The exhibition highlights the limits of digital togetherness, and the loneliness that can arise when virtual experiences and spaces suddenly replace in-person contact and shared physical experience. The telematic tools that mediate this online togetherness, which are rarely noticed or placed centre stage, occasionally shine through the works.

The work by Ale Hop was conceived in a context of immobility, and imagines an hallucinatory journey along the vast South American territories. Through sound and visual vignettes created in collaboration with thirteen musicians around the world, as well as with the artist Moises Horta who used an AI tool to »translate« and »mis-translate« speech into image, creating non-identical temporalities and points of vistas.

Choreographer Dana Gingras / Animals of Distinction’s six-part video series was created as a response to an unpredictable and sudden end to international touring during our pandemic. The goal was to bring dancers, video artists, and musicians out of an enforced isolation and to offer a fresh, vibrant and spontaneous meeting ground for unpredictable encounters and connections between international artists.

Throughout the pandemic, Hugo Esquinca felt catapulted in a sort of catatonia that he attempts to relay through his experiential sonic work.

Ibrahim Quraishi takes us on a sonic and visual journey to the abysmal voids that result from losing common ground in moments of tragedy and flux. Involving a multitude of collaborators and voices, he points to the dangers of lack of connection, ruptured ties, or total lack of contact.

Finally, two works by Ali Eslami and Mamali Shafahi provide a counterpoint. Conceived in pre-pandemic times, the works sourced Instagram as an archive to explore social media as an ephemeral phenomenon that influences our contemporary digital culture and visual / aesthetic expressions. Seen in the pandemic context, where reliance on these platforms as means of connection and expression increased, they take on a new meaning.

The limited (and likely technologically-mediated) contact that we had, as well as the contact that we missed having, impacts our lives as cultural workers, artists, producers, and art lovers. The works within this exhibition all strive for contact in their own ways, resulting in intimate and touching revelations. Each offers a durational experience that traces the trajectories and time needed to adapt to our drastically altered and still-changing pandemic way of life.