The carousel spins, painted horses chasing dreams in a circle, where
the horizon folds into a never-ending now. We sit, grasping the reins
of our desires, as the calliope whispers in melodies only we can hear.
Beneath the canopy, shadows dance, and we chase the tails of our
ambitions, each turn a new world, each spin a tether to the real.
At the wishing well, pennies drop, silver dreams sinking into the abyss. We
peer over the edge, faces mirrored in ripples of what might be.
Whispers echo, soft as promises, and we cast our hopes into the depths, imagining
a world where wishes float back to us, granted in silence.
In the handbag’s depths, a space of secrets, maps to
hidden memories scrawled on scraps of yesterday. Keys, trinkets, a fragment of a song,
remnants of a self we carry, clutching our identities close, patchwork quilts
of past and potential.
Draped in the cloth of our fantasies, costumes of our becoming we stand
before mirrors, reflections of who we wish to be, tangled in the warp and
weft of now. In the fabric’s fold, a sigh against the skin, soft as hope,
strong as reality, woven into the everyday.
Here, where the carousel halts,
the well is dry, and bags lie open, we find our dreams are but shadows,
dancing on the walls of what is real.
– Connor McNicholas
Tenant of Culture is the artistic practice of Hendrickje Schimmel (b. 1990, Arnhem), who lives and works in London. The artist’s most recent solo exhibitions include IN SITU at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (2023); and the artist’s first UK institutional solo exhibition, Soft Acid, at Camden Art Centre, London (2022). Recent group exhibitions include Insides Out at Kunstverein Göttingen, Göttingen (2023); Beautiful Repair at Copenhagen Contemporary, Copenhagen (2023); Good Signal at Duarte Sequeira, Braga (2023); Piece(d) Work at Ivory Tars, Glasgow (2022); Post-digital Intimacy at the National Gallery Prague, Prague (2022); Eternally Yours at Somerset House, London (2022) and Testament at the Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, London (2022). The work of Tenant of Culture is in the collections of the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and The Pier Arts Centre, Orkney.
Jenine Marsh (b. 1984, Calgary AB Canada) uses sculpture and installation to explore themes of agency, mortality, and value. Marsh’s work has been exhibited at Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (2024); Prairie, Chicago (2024); Cooper Cole, Toronto (2023); Joe Project, Montreal (2023), Gianni Manhattan, Vienna (2023); Union Pacific, London (2023); Night Gallery, Los Angeles (2022); Essex Flowers, New York (2020); Franz Kaka, Toronto (2019); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2019), OSL Contemporary, Oslo (2019); Entrée Gallery (2018), and Lulu, Mexico City (2015). She has served as artist in residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts (2009, 2010, and 2022), at AiR Bergen at USF Verftet, Bergen (2018); and Rupert, Vilnius (2017).
Amy Stober (b. 1994, New Jersey) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Stober’s recent solo exhibitions include “Self Storage” at A.D. Gallery, New York, NY, and “Holding Patterns” at Springsteen Gallery, Baltimore, MD. Recent group exhibitions include “Mickey” at Mickey, Chicago, IL, “The Artificial Silk Girl” at Brunette Coleman, London, UK, “Elective Affinities” at Chapter NY, New York, NY, “Sinkhole Project is Presenting” at Mickey Gallery, Chicago, IL, “May My Fiction Rule” at Chris Andrews (formerly Tilling), Montreal QC, and “Electric Affinities” at T293 Gallery, Rome, IT.
Bri Williams (b. 1993, Long Beach, California) lives and works in Oakland, CA. Williams received their BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2015 and MFA from Mills College in 2017. Recent solo exhibitions include “Out”, Progetto, Lecce, Italy; a two-person exhibition at Simian, Copenhagen, Denmark; ‘Mock Serenade’, Dvir Gallery, Paris, France; ‘Angel Abra’, Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland; ‘The Ghost in Me’, Murmurs, Los Angeles, CA, USA; among others. Recent group exhibitions include CAPC musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux, France; Kunstforum Baloise, Basel, Switzerland; Del Caz Projects, Santa Monica, CA, USA; Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Vienna, Austria; Essex Street Gallery, New York, NY; Baloise Park Art Forum, Basel, Switzerland; Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA; CCS Bard Hessel Museum, New York. Williams has been featured in articles for Art Viewer, Frieze Magazine, and Artillery Magazine.
