‘Kleptothermy’ is a term used to explain a form of thermoregulation through the sharing of metabolic thermogenesis; the use of the thermal heterogeneity from one creature by another creature, to maintain and increase their own body temperature. Both animals and humans use kleptothermy—often not reciprocal, it can be exploitative or achieved by mimicry—this type of thermal regulation occurs in both ecto- and endo-therms. In one of its most tender and endearing manifestations, it is called ‘huddling’.
Using the concept of kleptothermy and thermoregulation as an invitation to the artists, and as a central framework to respond to, Huddling, friends with thermal benefits will consider, but is not limited to, themes of habitat sharing, forms of regulation and control, survival, as well as human and ecological sickness. The group exhibition will use thermal monitoring as an interesting method to broadly contemplate animal behaviour, human behaviour and as a way in which to speak about our shared relationship with the planet.
Isabella Hone-Saunders
Isabella Hone-Saunders currently practices as a curator, arts worker and artist in Naarm (so-called Melbourne), on the unceded lands and water ways of the Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung (Wurundjeri) people of the Kulin nation.
Her curatorial practice is concerned with accessibility, representation and shared social responsibility, while examining with criticality, the inclusivity of public art spaces. She aims to interrogate and implement methodologies towards an ethical and activist informed curation. The exhibitions and public outcomes that she curates endeavour to present multi-phonic positions and de-centralise any notion of an authoritative curatorial power position in favour of platforming and supporting and nurturing the artist’s perspective.
In 2017, Hone-Saunders completed her Master of Art Curatorship at The University of Melbourne. In 2016, she completed a Graduate Diploma in Art History at The University of Adelaide. From 2013-2015, she completed a Bachelor of Arts, with a Major in History and a double Minor in Art and Visual Culture and English from the University of Adelaide.
Holly Childs & Gediminas Žygus
Holly Childs is a writer, artist, and performance-maker based in Naarm (Melbourne). Their work, across fiction, poetry, visual art and performance focuses on the shifting mechanisms of storytelling in a contemporary world in which physical matter is constantly being reshaped, recontextualised, and rewritten by emerging technologies.
Gediminas Žygus is a Lithuanian artist working within the fields of sound, film and performance. Their practice focuses on the experience of selfhood in the post-anthropocene. Gediminas Žygus has presented works and collaborations at Barbican Centre, Berghain, La Biennale di Venezia, Centre Pompidou, Haus der Kunst, HKW, The Kitchen, Unsound and others.
They have released two albums, Gnarled Roots (2021), exploring 21st-century mythologies revolving around the fall of the twin towers on 9/11; and Hydrangea (2020), exploring intimacy, disconnection, and reality bubbles. Together they have created performances based on these two albums that have been performed in botanical greenhouses, galleries, a medieval church, a former bathhouse and a former bear enclosure.
EJ Son
EJ Son is a multi-disciplinary artist, working across new-media, sculptural installations, video and ceramics. With a focus on provocation and humour as a device to interrogate the complexity of power in the construction of gender, sexuality and race. Their practice is often times paradoxical, arousing the tension that is created by our cultures tendency to taxonomies, they aim to deconstruct and create space for new feelings to be considered.
They completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts (First class Honours) at Sydney College of the Arts in 2018, was awarded as the winner of 2020 Emerging Artist prize from the Gosford Regional Art gallery and was commissioned by MAMA Albury to make titty tower (2021) to exhibit for SIMMER 2021. In 2022, they will show at Bus Projects in Melbourne, Cool Change Contemporary in Perth, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art and The Lock up in Newcastle.
Daniel Jenatsch
Daniel Jenatsch is an artist and composer who makes interdisciplinary works that explore the interstices between affect and information. His work combines hyper-detailed soundscapes, music and video to create multimedia documentaries, installations, radio pieces and performances. His work looks at the social construction of subjectivity, with a concern for the ways in which forms of knowledge and power construct and inform our social and mental ecologies.
Jenatsch’s works have been presented in exhibitions and programs at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Arts House, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, the Athens Biennale, NextWave Festival, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Liquid Architecture Festival, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and the MousonTurm, Frankfurt. He was awarded the 2020 John Fries Award for emerging artists.
Spencer Lai
Spencer Lai is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Melbourne. They graduated from VCA (BFA with Honours) in 2014.
Working across multiple forms and formats, including sculpture, installation, curation, writing and drawing. Spencer’s practice produces associative meaning from a range of accumulated materials that are worked into assemblages, installations and exhibitions. These materials often include text, found objects, design elements or images from consumer cultures, lifted from thrift stores, replicated, or traced or by chance encounters. The resulting outcomes of their practice are rarely singular or stand-alone objects—rather, their identities are intentionally constructed from multiple references, works, as well as contributions from other artists, sometimes resulting in the form of curatorial group exhibitions.
Spencer is included in upcoming exhibitions: a solo exhibition at Theta, NYC; a solo exhibition at Neon Parc (CBD); a two-person show with Claire Lambe at Sarah Scout Presents; and a two-person show with Jürgen Baumann at Holden Garage, Berlin.