Don’t Mind if I do

Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH

July 7, 2023 - January 7, 2024

Curated in collaboration with Finnegan Shannon and Lauren Leving

Photos below are courtesy of the Museum

Detail of Pelenakeke’s, Sit With Me, laser-cut plexiglass and laser-cut wood, photo Jacob Koestler

Installation View, Don’t Mind if I do, photo: Jacob Koestler

About Don’t Mind if I Do courtesy of the Musuem

Finnegan Shannon is a creator of loopholes. Their work is mischievous, methodically chipping away at traditional museum practices. By framing institutional change as artwork, the pace of possibility quickens. With Finnegan at the helm, Don’t mind if I do is an experiment in more deeply collaborative exhibition-making, demonstrating  how even temporary changes in power structures create pathways of access for visitors, artists, and staff.

Grounded in a longtime fantasy of the artist’s–an idea of an exhibition setup that would lavishly meet their access needs–this project developed around a conveyor belt. Embraced for its efficiency and mechanized transport of goods (even sushi), this equipment is reappropriated here as a vehicle for cultivating a more relaxed museum-going experience. The conveyor belt brings artwork to audience members, who are invited to sit on comfortable furniture and engage with a parade of objects through any combination of touch, sight, and sound. 

Sharing the work of seven artists who have influenced Finnegan’s practice, Don’t mind if I do blurs boundaries between public and private. It puts representations of everyday life that are usually tucked away at home on display. Plastic pill bottles scattered across nightstands share space with a tissue box cover that reminds us of moments of sickness and sadness. Sculptural snapshots of an intimate interspecies bond sit beside gender-affirming packers that feel most at home tucked inside our clothes. They signify illness, reveal systems of support, and are used in play.

Don’t mind if I do destabilizes rigid ableist and exclusionary museum “best practices” like sparse seating, untouchable objects, dense wall labels, and guards who protect rather than invite engagement. It is a project built upon a framework of flexibility. By welcoming glitches, inviting informality and messiness, and unsettling the hierarchy of objects, Don’t mind if I do prioritizes people over artwork and makes more room for us to show up as our full selves.

About ‘Sit With Me’ laser-cut plexiglass and laser-cut wood, 2023

These works were created in response to Fin’s invitation to create works that visitors can sit and engage with. I’ve always loved puzzles and spent many holidays visiting my grandmother’s sister Nonie Hoggard and her husband Pat and spending our time together completing puzzles. There were rules they taught us (always start with the corners and edges next) before following colour and form. I like to think of myself as a ‘intuitive puzzler’ and wanted these puzzles to be works that the visitor could create their own patterns and forms (similar to the geometric wooden puzzles I had grown up with). These have tatau marks (made by using the keyboard) etched onto the wood and plexiglass. These marks are important to my culture but in this context I thought visitors could make their own marks following lines and the patterns to connect. Similarly to Fin my work is interested in creating works that are accessible, the thickness of the wood and the etching of the marks were made so that low vision/blind visitors could feel their patterns and shapes. I’ve always found puzzles to be meditative and easy to lose myself in and hope visitors might have a similar experience.

- Pelenakeke Brown

A NOTE FROM FINNEGAN SHANNON:

This project is the realization of my access fantasy !! 

I’m disabled and I need to sit and I love to sit. I’ve been dreaming about an exhibition where instead of having to move from artwork to artwork, I could sit somewhere comfortable and have the artwork come to me. So voilà! A conveyor belt of artworks surrounded by a variety of seating options. 

When planning this project, a big question was: what artwork should the conveyor carry? The artists, writers, and thinkers featured nourish my life and practice, and I can’t resist a chance to share their work. Each of the objects presented asks for varied ways of interacting and opens up possibilities for how and what an artwork can convey.

Don’t mind if I do,

Finnegan Shannon