Past Exhibition

Emily Jones

we᾽re doing alien᾽s milk aren᾽t we?

White exhibition room with high ceilings and a gallery level. Various small, colorful objects and installations are scattered across the light gray floor, including a cluster of colorful balloons, a cardboard box, transparent sheets, and other small sculptures. In the background, a wall features large brown wooden windows and a door.
White exhibition room with high walls and large windows. Various small objects and sculptures are scattered on the floor, including a brown cardboard box, a blue plastic sheet, a clear plastic bottle, a small model with colorful balloons, and other abstract shapes. The door is green with a rounded window. The ceiling features visible wooden beams.
Two abstract objects are placed on the light grey floor. On the right, a cluster of nine pastel-colored spheres including blue, light blue, orange, white, purple, and yellow. On the left, a cubic structure made of thin rods and small colored elements resembling a geometric model.
Sculpture made of thin wooden sticks connected to form a three-dimensional cube frame. The joints are secured with yellow material. A small gray diamond-shaped object hangs in the center of the cube, attached by a white string.
On display is an art piece made of torn brown corrugated cardboard irregularly cut and folded. A yellow sponge-like object is secured on top with thin rubber bands. Beneath the sponge is a long, dark brown textured element also held in place by rubber bands. The object rests on a light gray surface.
A three-dimensional grid model made of thin, light-colored rods standing on a light surface. The grid consists of multiple square cells arranged in a cube. In the center of the cube, there is a smaller, denser structure of similar rods forming a smaller cube.
Bright exhibition space with white walls and floor. Scattered across the floor are various small objects and sculptures, including a cardboard box, a blue patterned item, an orange form, and other colorful elements. On the left, a green double door with a transom window is visible beneath a large rectangular window with an arched top. On the right, a doorway leads to another room containing a tall, narrow brown grandfather clock.
A tall, narrow grandfather clock made of dark wood stands centrally in a white, bright exhibition room. In the background, a large rectangular window with a grid pattern is visible. To the right against the wall, a small white pedestal holds a small model of another grandfather clock.
Eine kleine Standuhr aus Holz mit einem cremefarbenen Gehäuse, das mit roten Rosen und grünen Blättern bemalt ist. Das Zifferblatt ist weiß mit schwarzen arabischen Zahlen und schwarzen Zeigern. Unter dem Zifferblatt befindet sich ein kleines Fenster mit sichtbaren Pendelgewichten. Die Uhr steht auf einer weißen Oberfläche vor einer weißen Wand.
A very small, silver-colored, intricately detailed grandfather clock stands on a white windowsill. Behind it is a rusty metal window frame with a screw. A blurred light red brick wall is visible in the background.
A blue arrow-shaped freestanding sculpture with several white panels displaying texts: 'pia mater', 'INNOCENT PEOPLE', 'ghost egg', 'reverse breathing', 'harbour shame', 'DYSPHORIC PLANET', and 'ORDO AMORIS'. In the background, a vintage grandfather clock stands against a white wall with a window.
View through an old window divided into square panes into a white exhibition room. Inside the room stands a tall, dark grandfather clock and behind it a blue rectangular sign with white text mounted on a frame. The walls and floor are white.
View through an open white door with four window panes into a room with a black-and-white patterned floor. A low rectangular wooden box with two screens on top stands in the room. To the left, a tall brown grandfather clock is visible in an adjacent room. The walls are white, and the floor in the foreground is light gray.
An open rectangular treasure chest with gold and brown panels stands on a white and brown patterned floor. Inside the chest are many gold spheres. A large, antique-looking padlock lies in front of the chest.
View through a white door frame into an exhibition room. In the foreground on the right stands a low rectangular box with a red-and-white brick pattern. A knitted blue sign with a white dove rests on it. In the background, a wall features a minimalist installation made of wooden rods and round elements. The floor is white, and the ceiling has several long, narrow fluorescent lights. On the left, a large window with a black metal grid reveals a red brick wall outside.
Exhibition view showing a wooden slat wall with various round and rectangular objects hanging, and a low wall covered with brick-patterned foil, with several small knitted square animal motif pictures placed in front.
Four square crocheted boxes with animal and recycling motifs hang on a red-and-white patterned wall in a gallery.
Three square crocheted wall hangings with animal motifs hang on a red-and-white brick wall above a white floor with small beans scattered.
Sculpture made of green, black, and silver materials resembling an abstract curved claw or grasping arm, displayed on a white pedestal in an exhibition.
Wooden frame with multiple horizontal and vertical slats holding various metal baking molds of different shapes and sizes, on a white floor scattered with small black objects.
Scattered black and white beans of various sizes on a light surface.
Wooden shelf with multiple metal baking molds of various shapes and sizes attached, on a floor scattered with black dots.
Several silver trays and bowls of various shapes and sizes are mounted on a white wall with visible wooden slats.
Stainless steel tray with six compartments mounted on two intersecting wooden slats against a white wall.
Room with white walls and window, in front a rectangular object with red-and-white brick pattern, colorful fabric strips hanging from it.
Sculpture made of colorful, variously long ribbons attached to a red brick wall and spreading onto the floor.
Two white buckets filled with dark, irregularly shaped beans on a light floor next to a red-and-white wall.
View through an open wooden door with glass panes into a room with a white table and a wall-mounted screen displaying a group of people.
White table in the foreground, white wall with radiator and a screen showing a group of people.
Wall installation with multiple blue and green bags, some printed with 'GOOSE EGG', hanging under two white shelves with small text panels, next to a wooden door.
Several colorful backpacks with various patterns and large, colored text hang side by side on hooks.
1/31

Exhibition Text

With we᾽re doing alien᾽s milk aren᾽t we, the Kunstverein für Mecklenburg und Vorpommern in Schwerin is presenting the first institutional solo exhibition by British artist Emily Jones in Germany. The exhibition brings together new works created especially for the site of the Kunstverein, which unfold less as self-contained objects and more as ambiguous spaces of experience. In their openness to interpretation, the installations critically examine contemporary forms of coexistence and pose questions about individual and collective responsibility. In so doing, they interweave new relational connections between disciplines that are often thought of as separate: science, ecology, history, architecture, technology, archaeology, geography, cosmology, memory, and faith.

At the centre of we᾽re doing alien᾽s milk aren᾽t we is an artistically experimental examination of the epistemic and material orders that humans have developed over the centuries in order to measure, organise, and control themselves and nature. Systems for the measurement and arrangement of time (calendars, time divisions, rhythms, epochs, time measurements); spatial order systems (coordinate systems, cartographies, border demarcations); norm-setting and standardisation systems (units of measurement such as metres, grams, litres); legal-political systems of governance (laws, constitutions, administrative systems); as well as systems of signs and symbols (writing, number and notation systems, symbols, rituals) are all an expression of a rationality characterised by Western claims to dominance and a belief in linear progress that aims to achieve predictability and control. These historically evolved structures–as dispositives of discipline and the exercise of power–not only have an effect on knowledge and the way we deal with the world, but also shape the subjects who act within them. Discipline unfolds not only through punishment, but also through reward.

Emily Jones responds to these genealogically developed contexts of influence with an aesthetics of the fragmentary, the relational, the provisional, and the speculative. Within spatial configurations that touch about these many spheres and address both physical and emotional dimensions equally, she collages sculptural, auditory, textual, and performative elements into model situations that continuously challenge these–both external and internalized–systems of control and order. Models, timekeeping systems, objects of value, and disciplinary technologies are thereby transformed into speculative spaces of possibility that open up alternative forms of care, participation, and collective–ecological, economic, and social–responsibility.

As the title suggests, the exhibition we᾽re doing alien᾽s milk aren᾽t we thus rejects clear attributions and linear interpretations and instead points to the potential of the unknown, the uninvestigated and the non-rationalisable. Aesthetic-experimental associative spaces are created in which alternative forms of togetherness and participation can be imagined and tested, beyond domination, instrumentalisation and normative attributions. This is particularly reflected in performative formats which contribute to the exhibition as a space for (re)learning, and which were and are created in a cooperation between the artist, the StarterClub of the Meckelnburgisches Staatstheater, and the Kinderschutzbund Schwerin.

Curator

Hendrike Nagel

Material

Biography

Emily Jones (*1987, London) lives and works in London. Her works have been shown in numerous solo exhibitions, including at Centre d’art contemporain–la synagogue de Delme (2019), Prairie, Chicago (2018), First Continent, Baltimore (2017), VEDA, Florence (2017), Almanac Inn, Turin/London (2016), Cordova, Vienna (2016), S1, Portland (2015), and Jupiter Woods, London (2014). Her works have also been part of national and international group exhibitions, including Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2021), Future Gallery, Berlin (2016), Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, Galerie Andreas Huber, Vienna, Import Projects, Berlin (2015), and Serpentine Galleries, London (2014).

Agenda

Reviews

Sponsors

With kind support:

In collaboration with:

Kunstverein für Mecklenburg und Vorpommern in Schwerin