Oliver Husain and Kerstin Schroedinger’s experimental and archivally-informed installation immerses visitors in an otherworldly realm where images, sound, and text combine and compete for attention. Titled after Dinitrochlorobenzene (DNCB), a yellowish, crystalline, chemical compound used both in the processing of color photographic film and as an early, topically applied, alternative AIDS treatment, the multichannel installation mobilizes DNCB’s chemical transversality to revisit a lesser-known chapter of the ongoing AIDS epidemic by way of an interplay between skin, film, and screen. The installation presents a hospitable body—a body that is knowingly porous, fluid, relational and embedded in a web of pleasures and threats, care and violence, toxicity and remediation, community and self-determination—the body as defiant knowledge and a body of boundless knowledge.
Artist and filmmaker Oliver Husain is based in Toronto, Canada. Husain’s projects often begin with a fragment of history, a rumor, a personal encounter or a distant memory. He uses a wide range of cinematic languages and visual pleasures—such as dance, puppetry, costume, special effects—to animate his research and fold viewers into complex narrative set-ups. DNCB (2018–ongoing), his collaboration with Kerstin Schroedinger, was shown in different formats at Heni Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo (2022); Silent Green Kulturquartier, Berlin (2021); and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE (2021). Recent solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Clages, Cologne (2022) and Remai Modern, Saskatoon (2018). Group exhibitions include Taking a Stand, Stamps Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI (2020) and Immaterial Architecture, Art Museum at the University of Toronto (2020). Festival screenings include Berlinale, Berlin International Film Festival; Oberhausen Short Film Festival; Flaherty Seminar, New York; and Experimenta Festival, Bangalore (award 2017).
Kerstin Schroedinger is an artist working in performance, film/video, and sound. Her historiographic practice questions the means of image production, historical linearities, and the ideological certainties of representation. She researches the coinciding histories of industrialization and film. Her works and curatorial practice are often collaborative. Recent works include DNCB in collaboration with Oliver Husain and The Song of the Shirt (video/installation, 2020). Her works have been screened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Forum Expanded of Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival; Wavelengths, Toronto; mumok, Vienna; and exhibited at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; Photo Cairo #6; nGbK Berlin; 2nd Kiev Biennial and 17th Istanbul Biennial, among other places.
Jayne Wilkinson, “I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality,” C Magazine 154, Spring 2023, 78-79.
Christina Nafziger, “Approaches and Strategies within Hospitality: An Interview with Sylvie Fortin,” SixtyInchesFromCenter.org, June 30, 2022.
Travis Diehl, “’The Bodywork of Hospitality' Sees Communal Care as a Civic Obligation,” Frieze, February 28, 2022.
Jonathan Orozco, “I don’t know you like that,” The Reader, February 25, 2022.
Oliver Husain and Kerstin Schroedinger’s experimental and archivally-informed installation immerses visitors in an otherworldly realm where images, sound, and text combine and compete for attention. Titled after Dinitrochlorobenzene (DNCB), a yellowish, crystalline, chemical compound used both in the processing of color photographic film and as an early, topically applied, alternative AIDS treatment, the multichannel installation mobilizes DNCB’s chemical transversality to revisit a lesser-known chapter of the ongoing AIDS epidemic by way of an interplay between skin, film, and screen. The installation presents a hospitable body—a body that is knowingly porous, fluid, relational and embedded in a web of pleasures and threats, care and violence, toxicity and remediation, community and self-determination—the body as defiant knowledge and a body of boundless knowledge.
Artist and filmmaker Oliver Husain is based in Toronto, Canada. Husain’s projects often begin with a fragment of history, a rumor, a personal encounter or a distant memory. He uses a wide range of cinematic languages and visual pleasures—such as dance, puppetry, costume, special effects—to animate his research and fold viewers into complex narrative set-ups. DNCB (2018–ongoing), his collaboration with Kerstin Schroedinger, was shown in different formats at Heni Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo (2022); Silent Green Kulturquartier, Berlin (2021); and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE (2021). Recent solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Clages, Cologne (2022) and Remai Modern, Saskatoon (2018). Group exhibitions include Taking a Stand, Stamps Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI (2020) and Immaterial Architecture, Art Museum at the University of Toronto (2020). Festival screenings include Berlinale, Berlin International Film Festival; Oberhausen Short Film Festival; Flaherty Seminar, New York; and Experimenta Festival, Bangalore (award 2017).
Kerstin Schroedinger is an artist working in performance, film/video, and sound. Her historiographic practice questions the means of image production, historical linearities, and the ideological certainties of representation. She researches the coinciding histories of industrialization and film. Her works and curatorial practice are often collaborative. Recent works include DNCB in collaboration with Oliver Husain and The Song of the Shirt (video/installation, 2020). Her works have been screened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Forum Expanded of Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival; Wavelengths, Toronto; mumok, Vienna; and exhibited at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; Photo Cairo #6; nGbK Berlin; 2nd Kiev Biennial and 17th Istanbul Biennial, among other places.
Jayne Wilkinson, “I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality,” C Magazine 154, Spring 2023, 78-79.
Christina Nafziger, “Approaches and Strategies within Hospitality: An Interview with Sylvie Fortin,” SixtyInchesFromCenter.org, June 30, 2022.
Travis Diehl, “’The Bodywork of Hospitality' Sees Communal Care as a Civic Obligation,” Frieze, February 28, 2022.
Jonathan Orozco, “I don’t know you like that,” The Reader, February 25, 2022.