REFUSE: REFUGE: RE-FUSE

Curators

Gabriella Sonabend

Artists

Ivica Bonic Babic

Ana Cvorovic

Svetlana Dmitrenko

Yvonne Feng

Sam Gregg

Yu-Xin Su

refuse noun/verb

• indicate or show that one is not willing to do something.

• matter thrown away or rejected as worthless; rubbish.

refuge noun

• the state of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or difficulty.

re-fuse verb

• to re-join or blend to form a single entity.

In the semantic slippages of ‘Refuse: Refuge: Re-fuse’ we find associations of both the decisive and empowered, the disregarded and silenced. For its third exhibition, The Koppel Project presents six artists whose work interrogates these loaded signifiers; examining notions of value, freedom, safety and dependency.

Using these words as a point of departure, ‘Refuse…’ is tied together by a sensitivity that is neither judging nor conclusive, but rather proposing complex, personal and universal narratives. Whether filtered through the slums of Bangkok, Chinese prisons, or castaway furniture, the stories and images that make up the ‘Refuse…’ confront us with moments of fear, doubt, conviction and hope; re-fusing experience into new forms and possibilities.