Disposable Joy

I’m really sorry if this has all been too much, I’m pretty anxious, but I can’t get enough. Sometimes, it’s as if the sky is falling in slow-motion, but no one is doing anything about it, because it looks so great. All I ever wanted to be, all I ever wanted to say, glistens and explodes above me, leaving me lying here, flattened. Now that I am becoming more and more squished, plasticised, flat-packed, out of touch with my own body, I want to put on my favourite shoes and walk. If I keep on walking, I can stop the sky from collapsing on top of me, and maybe I’ll find reminders of what my body was, what my body wanted, on the way. Maybe it won’t feel good, after all, it’s fucking hard to walk in stilettos, but that’s not the point: I have to search for the aura, the vibe, without tripping up on a fake. Maybe, once I’ve made my first steps, I’ll realise they are not the appropriate footwear to find myself in. But perhaps, if I make them from scratch, I will find myself in the process. Best Wishes, is a community-oriented curatorial project started by Millie Rose Dobree in 2021. ‘Disposable Joy’ follows three group shows that took place in temporary ex-commercial spaces in London and Amsterdam over the last four years: ‘Best Wishes,’ and ‘mascot’, which invited artists to engage with formats, and ‘whatever(,) show(‘)s up(!)’, hosted by @bologna.cc, which bought together a smaller group of artists demonstrating a fluidity of reading image and language beyond fixed values of “high” art. ‘Disposable Joy’ gathers a larger group of artists and best friends who resonate with this as a description of a certain affect of contemporary life. The exhibition is accompanied with a story by Anna Lancry.