambdaLambda and LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS
Axioms of Care is the first solo exhibition of Canadian artist Sharona Franklin in Europe. The exhibition is curated by Laura Stellacci at La Maison de Rendez-Vous for LambdaLambdaLamb-da. In addressing notions of care, ableism, neuroethics and precarity within the semi-domes-tic space of the gallery, Axioms of Care illuminates the psychedelic experience of disability. Highlighting aspects of hallucinogenic perceptions of time and duration induced by medication and pharmaceuticals while centering tactility as a healing method, Sharona Franklin uses the consciousness-expanding qualities of psychedelia in the performance of daily life rituals.
In her work, Franklin enacts a radical acceptance of her bio-citizenship. Her sculptural, photo-graphic and textile works paired with her expansive approach to writing, typography and design meditate on 23 years of being a patient of bio-pharmaceutical and transgenic treatments for degenerative disease. Through a reclaiming of disability-narratives, she questions the power of educational systems, bureaucracies and biopharmaceutical industries over the bodies they sustain and nurture. From the perspective of her lived experience, she considers the inherent ambivalence of these systems and the ways in which their mechanisms operate — their healing effects, their side effects and the harm they produce.
Connecting the mind-body complex, childhood PTSD, and chronic childhood disease, Franklin’s Drosophila Clocks point to the notion of crip time and pharmaceutical impacts on circadian rhythms. Time, for people living with degenerative diseases and disabilities, often takes on a psychedelic quality. 12 silver heritage spoons encrusted with pharmaceutical pills and miniature photographs on their handles, evoke clocks or compasses. The images are part of Franklin’s series New Psychedelia of Industrial Healing. Prior to injecting her antibodies, and as a daily ritual, Franklin sets up a “live cell altar” where she photographs the syringe in assemblages of props and objects that embrace the medical necessity, interjecting tensions between the domes-tic and the techno-scientific. The syringe is photographed within a 10-20 minute span, as the antibodies are required to be between 2-8 degrees to maintain efficacy.
Pharmaceutical treatments and medical systems typically carry clinical and dehumanising implications, while affecting and existing within the bodies and homes of people with disabilities. By affirming the personal empowerment of the medical experience, Franklin’s work is an act of self-submission to continuous change and transience.
Complicating the relations between different approaches to healing methodologies by intertwining psychedelic and plant-based medicine with the pharmaco-industrial complex, Franklin’s bioshrine sculptures are dehydrated gelatin suspensions of pills, syringes, metal hardware and medicinal flowers that embody the tensions and contradictions of bio-pharmaceutical care. The installation of bile green tufted wall pieces interweaves the topics of prenatal eugenics, biopharma and the antivax movement — at what costs will parents avoid caring for a disabled child? How can we better embrace and value the lives of children living with disabilities? What messages of encouragement or equality are we sending to kids with lifelong conditions?
For Franklin, psychedelia is total immersion. An entire biocybernetic rewiring of how information circulates and is metabolised. In the wake of a global pandemic, the need for a shared awareness of our vulnerabilities and our interdependencies is more pressing than ever to counter the prevailing capitalist understandings of resilience, wellness and self-care. This exhibition proposes ways of harnessing our own neuroplasticity by fostering a deeper understanding of how we interconnect chemically, physically and spiritually.
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021. Sharona Franklin ; If it ain’t Careful, 2021 ; 100% new zealand wool ; 1 rug: 85 x 300 cm, 4 rugs: 85 x 110 cm, 2 rugs: 85 x 37 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021. Sharona Franklin ; If it ain’t Careful, 2021 ; 100% new zealand wool ; 1 rug: 85 x 300 cm, 4 rugs: 85 x 110 cm, 2 rugs: 85 x 37 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021. Sharona Franklin ; Drosophila Clock Y, 2021 ; Silver, brass, aluminium, mixed metal, expired pharmaceuticals, wood, foraged bone, antler, photographs enamel ; 50 x 50 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021. Sharona Franklin ; Drosophila Clock Y, 2021 ; Silver, brass, aluminium, mixed metal, expired pharmaceuticals, wood, foraged bone, antler, photographs enamel ; 50 x 50 cm
Sharona Franklin ; Drosophila Clock Y, 2021 ; Silver, brass, aluminium, mixed metal, expired pharmaceuticals, wood, foraged bone, antler, photographs enamel ; 50 x 50 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021. Sharona Franklin ; Drosophila Clock X, 2021 ; Silver, brass, aluminium, mixed metal, expired pharmaceuticals, wood, foraged bone, antler, photographs enamel ; 50 x 50 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021. Sharona Franklin ; Drosophila Clock X, 2021 ; Silver, brass, aluminium, mixed metal, expired pharmaceuticals, wood, foraged bone, antler, photographs enamel ; 50 x 50 cm
Sharona Franklin ; Drosophila Clock X, 2021 ; Silver, brass, aluminium, mixed metal, expired pharmaceuticals, wood, foraged bone, antler, photographs enamel ; 50 x 50 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021. Sharona Franklin ; If it ain’t Careful, 2021 ; 100% new zealand wool ; 1 rug : 85 x 300 cm, 4 rugs : 85 x 110 cm, 2 rugs, 85 x 37 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021. Sharona Franklin ; If it ain’t Careful, 2021 ; 100% new zealand wool ; 1 rug : 85 x 300 cm, 4 rugs : 85 x 110 cm, 2 rugs, 85 x 37 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021. Sharona Franklin, Tenuous Support, 2021 ; Gelatin, wool, metal, rubber, epoxy, expired pharmaceuticals, tapioca, mixed botanicals, camomile, beach glass, pansies, gelatin capsules, interleukin inhibitor antibody syringe, IV-port tubing, plastic ; 100 x 30 x 20 cm
Sharona Franklin, Tenuous Support, 2021 ; Gelatin, wool, metal, rubber, epoxy, expired pharmaceuticals, tapioca, mixed botanicals, camomile, beach glass, pansies, gelatin capsules, interleukin inhibitor antibody syringe, IV-port tubing, plastic ; 100 x 30 x 20 cm
Sharona Franklin, Tenuous Support, 2021 ; Gelatin, wool, metal, rubber, epoxy, expired pharmaceuticals, tapioca, mixed botanicals, camomile, beach glass, pansies, gelatin capsules, interleukin inhibitor antibody syringe, IV-port tubing, plastic ; 100 x 30 x 20 cm
Sharona Franklin, Tenuous Support, 2021 ; Gelatin, wool, metal, rubber, epoxy, expired pharmaceuticals, tapioca, mixed botanicals, camomile, beach glass, pansies, gelatin capsules, interleukin inhibitor antibody syringe, IV-port tubing, plastic ; 100 x 30 x 20 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021
Sharona Franklin ; Bone Dust Commode, 2021 ; Gelatin, chair, sunflowers, tapioca, camomile, mixed botanicals, mixed metal hardware, expired pharmaceuticals, IV port/tubing, interleukin inhibitor antibody syringe, beach glass, metal alloy, wood ; 85 × 60 × 50 cm
Sharona Franklin ; Bone Dust Commode, 2021 ; Gelatin, chair, sunflowers, tapioca, camomile, mixed botanicals, mixed metal hardware, expired pharmaceuticals, IV port/tubing, interleukin inhibitor antibody syringe, beach glass, metal alloy, wood ; 85 × 60 × 50 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021
Sharona Franklin ; Inflammatory Aesculapian Comb, 2021 ; Plastic, comb, straw, foraged animal bone, expired pharmaceuticals, brass, wool, mulberries, sweetgrass, interleukin inhibitor anto-body syringe, gelatin, dried botanicals ; 37 × 20 × 5 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021
Sharona Franklin, Inflammatory Aesculapian Knife and Spoon, 2021 ; Gelatin, metal ergonomic knife and spoon, metal hardware, mixed botanicals, kava kava, IV port, surgical tubing, plastic ; knife : 16 x 10 x 4 cm ; spoon : 21 × 9 × 4 cm
Sharona Franklin, Inflammatory Aesculapian Knife, 2021 ; Gelatin, metal ergonomic knife, metal hardware, mixed botanicals, surgical tubing, plastic ; 16 x 10 x 4 cm
Sharona Franklin ; Inflammatory Aesculapian Spoon, 2021 ; Gelatin, metal ergonomic spoon, metal hardware, mixed botanicals, kava kava, IV port, plastic ; 21 × 9 × 4 cm
Sharona Franklin, Inflammatory Aesculapian Fork, 2021 ; Metal alloys, expired diclofenac phar-maceutical, medical tape, foraged animal bone, paint, yarn ; 28 × 17 × 3 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021
Sharona Franklin, Alms Basket, 2021 ; Gelatin, wicker basket, tapioca pearls, kava kava cap-sules, yellow violets, empty gelatin capsules ; 28 x 30 x 9 cm
Sharona Franklin, Loris Trail Summer, 2020 ; Gelatin, loris alcohol swabs, poppy, expired in-terleukin pharmaceuticals, interleukin inhibitor antibody syringe, mixed botanicals ; 10 × 10 × 2 cm, 11 x 11 x 3 cm, 17 x 8 x 2,5 cm
Sharona Franklin ; Loris Trail Summer, 2020 ; Gelatin, loris alcohol swabs, poppy, expired in-terleukin pharmaceuticals, interleukin inhibitor antibody syringe, mixed botanicals ; 10 × 10 × 2 cm, 11 x 11 x 3 cm, 17 x 8 x 2,5 cm
Sharona Franklin ; Loris Trail Summer, 2020 ; Gelatin, loris alcohol swabs, poppy, expired in-terleukin pharmaceuticals, interleukin inhibitor antibody syringe, mixed botanicals ; 10 × 10 × 2 cm, 11 x 11 x 3 cm, 17 x 8 x 2,5 cm
Sharona Franklin ; Loris Trail Summer, 2020 ; Gelatin, loris alcohol swabs, poppy, expired in-terleukin pharmaceuticals, interleukin inhibitor antibody syringe, mixed botanicals ; 10 × 10 × 2 cm, 11 x 11 x 3 cm, 17 x 8 x 2,5 cm
Exhibition view, Sharona Franklin, Axioms of Care, LA MAISON DE RENDEZ-VOUS, Brussels, 2021
Sharona Franklin ; Akashic Egg, 2021 ; Ceramic dish, metal hardware, juniper berries, tapioca, mixed botanicals, expired pharmaceuticals, gelatin ; 20 x 13 x 5 cm
Sharona Franklin ; Mitochondrial Somat, 2020 ; Mulberries, kidney beans, tapioca pearls, metal nuts, chamomile, biopharma syringe (interleukin inhibitor), neurological pharmaceuticals, wild grasses, botanicals and bandages tape ; 18 x 15 x 11 cm
Sharona Franklin ; Mitochondrial Somat, 2020 ; Mulberries, kidney beans, tapioca pearls, metal nuts, chamomile, biopharma syringe (interleukin inhibitor), neurological pharmaceuticals, wild grasses, botanicals and bandages tape ; 18 x 15 x 11 cm
