… but what if the real harvest was the memes we made along the way? Looking Back at d15 through Memes
Abstract:
While the ubiquity of memes did not stop at the fifteenth documenta, this was welcomed by ruangrupa. Among other things, they were officially exhibited alongside drawings, photos, sketches, and other visual documents as Harvest – that is, as the creative products of recording shared encounters. Memes were also produced by and shared between the art mediators, often serving as a means for sharing and reflecting upon their own work with one another. This text takes these memes as the starting point for a reflection on the exhibition. It asks what function memes should serve in the work of the mediators, and how they were affected by them – both by their content, as a form of authentic commentary, and as a collective practice divided up between groups. In doing so, it also discusses the tension between transparency and (self-)protection that comes with recording shared experiences (as art mediators) in the form of memes; the attempted appropriation of subversive practices; and the question of what ultimately does or does not end up in the documenta Archive. Finally, it also deals with work on care and relationships, as part of an expanded form of collective mediation.
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