FAMILY BUSINESS

These are just some comments left under P!NK’s 2009 heartwrenching video for ‘Family Portrait’, a cross-generational ode to a traumatic childhood. The song’s narrative arch escalates into the pleading bridge: “In our family portrait, we look pretty happy. Let’s play pretend, let’s act like it comes naturally.” The Technicolour American-dream nuclear family is an outlier that has very little to do with the lived experience as blood relations don’t necessarily guarantee a content and meaningful connection.

For example, ‘family’ has a wealth of meaning in the queer world and many who occupy it know that the importance of a ‘chosen family’ cannot be understated. For some, family means community and for others, community means family. Finding and creating your inner circle brings struggle, challenges, and estrangement but also and foremostly joy, grounding and a sense of belonging. These processes and journeys are firmly planted in the SWARM Mag manifest. 

Thriving communities are vital (not only) for the art world. Rivalry should not be the driving force behind the artistic scene, no matter how niche, seemingly crowded, and competitive it can be. The layered issue that is ‘family’ resonates with the artists we are going to present to you under FAMILY BUSINESS through a myriad of different lenses. Such as exploring the theme of couple intimacy after having a baby, searching for your flock in the digital world or the binding power of shared fashion style and traditional clothing.

Next, we have the artistic appeal of Mary and the whole Holy Family, paintings empowering women by exuding power and mystique, photography challenging existing boundaries and taboos surrounding the themes of gender, sexuality, and trauma, and how the notion of ‘home’ can be impacted by political regimes and mixed-race family backgrounds. You will see strange objects initiating dialogues in places of worship, a life of two parents in Odesa, Ukraine, humanoid figures in intimate and melancholic scenes, civilisational ailments embodied in sculptures. You can also look forward to painted ceramics exploring human failings, aspirations, dreams and eccentricities, illustration series showing uncomfortable social situations in the presumably relaxing holiday settings or finding out how the success of one game developer studio stems from its community.

I would like to end this piece with the words from a light installation by my friend and artist Gabriela Procházka: “A FORM OF REVOLUTION: TREAT EACH OTHER WELL.” Let’s imbue ‘family’ with meanings of our own, maintain relationships, and keep a seat at the table for those in need.