Faculty of Art

Criticism and Curatorial Practice

McKenna Gray

bio/power

Coined by Michel Foucault, biopower is a force which voluntarily operates as a desire for acceptance. This internal pressure informs the routines one’s body undertakes in the chase for approval. In an attempt to avoid feeling shame in one’s difference, commonality is mistaken for community, as one adapts their routines and subsequent values to those of the perceived many. Self-discipline – even in unmonitored space – is an extension of the institutional gaze. While one knows the value is widely apparent, the extent of its practice remains unknowable. In bio/power, artists consider how one can understand access to the self as an individual instead of algorithm. Investigating the implicit understandings of sexuality, hygiene, and conduct, the artists examine our complicity in our own oppression.

“Artists: Amanda/Almond Lindenbach, Stephanie Ligeti, Eija Loponen-Stephenson, Kelly O'Neill, Sophia Oppel.”