Adelita Husni-Bey

Adelita Husni-Bey’s reflective installation, Encounters on Pain is a sculptural installation that addresses how capitalist imperatives condition individual subjects to perform unsustainably, and how the ideological demand of individual success depoliticises pain, pushing bodies to their literal breaking points.

The installation is the result of performative encounters, individual sessions with participants, in which they lay on a therapy bed lined with medical paper. The sessions begin by examining where the body “hurts,” using a performative score based on a standard medical questionnaire but devised to elicit responses that associate physical pain with the labour, emotional stress and political conditions that affect it.

Through dialogue and annotations taken directly on the medical paper, participants begin to create a thread between how physical pain manifests in their bodies and how they have been conditioned to treat them under the current socio-economic regime. The work is composed of an ever-expanding archive of locations where the performative encounters take place and are then displayed. Participants have the option of displaying or destroying the result of the session.

Interested attendees are invited to secure a spot by contacting My Art Guides Venice Meeting Point reception—book early—spots are limited). Each session spans roughly 20 minutes, with the artist hosting three one-on-one encounters on specific days. The encounters are delivered in English or Italian; specify your language preference upon booking.


10AM-12PM
April 16_18