HOLDING WHAT CAN'T BE HELD
October 28 - December 16, 2023

Tim Andreae, Laurie Blakeslee, Beatrice Brailsford, Clara J:son Borg, Jenna Didier, Pato Hebert, Kate Walker

OPENING RECEPTION & 'DISASTER KARAOKE' Saturday, October 28th, 6PM
'DEATH MASK' WORKSHOP Saturday, November 11, 12-2PM
CLOSING EVENT & READING Saturday, December 16th, 6PM

Since 2014 The Feeling Body has been bringing artists into dialogue with the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and its radioactive “clean-up” sites - land once occupied by the Shoshone and Bannock peoples, where plutonium-contaminated waste remains buried directly above the Snake River Aquifer. This year’s project, Holding What Can’t Be Held 2023, began in the spring of 2022, with a tour of the INL’s new reactor development program. Artists will share work inspired by the site, its contaminated ground, and its compulsive striving to vindicate the industry by way of creating a technological Holy Grail, even though every new design runs up against the same problems – their exorbitant expense, their dependence on large amounts of water, and the fact that no one knows what to do with the waste – a substance whose toxicity extends beyond the reach of linear thought, outlasting any container we could manufacture and any symbol we might create.

WORKSHOP Death Mask
Saturday, November 11, 12-2PM
Lead by Tim Andreae
Please Sign-Up, 14 Participants Max

In conjunction with the group exhibition HOLDING WHAT CAN'T BE HELD, the workshop “Death Mask” will be lead by artist Tim Andreae; participants will use clay to form their own death mask. The masks will become part of the exhibition for the run of the show.

Death Mask is a workshop that brings us into intimacy with our face when we die. It is body-centered, soulful work that asks us to drop into our mortality in a felt-sense way. We will begin with a brief discussion followed by silent contemplation. Then, blindfolded, we will use clay and water to feel into the unknown. When your mask is complete you take off the blindfold and return to silent sitting until everyone is finished. The completed masks will become part of the Holding What Can't Held exhibition. On the closing of the exhibition participants can either take their masks home, or you will have the option to ritually shatter your death mask. 

I first encountered a workshop like this one at the Zen Center of NYC and then many years ago, led my own version of it. Holding What Can't Be Held is an ongoing project that explores the site of the INL and the extreme longevity of the radioactive waste buried above our aquifer, the idea being that these extremely long-lived materials are shadow substances that emerge out of our collective drive to bypass the death-part of the life cycle. To view past incarnations of Holding What Can't Be Held visit thefeelingbody.org. - Tim Andreae

DISASTER KARAOKE
Kate Walker
Saturday, October 28, 8-9PM

Get your glow on for “Disaster Karaoke”, a satirical participatory performance and karaoke event, with songs from recent decades about political and social crises. Come sing about disaster, nuclear anxiety, political apocalypse and imagined utopias!

This is a tongue in cheek project that aims to provoke conversation about current thoughts, fears, actions and imaginings of dystopia/ utopia through karaoke performance. Accompanied by a video backdrop mixing nuclear energy instructional video, archival propaganda ads, music videos and storm reporting footage, “Disaster Karaoke” presents a strange blend of joyous anxiety.Recreating a typical karaoke event, curated set lists are available in binders for song requests. The set list includes over ninety "disaster themed" songs such as Prince’s “1999” (1982), Tom Wait’s “The Earth Died Screaming” (1992), Janelle Monae’s “Screwed” (2018) and Lady Gaga’s “Rain on Me” (2020).

Disaster Karaoke is a project by artist Kate Walker. The event will be featured during the opening reception of the group exhibition HOLDING WHAT CAN'T BE HELD on Saturday, October 28, 6-10PM.