IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING/2023

Video Installation
Video, felt, graffiti
Camera: Marta Hryniuk & Ari David
Colour grade: Marta Hryniuk
Text editing: Roni Zaftig
Sound editing: Jake Caleb


In Spite of Everything traces gestures of refusal and discontent through the act of spitting. Through this codified bodily gesture, David examines personal and collective histories that are entangled with themes of gender, capitalism and patriarchy. Reflecting on spitting becomes an exploration of magic, pleasure, intimacy, contagion, and vulnerability in relation to the body. Thus, spitting is seen not only as a refusal, but also as a connector to other forms and ways of being.

The project is inspired by an encounter with a scene from the video Physics of Love (1998) by Diane Bonder. In this scene, a portrait photograph of the artist’s mother is spat upon. Together with Marta Hryniuk, David decided to recreate the scene as a meditation on the visceral states of the body, unresolved personal relationships and the disruption of the familiar. The gestures and moments that are collected invite us to lean in closer, to pay attention to the detail, the subtle, and the unsaid.


Photos by Jake Caleb and Ari David



Supported by CBK Rotterdam (Centre for Visual Arts Rotterdam)