“History is full of people who just didn't. They said no thank you, turned away, ran away to the desert, stood on the streets in rags, lived in barrels, burned down their own houses, walked barefoot through town, killed their rapists, pushed away dinner, meditated into the light.” (Anne Boyer, No, 2017)

Anne Boyer reminds us that refusal has never been clean or heroic. It has taken the form of withdrawal, awkwardness, collapse, and bodily exposure. Refusal does not always produce clarity; often, it produces vulnerability, exhaustion, or failure. But how do we learn to love our failures?

In Renea’s work, The Body Failed to Pretend, the body does not perform or pretend. It creates a sense of intimacy that remains unreachable. In this tabulated world, vulnerability exists without extraction. Renea’s species feel together, fail together, suggesting multiplicities in which there is always the possibility of becoming with others. There are no clean oppositions to lean on, no (re)productive cycles to return to. What remains is rest, discomfort, and vulnerability. 

- Anyla Kabashi