Remedy, Spencer Tunick. courtesy of the artist
‘Remedy’ is a photographic installation by artist-photographer Spencer Tunick and text written by artist and activist Emma Shapiro. Shapiro uses the language of Tunick’s iconic group photography to ponder our role in the spread of misinformation – as individuals, and as the larger group organism that ultimately shapes our shared reality. Witness the video documentation during program hours.
What is the remedy to something that catches faster than fire? That seeps and spreads through cracks and whispers, and grows from seeds sown by unseen hands? We do not stop it, we invite it, connecting dots from me to you, and you to them, and them to the world. The chain of events that has led us here, that will lead us to tomorrow, washes over us, leaving us to witness the marks forming and scarring our new skin, our reality.
Like something out of control, spreading fast away from our grasp and taking our equilibrium with it – this is what many of us feel, deep down, today. Our Covid-addled existence has made us all too aware of the physicality of contagion, how we pass and catch germs, seeds, ideas, blame, information among us, and how quickly it can mutate beyond our control. What is the remedy for the things we’ve permitted to change us? The events we’ve permitted to unfold? The facts we’ve permitted to be distorted, and our reality we’ve permitted to be warped? Who is allowed to trust us, and who do we allow ourselves to trust as our uncanny valley flattens to a new landscape revealed to us all at once.
“Remedy” is a photographic installation in the language of Spencer Tunick, utilizing the human form to ponder our role in the spread of misinformation – as individuals, and as the larger group organism that ultimately shapes our shared reality.- Emma Shapiro