EXHIBITION: Antibodies

Antibodies: art during the pandemic is a series of artists’ installations at Maketank, Positive Light Projects and several empty shop spaces around Exeter city centre. Initiated by students on the new MA International Contemporary Art: Curation and Business at University of Exeter, Antibodies aims to be a positive and mutually supportive platform working cooperatively with artists, community groups and young people to envisage a different future beyond the ‘new normal’.

While the word ‘antibodies’ inevitably has medical connotations, it could also reference the building up of one’s own personal resistance and immune response to the psychological conditions brought about by COVID-19. A number of the MA Curation students are also interested in challenging social norms around representation of ‘the body’ (e.g., gender, sexuality, race, disability) as part of Black History Month, and in the social context of Exeter specifically. The aim of the Antibodies project is to be a positive and mutually supportive platform for experimental artists’ projects, working in participation with community groups and young people to envisage a different future beyond the ‘new normal’.