EX­hi­Bi­tion

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

Over the course of running Multiple Spirits, we have come to see curation as an extension of our editorial work. Exhibitions naturally assume the character of an embodied form of publishing for us, as though the pages of our zine are unfolding in space.

Our editorial work is driven by a shared interest in weaving together manifold words, voices, and practices and observing how new connections emerge and give rise to yet more words and practices as our publications pass from one set of hands to another. In recent years we have become especially drawn to the ways that forms of receptivity—like the unexpected (or, perhaps, inevitable) encounters and experiences that shake and transform us—ripple affectively among different communities, generating offshoots through resonance and entanglement. At times accompanied by a sense of discomfort, these phenomena crawl along the ground, cling together, and entwine as they unfurl and scatter in countless directions; they begin to evoke a vine that reveals itself in its spreading. Such nonlinear forms of connection have an anarchic quality, deviating from and resisting totalitarian systems, existing normative structures, and rationalism.

With “Patchwork of Ruffled Wings,” we want to experiment with imagining how the cultures that have shaped us—spanning fields such as girls’ culture, queer culture, artistic movements, underground culture, and social movements—might connect and intersect in unexpected ways. In doing so, we explore how to hold them together as a jumbled, generative assemblage in relation to contemporary art practices, thinking through the modes of circulation for printed matter, such as zines and posters, as well as messages carried by and on flags, tapestries, and other textiles.

—Multiple Spirits