What does it mean to be together, creatively, emotionally, ecologically and playfully, in a world governed by utility, distraction and disconnection? Impractical Companions brings together artists, designers and makers whose works dwell in the quiet, often invisible spaces of companionship; spaces where creative, collaborative and intimate relations unfold beyond the reach of metrics or recognition. The works speak to forms of togetherness that shape the textures of shared life in enduring and meaningful ways.

Rather than assuming companionship to be inherently nourishing or even reciprocal, this exhibition attends to the sustaining, ambivalent and sometimes impractical natures of being-with art, the art adjacent activities, and one another. Accordingly, it offers a curated gathering of relationalities; between humans, non-humans, machines, materials and ideas, all variously expressed through associations that oscillate between care and estrangement, collaboration and solitude, co-dependence and withdrawal. From the tacit intelligences of interspecies attunement to the uncanny intimacies and loneliness of technological mediation, these works propose that companionship is not a condition but rather a continual process of negotiation.

In this context, “impracticality” is embraced not as deficiency, but as possibility. To make something exquisitely useless is to step outside a demand for purpose, to reclaim a space for wonder, absurdity and poetic defiance. Here, a chair might resist being sat upon; a tool might become an abstraction of itself; a garment might look like fashion but remain unwearable; and a clock might obscure time instead of marking it. Accordingly, it is hoped that these kinds of mischievous acts of impractical creativity might offer alternative ways of sensing, imagining and relating against the sometimes-brutal forces of instrumentalised thinking.

At its heart, Impractical Companions affirms that the value of relationships, be they artistic, collaborative or affective, might lie in their subtlety, slowness or refusal to announce themselves. Within the cracks of institutional rationalism and late capitalist efficiencies, this exhibition opens a space for different kinds of proximity: ones that honour fragility and idiosyncrasy, that celebrate the aesthetics of shared attention, and that recognise the radical significance of simply being alongside and together.

As such, this is an exhibition about living and making collaboratively. About the beauty of purposeless acts. About the quiet, sustaining labours of care and friendship. And about how, even in our most impractical moments, we can still find out more about each other.

Curated by Kim Donaldson and Jiayang Zhang

Featuring:
Ravi Avasti
Aldo Bilotta
Aleks Danko
Paul Donald
Suzie Idiens
John R Neeson
Phaptawan Suwannakudt
Natalie Thomas
Siying Zhou