Bodies Under Construction

In the exhibition Bodies Under Construction presented at Møstings, artist Karim Boumjimar explores the relationship between the body, nature, and matter in a time marked by climatic and ecological changes. Starting from a simple yet radical idea–that the human body does not stand outside nature but is part of its cycles–the exhibition questions the legitimacy of humanity’s fundamental urge to control nature rather than coexist with it.

In Boumjimar’s works–here comprised of wall paintings, sculpture, ceramics, and silver casts of bodily fluids–the human being is not at the centre, but one organism among many, shaped, worn down, and decomposed by the same forces that are changing the ecosystems around it. Thus, the exhibition evokes an understanding of the body in which the boundary between the human and the nonhuman is porous and negotiable.

The works draw on archaeological finds and ancient forms of expression, yet they are pointing forward rather than backwards, as if they were objects from a future we do not yet know; as remnants of bodies that have adapted to a world we do not yet have words for.

Inside the exhibition, that thought unfolds in a series of works that range from sculptures and murals to ceramics and silver casts of bodily fluids. The materials are both concrete and disturbingly close. They point to the body as something that is constantly shaped and reshaped by the same forces that affect landscapes and ecosystems.

Boumjimar works with the body as a form that “like landscapes and ecosystems, is constantly changing.” It is an approach where the body is no longer a fixed entity, but rather a temporary expression of biological and material processes. This gives the works a dual character. They are both intimate and foreign. The body appears as something we recognize, but also as something that slips out of our control. In that sense, the body becomes a landscape in itself. A place where the boundaries between the human and the non-human become harder to spot.

Press: Contemporary Art Library, Art Viewer, Kuba Paris, Daily Lazy, Contemporary Art Library, Saliva Live, Catapult Platform, Frederiksberg Museum, Faktor, Kunsti Radar