Nothing changes if nothing changes

collaborative work with LAZAR STOJIC

ICAT, HFBK Hamburg

mixed media installation

2022

Photos: TIM ALBREchT

The work Nothing changes if nothing changes highlights the potential role of objects in facilitating self-care in a somewhat ironic fashion. The project is a shop-window installation with various objects relating to the concept of ‘self-care’ on display, marketed under the fake brand name ‘Level’. The objects – including a twistable stress reliever, shaped like a medical pill – relate to capitalistic versions of self-improvement, the commodification of ‘getting better’, and the notion of owning an object to make yourself feel better: ‘toxic optimism’. The fictional target group is well-off, and has ‘first-world’ problems. The store is a pop-up one, which reflects the artificial nature of the ‘self-care’ products on display. It is not initially intended to be an artwork, but becomes one on closer inspection. The project explores the tension between the notion of art as objects and objects as art. It prompts the question of whether the value of art is denigrated by having a function.

TEXT BY KATE DOCKING, Centre for the Study of Health, Ethics and Society

Blurring the lines between prop and product, plinth and artwork, the installation playfully examines the presupposed borders between art, satire, design and social commentary by revolving around the societal individualization of mental health issues and their profitability. The displayed objects oscillate between artworks and products: their prices exhibiting themselves within the installation illuminate the tension between 'affordable young art' on the one hand and 'established' product design and its marketing on the other. The neon sign saying "nothing changes if nothing changes" reveals the both eerie and comical effects of 'getting better' being commodified: underlying imperatives of competition and meritocracy foster an anti-social realism in which systemic failure disguises as individual failure.

TEXT BY KRISTINA KRÖGER