PROCRUSTEAN
BED
An exhibition examining how migration, bureaucracy and institutional systems force bodies, biographies and identities into predetermined norms.
Those who do not fit the norm do not exist.
Systems of normalisation.
Procrustean Bed examines how contemporary social and administrative systems compel individuals to adapt to predefined norms.
The exhibition focuses on migration, bureaucracy and integration — contexts in which personal history, language and identity are forced to adjust in order to remain legitimate and visible.
Through different artistic practices, the participating artists explore imposed roles, repetitive social scripts and external expectations. The Ukrainian experience becomes a lens through which universal mechanisms of normalisation are revealed.
The standard is applied before the person is seen.
The exhibition explores systems that transform bodies, biographies and experiences into material for correction. Migration policy, bureaucratic procedures, educational and medical institutions, and economic models of productivity forcibly adapt reality to a predetermined form.
The Procrustean bed is not only a metaphor for violence. It is a method: a predetermined form against which a person is measured, corrected and made legible.
Artists
Three organisations, one project.
Fridman Gallery
Hosted the exhibition in New York.
TUASHO
Curatorial concept and exhibition development.
Mercury Art Center · Rukh Art Hub
Project partners supporting international cultural collaboration.