A research-rich exhibition featuring extensive documentation, “A Hard White Body” unfolded around a central installation—a room made of unfired porcelain, sculpted by the artist based on the description of Giovanni’s room in James Baldwin’s eponymous novel. This constantly evolving installation was extended through documentary materials, drawings, small sculpted forms, and a large drawing on the windows, combining in multiple forms the imperial history of porcelain, challenges to white supremacy, and often speculative evocations of elective relationships and life paths that had to be frequently defended against adverse conditions.

During this tenth session of “Parties Prenantes,” a regular event offering a deep dive into the art center’s archives, we will revisit this exhibition, discuss the process of its in-situ creation, the many connections that formed around Candice Lin and her research, lasting friendships, and transatlantic collaborations. We will follow the metamorphoses of the “exquisite white body,” which, over the course of months, cracked and became home to fungi and mold; then track its cut-off sections as they move on to their next stages. Far beyond a metaphorical evocation of interdependent bodies, the exhibition invited the bodies present in the space to become active participants—through their bodily fluids, through the interactions they engaged in with others, and through the care they brought to the whole.