Community Hospital

Groupshow, curated by Zane Mellupe, WhyWhyArt center, Shanghai, China, September 6 - October 10 2015.

WhyWhy Art is an art project initiated by curator and artist Zane Mellupe, based in Shanghai, China. WhyWhy Art's mission is to develop and expose exciting new art and creativity. We support international artists and creatives across all mediums through exhibitions, installations, and other collaborative ventures. We aim to raise their profiles and generate exposure in China’s rapidly growing arts and creative sector and provide them with valuable opportunities to collaborate and network with artists and professionals from the local creative scene. Our scope questions the limits of art and includes but is not restricted to, photography, painting, sculpture, performance art, cinematography, music, literature, illustration, design, new media, electronic and digital arts, coding, game design and more.

‘Community Hospital’ was a group exhibition in a former Chinese medical clinic space situated in a previous-era colonial house. This was the opening exhibition organised byWhyWhyArt in an exciting new art space, Art Yu Yuan Lu.

The participating international and local artists exhibited works that reflected on philosophical, personal and social issues. Where art raises awareness, can be cathartic or of any other use, or is even the cause. Using Community Hospital as a place where “Matters” can be explored, sated, defined, and maybe even cured. The cross medium artworks exhibited each picture a certain problem, for some of the artworks this will be their first preview.

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Susanne Junker's participation at community hospital included new works such as “le repas (m) de la fertilité (f)” (the fertility meal) and 365.

Artist Statement:

For ‘Community Hospital’, Susanne Junker is presenting new autobiographic works about fertility, pregnancy and the change of a female body after birthing a child.

“le repas (m) de la fertilité (f)” (the fertility meal) is an approach to raise awareness to subject matters like: prenatal sex selection, preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and female foetus abortion. “Where are all the girls?” is an ongoing question in China and other traditionally influenced places and is best described in the ancient “Book of Songs” (1000-700 B.C.):

“When a son is born, Let him sleep on the bed, Clothe him with fine clothes, And give him jade to play…

When a daughter is born, Let her sleep on the ground, Wrap her in common wrappings, And give broken tiles to play…”

Using herself as author and subject in previous series of photographic works where Junker embraced themes of gender identification, the objectivisation of women and the use of feminine sexuality in media, she documents now the change of her body after giving birth in 2014. As a daily routine she deconstructs her transformed body and posts this puzzle on Instagram. 365 / 2015 is a day to day process and a consequent reminder of ongoing change, an observation of ageing, a discovery of a new self, a recovery of degenerating body parts and a daily exercise to use familiar creativity with displeasing arias of skin and flesh, regards and moods in non staged ambiances.