The Hybrid Guest

16 Oct-3 Dec 2020

Overview

The duo exhibition questions perceptions of the female identity within the context of contemporary Western society by setting side by side the practices of Filipino-born artists Rhine Bernardino and Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen. Originating from a visceral necessity to manifest their presence in space, an urgency to ‘be seen’ beyond their singularity – both practices exist within the realm of the displaced and the in-between. As immigrants residing respectively in Copenhagen (Cuenca Rasmussen) and London (Bernardino), they articulate the political through the body and its manifestations. Endurance, repetition, struggle and participation is what connects both practices, primarily originating from a performative stance later developing into a multimedia body of works encompassing photography, sculpture, installation, video and sound. Both interested in human behaviours and the condition of the self versus an other, the chimerical works of Bernardino and Cuenca Rasmussen are often uncannily interfering with notions of feminisation, ultimately seducing and repelling. The tensions between the representation of clichés, taboos, accepted stereotypes and mysticism, define the exhibition’s dynamics. The Hybrid Guest is the accidental visitor, a chance comer, a suspicious stranger. It is both the artists themselves and the visitor that are prompted into an ambiguous environment wherein the works’ potential is hidden within their layers of experience. Works on display include: Regla Series (Bernardino, 2016-2017) and Blood Flags (Cuenca Rasmussen, 2014). In the basement, the on-going work Territorial Pissing (Bernardino, 2020 -) and Tow with the flow (Cuenca Rasmussen, 2018 -), an installation and a film by Cuenca Rasmussen engaging students from New York and Copenhagen in a collective participatory process. Mobile Mirrors (Cuenca Rasmussen, 2010 -) will also be performed live on the Opening Night and exist as a sculptural piece throughout the duration of the exhibition.