'Assemble' at Prague National Gallery

ASSEMBLE was exhibited from 8-18 June 2023, at the Prague National Gallery, presented at the Prague Quadrennial, in the Performance Space exhibition, curated by Andrew Filmer.
– installation performance and activation by Suzon Fuks
– music by Bob Vanderbob

ASSEMBLE is about obsolescence and sustainability, beauty and horror of the advancement of our tools, a galaxy of junk!
The electronic waste, composing the installation, has been sourced locally. We teamed up with a Czech recycling organisation ASEKOL, which lent us the parts that we gave back when the exhibition ended.

I brought 5 miniatures – 5 mini galaxies: ‘Sim’, ‘WeavilLED’, ‘KeyCaps’, ‘TekTonik’ and ‘Spinwheel’ – as well as the artist books ‘Human‘ and the entire ‘Phone That Smarts‘ series.

The public was welcome to walk in the spiral labyrinth of e-waste, touch/take and read the books, as well as interact with me during lunch time – meditating on obsolescence, exchanging their thoughts, dismantling old devices, and read the poem DUST by Annie Abrahams.

Three and a half year ago, I started dismantling my own obsolete devices. I discovered a hidden beauty: how many thousands of people and thousands of years it took to create / invent / design these amazing parts. Condensation of minds, they are like a summery of ancient civilisations powering our contemporary lives, undercover in our ever changing devices… When creating these, we never imagined they would become so quickly obsolete and form a sea of trash. How, now, can we act, re-think and integrate designs in our creations to be sustainable, durable, or re-purposable? I have this feel of urgency to address the difference between our tools / technology and our body / senses, digging inside, be aware and mindful, exploring the layers. Technology is just our tools, we need to have a holistic vision, defragment our thoughts, to assemble our skills and use them according the needs.