CREDITS
Directing | Editing | Vika Kirchenbauer
Performers | Laurie Young, Mmakgosi Kgabi, Olympia Bukkakis, Leah Marojević, Lauren John Joseph
Cinematography | Rita Macedo
Sound Recording | Re-recording mix| Azadeh Zandieh
Costume | Jay Barry Matthews
Costume Assistant | Alexis Mersmann
Make-up | Styling | Sarah Hartgens
Artistic | Research Adviser | Judith Sieber
Film Stills | all rights reserved Rita Macedo
‘COMPASSION AND INCONVENIENCE looks at the first public exhibitions of contemporary art in mid-18th century London, as well as the episodes and circumstances leading up to them. Based on meticulous archival research, the work traces prevailing conceptions of art to their ideological and material interconnectedness with ideas from Liberalism and the Scottish Enlightenment as well as with British colonialism. An oft-overlooked care facility for “deserted young children” is set as the genesis for the establishment of European art institutions, in which private economic and colonial interests intersect with notions of benevolence and the pursuit of refinement. Accompanying conflicts and discourses show how a rhetoric of democratisation along with simultaneous efforts at class distinction marked the art field from early on. The work reconstructs, for example, how artists at the time invented the exhibition entry fee to shut out those who, in their eyes, lacked the ability to judge art. In doing so, it implicitly raises questions not only about the continuities of institutionalised exclusions and forms of violence, but also about the ways in which artists’ self-conceptions are enmeshed in them.’ (https://www.vk0ms.com/compassion_and_inconvenience.html)
