The Future is LoadingListen to this text: Your browser does not support the audio element. Please click here to download the file View the Shape Open 2020: The Future is Loading exhibition, featuring the work of 25 marginalised artists! "2020 has been a paradigm shift for many, a year like no other. A time of raw hardship and sudden turmoil in the midst of which we have witnessed gestures of care and support capable of reminding us: we need each other. For many disabled and marginalised people, familiar with adversity, witnessing the world come to a halt in a matter of days has paradoxically generated hope. Hope that, for once, the world might take greater heed of what it means to be shut away, impoverished and excluded. For people who are marginalised in the present day, facing discrimination and barriers to access, imagining the future can be an act of radical defiance. As the crisis has evolved and its shockwaves travelled, we find it acting as a catalyst for many other significant conversations, in the home, the workplace, or whilst, in the case of the Black Lives Matter movement, taking to the streets in an assertion of grief and outrage. In this time of reflection and learning, a plurality of realisations has occurred. With this, widespread unrest and demands for change have arisen. More than our lives, entire structures have been thrown into the air by what we are living though, revealing the outlines of a starkly unequal world. In the process, a pandemic of health has radicalised mainstream debate, and we are no longer shying away from discussing the pre-existing pandemics of racism, of gender discrimination, barriers to inclusion and advancement, of gaping inequality, isolation, and disenfranchisement. The list goes on. Set against this uncertain and restless backdrop, where risk of greater exclusion battles with unique opportunities for change, we at Shape are looking to the future as an act of hope. For people who are marginalised in the present day, facing discrimination and barriers to access, imagining the future can be an act of radical defiance. It is the act of making a claim to a space that is otherwise denied – and for once, marginalised people have the agency to place themselves at its centre." The Shape Open is our annual exhibition of artwork by disabled and non-disabled artists created in response to a disability-centred theme. The Open provides a space where disabled and non-disabled artists can discuss and exchange views and ideas about issues and topics which are often sidelined within artistic debate. The Future is Loading / Shape Open 2020 Curated and creatively produced by Shape Arts About the Exhibition Content Notes and Access The Exhibition Artist Profiles Exhibition Zine Resources Shape Open Jeff Kasper Latest Shape collaboration: Jeff contributed to the Shape Open 2020: The Future is Loading. Listen to this text: Your browser does not support the audio element. Please click here to download the file Artist Statement: Jeff Kasper is an artist and educator who works between design, media, and public pedagogy to facilitate participatory experiences, creative curricula, and conceptual social spaces. His current research explores how trauma-informed education and the ethics of nonviolence impact the design process, collaboration, and learning—especially for the health and wellbeing of queer and disabled folks. Over the years, his work has been dedicated to building cultures of support as an artist working in arts management, community health, and social planning. About the works Jeff contributed to The Future is Loading... Jeff’s ongoing ‘things remembered’ series is a catalogue of keepsakes and trophies engraved with testimonials about the invisibility of pain and love, failure and becoming in relationships. Through this project, Jeff explores the potential everyday, inanimate objects have to tell the stories of what otherwise remains hidden between people. The ‘prototypes for white flags’ series similarly develops on this examination of objects. The white flag is an internationally recognised protective sign of truth or ceasire. In subverting the flag’s usual call for surrender, Jeff asks what would happen if it was deemed a symbol of truce; of collaboration rather than defeat. Your browser does not support the audio element. Please click here to download the file Watch Jeff discuss the works he contributed to The Future is Loading exhibition... Check out Jeff's website See all the artists we work with Banner image: prototypes for white flags (we want to participate) (2016) by Jeff Kasper. Image courtesy of the artist. Manage Cookie Preferences