We're All Pink on the Inside

"soft weapons: Keep Your Fucking Hands Off My Body, an exhibition of works by 29 artists curated by Cassandra Neyenesch and Lydia Nobles, takes its name from the concept of "soft power" - influence exercised through means other than force - and Gordon Parks's famous declaration that his camera, that is, art-making, was his "choice of weapon." The body, it argues, is a site of freedom, a method to resist forces of suppression, surveillance, and systemic violence."

"Aneesa Julmice's etching-on-paper work "The Trinity" (2025), for instance, mounted high on one of the cavernous space's support beams, is angled downward like the surveillance camera it depicts, compelling you into the act of watching yourself move through the space. A number of works incorporate seating, but each is unique, prompting me to notice how my body responded differently to varied textures, heights, sensations;"

"Aliza Shvarts's "Dark Play" (2025), meanwhile, takes the form of plastic cones arranged in a large ring, each printed with a numbered text about bodily autonomy (or lack thereof), drawing the viewer into a kind of spellcasting: silently voicing incantatory phrases while moving in preordained patterns across time and space. A long line of duct tape on the floor leads you out of the main gallery with the storybook instruction to "follow the yellow brick road to the media"

Soft Weapons: Keep Your Fucking Hands Off My Body gathers 29 artists around the concept of soft power and Gordon Parks's camera-as-weapon idea. The collection centers the body as a site of freedom and resistance to suppression, surveillance, and systemic violence. Intimate photographic work includes images taken with a sex-toy camera. Installations and sculptures provoke bodily awareness through placement, seating, texture, and movement. Aneesa Julmice's The Trinity positions viewers to watch their own movement; Lydia Nobles's sculptures invoke leaning and resisting to highlight abortion and pregnancy coercion; Aliza Shvarts stages ritualized movement around bodily autonomy texts.

Read at Hyperallergic