gentian rhosa – Studio Residency – January 2025

January 13, 2025 10:07 am
Photo of a grey/brown concrete floor with 4 separate piles of A4 sheets alongside single flowers and tea light candles in a circle that surround A4 sheets of white paper pasted together that read “we shake with joy, we shake with grief, what a time they have these two, housed as they are in the same body”

We are excited to announce the artist taking part on the Caregivers Studio Residency in January 2025 is gentian rhosa.

gentian rhosa is an artist and writer working with sound, text and performance. Their practice takes shape through public text, publications, sound installation, radio, performance and video. Rooted in personal experiences of loss, their long-term interests include death, absence, grief and psychology. Recently, their exploration of these themes has extended into broader socio-political concerns such as public mourning, climate collapse and the privatisation of grief — considering where death, grief and emotional life rub up against culture, capitalism and history.

During their residency, gentian will delve into ideas of ‘decomposition’ through text and sound. This exploration will consider decomposition both as a description of the process of decay and as a framework to resist capitalism’s endless acceleration. What does it mean to allow things to rot and disintegrate, rather than preserve them? How do we distinguish between living matter and dead matter? Do decomposing things cease to be things, or do they transform to become part of everything else? Capitalist systems impose fixity in time and language — could a new language rooted in decomposition resist the fixed form?

Photo of a large dark mossy tree in the foreground to the left in front of white buildings in the background, to the right of the tree is a figure sitting on the floor surrounded by orange autumnal leaves and a group of 13 people standing and listening. Two people bend down to put tea lights at the foot of the tree.
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