Site-specific installation at Kunsthal Aarhus, 300x370x700 cm.
The Sling is a space of study held by its participants. It is a curved space, a holding space, a carrying space. A sling to hold and support what might otherwise break. It is a simple support structure of rope and fabric that is held in suspension by the hand of one to eight people. Entering the space is taking the risk that it might all fall down. At any moment we can let it go, release the tension, undo the curve. We will have to agree on how to hold space for each other.
The Sling is mainly meant to be used for critique classes. This is one of the essential elements of arts education. This is where we share our work with each other and subject our doing to judgement. It is where we learn how to talk about art, how to analyse it, fight for it, understand it through the eyes and ears of others. It is a tense and vulnerable space. It is also an arena where many of the struggles for the definition of what art is, and can be, plays out; for the right to artistic freedom, for complex and nuanced work, for work that holds resistance and opacity, for experimentation and failure.
The Sling was first installed at Kunsthal Aarhus in September 2020 for the exhibition Den uvidende lærer, curated by Mikkel Elming.