Look After Each Other
Curated by Dennese Victoria (Philippines)

CURATORS’ STATEMENT

Naman Shrivastava died in 2021. He was only 21 years old.

I knew of him because he was one of the people who responded to the open call for work that we did in 2020.

He sent us a handful of photographs of his grandfather and their family as they were learning to cope with the reality of living with a loved one with Alzheimer’s. He called it, Before I Forget.

Actually, I didn’t select his work back then.

I wanted to. But when we were looking at our list, we already had a lot of people from India. My co-curator at that time told me something like, You don’t need to select his work now. He’s young. He has time.

In reality what happened was that he died before his grandfather. And because of something so small that it’s hard to believe.

Dengue, Sadia told me. She found out because thankfully she selected his work when we didn’t.

The festival as a save point. The photograph as not enough. One body gone, already too much.

How to extend attention? How to remember this is special? How to lengthen time?

In a game, when you reach a save point, your health is sometimes restored.

But we’re not playing games.

Where can you bring what weighs on you? If everyone’s a photographer now, who is still listening?

Who are we still talking to?

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In the beginning this exhibition sought out to face these questions (of photography, of time, of value, of what is everything still for) through looking at flowers in people’s photographs – for their symbolic power, for their availability everywhere and their presence in many kinds of stories, but also for their awareness that they’re heading towards death, heading to make way for something else.

It was also proposed that my way of finding the photographs was through practicing return.

Not only through coming back to the 294 people who responded to the open call in 2020 from which Even though the whole world is burning was formed, but also through looking at the people I have met in all my years of looking towards this festival.

Very quickly though, this search for flowers began to mean something else. There should be flowers here, I would hear myself say while looking at someone’s photograph. Or, when I was observing, let’s say, a wound, or a hand, I wished it the same thing I would wish for anything I found beautiful by which I mean, true – may you be held, may you be looked after.

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ON WHY IT’S IN A HOUSE, ON WHY IT NEEDED TO BE IN A ROOM, AND WHY PROJECT A PHOTOGRAPH ONTO A CURTAIN WHEN THE OPEN WINDOW ERASES IT?

I proposed this in July 2024 and even then when I didn’t know the end form it would come to, I knew it had to be quiet. I knew I wanted people to be able to see differently. I wanted people to spend time with the work.

Especially since some of the photographs in this installation are photographs we have collectively seen online – they are already something we have passed by, moved on from.

When I call it, look after each other, it doesn’t mean I am good at it. It means, I hope I have time to learn how to do this properly. I hope I am forgiven when I make a mistake. I hope that I’ll be allowed to try again.

And you always wish for a house to be like that.

And if I could find such a place, then I wanted to be able to share that feeling.

On another note, I also feel that I selected photographs that no editing could cut away from, no editing could harm. I’ve only asked for one photograph from each artist and I strongly feel that no wrong sequence could touch them. They could live anywhere. They had life in themselves.

So the bed will remain as is and people can just lie there to look at the photographs. Some people who might feel intimidated can stand outside or lean on the doorway as the door will be left open. Visitors can also come near the windows, touch the projection on the cloth even.

It’s a quiet room that’s just waiting.

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Look after each other is only possible because of the 23 people who have allowed me to borrow their photographs and share them in this way.

My thanks also to Nandini Shrivastava, Sadia Marium, Daniel Huete, Kiko del Rosario, Ming Rui Lim, and Pham Ha Duy Linh for opening doors.

For Naman, and then also for Nini.