In the past two weeks, I have been following art institutions and galleries on Instagram, listening to Art Tactic podcasts, and reading articles in Artnet news and Frieze. It seems to me that the general feeling switched from optimistic to realist. Optimistic because, initially, the imposed work-from-home to reduce the spread of the virus, together with the increased use of digital platforms were seen as ways to cost-cutting in the overly expensive art industry. Optimism quickly passed its sceptre to a more realist view by unveiling a widespread lack of digital strategies among medium and small art galleries. It seems that many galleries are unprepared to make the best out of their online businesses. Another pitfall of the digital system is its inability to engage audiences by failing to offer memorable experiences to the public. Despite galleries accepting the challenge of keeping businesses going and engaging their public, they are struggling to succeed in this difficult time. The truth is that we are spending a lot of time in front of a screen without experiencing any physical event at all. Is this the right way to get through COVID-19 pandemic and establish a better future? Maybe not. With this question in mind, Chalton Gallery is promoting an alternative way with a call for a period of reflection and introspection.
Chalton Gallery in London & Chalton Projects is a not-for-profit art organisation that operates in Mexico and the UK connecting Mexican artists and cultural institutions with the British art scene. On Sunday 19th March, the gallery announced its temporary closure to prevent the spread of Coronavirus. Soon, what was planned to be their June show, launched as the online programme by artist Christina Ochoa (Colombian based in Mexico), “Pharakon: Garden of Psychotropical Hope” (the first session is available at https://vimeo.com/399380478 with a contribution of £5 to support the artist’s practice).
Pharmakon is part of Ochoa’s educational and aesthetic ongoing research, in which she investigates the relationship between traditional pharmacy, based on the use of plants as medicinal, and contemporary mode of consumerism. In “Pharakon: Garden of Psychotropical Hope”, the artist will lead a series of online workshops in which she will teach natural recipes that help to relieve us from stress and heal our anxiety. As Ochoa wrote in the workshop page: “this workshop is intended to take us in to the kitchen and find there in a DIY way the poetics of herbaria.”
Tuned with Ochoa’s work, Chalton appeals to a period of meditation and introspection, questioning the race to creating new and more online content in such an uncertain time.
“We the Art ambassadors have the obligation to respond by restoring order or by creating a new order. We can’t keep calling anything Art and calling ourselves artists if we do not understand the Present and connect back to our selves, our societies, our Mother Earth and to our deep Cosmos.”
The message from Chalton Gallery is a plea for humans to reconnect with nature and asks us to use this time to re-balance through introspection and meditation. At the same time, the gallery is spreading public art by sticking messages in the shop windows that are shut as the effect of the lockdown.
In my opinion, behind what at first sight seems to be a call for non-action (indeed meditation), lays a strong commitment to take action and make more art by using public spaces. In fact, Chalton is using closed shops which, until before the lockdown, were the very places where the everyday social interaction lived. With these messages, empty stores still provide their services to society. Even in the era of social distancing, social interaction can still happen in the physical world, and Chalton Gallery is proving this.
