THE CUP OF WATER THAT GIVES ITSELF TO THIRST at Sans titre

« Last summer, while swimming in the sea, a jellyfish grabbed my right arm with her tentacles. She must have swum slowly towards me as the curious and intelligent creature I love to imagine she was. I didn’t notice her body rolling up my arm, brushing over my skin, and darting into my flesh. But I remember clearly that her bite abolished all sensations for a split second. The three rings of red swollen skin on my arm didn’t heal for weeks. For months, the poison would occasionally revive, reenacting the jellyfish’s killing ritual over and over. Almost a year later, the wounds are gone, but the prosthetic phantom limbs are the relics of her fierce existence. They also remind me that life involves contamination, as a form of helpful symbiosis among humans but also with other non-human entities. It’s an archive of relations.

The group exhibition THE CUP OF WATER THAT GIVES ITSELF TO THIRST proposes to look at a selection of art practices from the perspective of contamination. When challenging the assumption that contamination involves degradation while looking at it from a non-anthropocentric point of view, it provides an example of exchange and mutual transformation that may defy linear time and verbal communication. Contamination may be understood in this context as an exchange between two or more entities during which their ordinary status is challenged and destabilised. THE CUP OF WATER THAT GIVES ITSELF TO THIRST further proposes to reflect on the notion of contamination from an epistemological and relational perspective, particularly within the field of exhibition-making. It celebrates the mutual (conceptual, physical) contamination that is inevitably at play when images, objects, and participants share space and proposes to look at the group exhibition as a space of shared intimacy. »

Elise Lammer

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Elise Lammer (Lausanne, lives and works in Lausanne and Basel) is a curator, author and educator whose work engages with exhibition making, public programming, archiving and gardening. She is invested in questions related to the role of space (public, domestic) in defining the construction of identity. She is currently a PhD candidate doing research on Derek Jarman’s garden legacy within the fields of art, ecology and queer theory.

THE CUP OF WATER THAT GIVES ITSELF TO THIRST, 2023, exhibition view, Sans titre, Paris

THE CUP OF WATER THAT GIVES ITSELF TO THIRST, 2023, exhibition view, Sans titre, Paris

Liselor Perez, Big Cat, 2023, ceramic, glaze, cardboard, wood, 160 x 70 x 70 cm

Jacopo Belloni, Vinciola, 2023, silk leaves, alcohol aniline, rice starch, papier mâché, tailor-made wool men’s suits, cotton shirts, zentai lycra suits, bamboo socks, (…), 180 x 50 x 40 cm

Jacopo Belloni, Vinciola, 2023, silk leaves, alcohol aniline, rice starch, papier mâché, tailor-made wool men’s suits, cotton shirts, zentai lycra suits, bamboo socks, (…), 180 x 50 x 40 cm

THE CUP OF WATER THAT GIVES ITSELF TO THIRST, 2023, exhibition view, Sans titre, Paris

Ceylan Öztrük, Flat Dragon, 2019, medical silicone, cosmetic paint, 117 x 90 cm

Adrian Piper, Bach Whistled, 1970, performance soundtrack, 45′

Jessy Razafimandimby, Bath-Ology, 2023, acrylic on bed sheet, 74.5 x 135 cm

THE CUP OF WATER THAT GIVES ITSELF TO THIRST, 2023, exhibition view, Sans titre, Paris

Andreia Santana, Sea Spider, 2023, glass and chain mail, 197 x 52 x 7 cm

Andreia Santana, Sweaty Chains, 2022, water, glass and chain mail, 260 x 20 x 8 cm

Andreia Santana, Wet Toy, 2022, water, glass and chain mail, 256 x 35 x 7 cm

THE CUP OF WATER THAT GIVES ITSELF TO THIRST, 2023, exhibition view, Sans titre, Paris

Lou Masduraud, Mini Kiss (with many species), 2023, glazed ceramic, shells, Carrara marble, beach pebbles, 7 x 7 x 8 cm

THE CUP OF WATER THAT GIVES ITSELF TO THIRST, 2023, exhibition view, Sans titre, Paris

Ceylan Öztrük, Flat Dragon, 2019, medical silicone, cosmetic paint, 90 x 57 cm

Jacopo Belloni, Benandante, 2023, oxidised copper brazed with tin, silk, alcohol aniline, cotton yarn, dry wild fennel, extract of wild fennel, 100 x 35 x 20 cm

THE CUP OF WATER THAT GIVES ITSELF TO THIRST, 2023, exhibition view, Sans titre, Paris

Yuyan Wang, One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean, 2020, video HD, 11’30”, edition 3 of 5 + 2 AP

Yuyan Wang, One Thousand and One Attempts to Be an Ocean, 2020, video HD, 11’30”, edition 3 of 5 + 2 AP

Lou Masduraud, Kiss (without health insurance but an anti-speciesist approach of the mouth as an environment), 2023, glazed ceramic, pink marble, black marble, rocks, sea shells and sea-polished glass, 12 x 12 x 7 cm