Exhibition To Be Like Water

To Be Like Water explores and expands on the meaning of code-switching. The exhibition aims to examine and complicate the notion of identity, and consider code-switching as a manifestation of a fluid multiplicity that operates within vectors of power.  

In linguistics, code-switching denotes the practice of alternating between two or more languages in a conversation by multilingual speakers. Now, the term also commonly refers to the adaptation of a style of speech according to the group who is being addressed. In this sense, code-switching is the conscious or unconscious reworking of different cultural and linguistic identities, depending on different situations. As a performance of different codes, such as language, dialect, movement, gestures, sound, or rhythm, code-switching allows for significations of mutual belonging as well as differentiation. It is a form of translation that requires certain knowledge of complex contexts – the “reading of the room”. Yet code-switching does not only concern self-expression. It can also be the result of an individual’s reaction to their environment, when code-switching becomes a manner to gain access, protect oneself, exclude others, or a way to “pass” as member of the dominant culture. Code-switching disintegrates identity as a single-subject conception of the self, and as a tool for social control and compartmentalisation.

With: Jenny Brady, Robert Gabris, Ellen Gallagher, Jumana Manna, Jay Tan, Amy Suo Wu (in collaboration with Sami Hammana, Karen Huang, Sarafina Paulina Bonita, and Sandim Mendes), Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca, Katarina Zdjelar. Curated by Kris Dittel.