Happy Collaborationists present: Chimera. During the three years that Happy Collaborationists have been hosting exhibitions we have accumulated a wunderkammer of relics left behind after each event. As a result, we do not throw out these objects as refuse, but cherish each fragment as a memento of the occasion. These are pieces of installations and performances that were generally regarded as scraps or simply too unwieldy to remove. After a few days, or weeks, they became enveloped by our reappropriation of the objects as decorative, functional, or obstacles that we embraced, because parting with them seemed too harsh a sentence for something that was essentially left swaddled on our doorstep, or spotlit and propped against a freshly prepared wall. The objects began to possess a “mana” (considered by indigenous Pacific islanders a concept where inanimate objects are endowed with a soul).
Chimera, serves to honor these objects through an attempt to exhibit them in a space designed to resemble our home and the “Happy C.” Exhibition space where they have become ingrained in its fabric. As curators, and more enthusiastically, hosts, we are the caretakers of these pieces and will also be there to serve as a catalyst in exposing the dynamic and fantastical nature of these remains.
“The term chimera has also come to mean, more generally, an impossible or foolish fantasy, hard to believe.” (Wikipedia)
