JESSIE SPENCER SMITH & PHOEBE HAIG
Skipping Rope
02 Nov 2024—01 Dec 2024

Opening:
Saturday 2nd November, 5 - 7 PM

This series of paintings is a response to the origins of the carousel and addresses larger questions of (Western) modernity’s relationship to time, control, and experience. Originally developed as a method for training calvary in the nineteenth century, the carousel wasco-opted by civilians and morphed into a form of community entertainment. We know them today as over-the-top, unashamedly tacky sources of child-geared amusement. Perfectly depicting the Western impulse to distil elements of nature in an attempt at joy and comfort, they exist simultaneously as pieces of eerie, lifeless machinery. This show is not a love letter to carousels, nor is it necessarily an attack on them. Rather it’s a reflection on social modalities that highlight some of the impulses of modernity – outlasting time, exerting control, creating bubbles of entertainment where we can protect ourselves from that which is out of reach and perhaps even threatening.