untame flow stay release presents artistic practices undertaken in response to unjust, environmentally toxic and ableist structures – systems that continue to suppress individuals and communities by individualizing violence and fragmenting shared experiences into isolated struggles.
The project envisages the exhibition space as a setting for shared joy, recovery and repair that is attentive to the diverse physical and social needs and desires of different bodies. To extend the artworks into speculation about future non-toxic and accessible spaces, the exhibition is paired with a research presentation called detox access spaces, which brings together contributions from artists, curators, exhibition architects and thinkers working on inclusive, non-toxic exhibition design.
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detox access spaces
The exhibition is accompanied by a research presentation, detox access spaces, which extends the project towards critical reflection on contemporary exhibitionary practices and cultural contexts that often privilege sterile, universalist spaces emphasising sight and distance while suppressing embodied, sensual experience. Drawing on Audre Lorde’s notion of the erotic as a source of power, the presentation argues for exhibition environments that embrace imperfection, materiality and the senses. It speculates on inclusive or non-toxic exhibition design and imagines spaces that actively resist intimidation, exclusion or alienation and instead foster comfort, accessibility and shared agency. The research presentation includes contributions from a large group of artists, curators, exhibition architects, and thinkers who are radically changing the conditions of the body for art and culture by incorporating bodily sensitivities into their thinking, work, and lived experiences. Contributors include Jos Boys, Amanda Cachia, Saverio Cantoni, Richard Dougherty, Jakob Engel, Hatiye Garip, Lichen Hamraie, Isa Hukka, Vappu Jalonen and Elis Hannikainen, Alison Kafer, Lisa Klosterkötter, Daniel Kotowski, Pia Lindman, Zofia Nierodzińska and Jenni-Juulia Wallinheimo-Heimonen, among others.
The project claims that the exhibition can advocate and initiate a broader process of radical accessibility for disabled, chronically ill and marginalised communities. Access will not only focus on physical accessibility in terms of exhibition space and cultural production, but also on broader conditions for living in our environments, for individuals and groups marginalised in normalised cultural production and exhibition-making.
A performance day on the Rhine in Cologne, curated in collaboration with Raphael Daibert and Nada Rosa Schroer, is planned for 15 November 2026.
Curated by Jussi Koitela and Aneta Rostkowska.
In collaboration with Lisa Klosterkötter.
untame flow stay release
Aug 31 – Nov 29, 2026
Temporary Gallery. Centre for contemporary art
Cologne, Germany
