The work of Amanda Bennetts and Alexandra Baxter explores time as an engine of moral relativity. While seemingly disparate in their respective practices, Amanda and Alexandra meet with intimate responses to parallel chapters of philosopher Simone Weil's text, Gravity and Grace. Both artists lean on a confessional style of pyscho-autobiography that is critical of the artist who is "enslaved by Gravity and liberated by Grace.' Gravity being the force of nature that causes things to fall down.

Grace being the empathy we feel when seeing Gravity occur from a distance. Amanda, with attention to the experience of bodily affliction, beckons for Grace to come before Gravity; empathy so as to not fall. Alexandra, with ear to the door of an innocence unraveled, waits for Grace to appear so as to make the memory of Gravity's landing softer, more bearable. The term, you can't always get what you want feels cynical, burdened, ungrateful even - but this show only hopes to have made room for objects that Grace might consider living inside; full of empathy for the self and the stranger.
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Work exhibited: I feel the weight of the minute as I bend my body towards the clock, multimedia installation, 2023. Installation Information: I feel the weight of the minute as I bend my body towards the clock is a multimedia installation examining time and the labour of self-care for the disabled and ill body. In a society that centralises wellness as the default mode of existence, sickness is placed as temporary, an abhorrent to the norm. Through its use of medical, sanatorium, spa, and disability aesthetics, the installation dissects how time for the non-normative bodies is bent, stretched, slowed, rewound, expanded, and fastened. The rationing of energy, due dates, the time taken to perform a specific task, working hours, ideal hours of sleep that a body needs, etc., are largely normative and fixed in nature. Rather than society bending the clock to meet the ill and disabled bodies, many with detrimental effects bend their bodies to meet the clock. While the sculptural works within the installation involve found objects that should serve the body at rest, the body well, the body at ease - each speaks instead to the body afflicted. Forming a space where tension and balance precariously coexist, inviting a deeper conversation about the intricate realities of living with illness and disability.