20.07.2022
Palliative Assessment of Künstlerhaus Bremen 2022
Kasia Fudakowski
In July 2022 Kasia Fudakowski together with two other members of the Association for the Palliative Turn (APT) Dafna Maimon and Olav Westphalen created an assessment form, to answer the question ‘How palliative is the Künstlerhaus Bremen?’.
The video both documents the process of the APT audit of the Künstlerhaus Bremen, and leads a viewer through filling in the assessment form for themselves. The assessment contains questions such as: “Does it make you feel warm?”; “Does it provide relief?”; “Does it acknowledge the existence and inevitability of the end?”; Does it intend to neither hasten nor postpone the end?” which are drawn from approaches to palliative care and medicine. In the context of assessing an institution, answering these questions requires both a simple, practical and observational approach, but also abstract, existential and philosophical.
The Association for the Palliative Turn’s members include over 30 individuals consisting of artists, designers, a kinesiologist, a philosopher, a comedian, a grief and end-of-life counselor, and a climatologist. With an experimental, speculative, and humorous approach, APT applies the concepts and methods of palliative care to the current crises of civilization, viewing the period before systemic collapse as a time of insight, growth, and deep joy in all that is left. APT asks: How would you like to go? The group exhibition and the accompanying program of The Palliative Turn that took place at Künstlerhaus Bremen in summer 2022 were curated in close collaboration with Kasia Fudakowski and Olav Westphalen.
This contribution is part of The Palliative Turn.