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Home » News » MANDEM’s “Hypermobility” Exhibited and Awarded Grant

MANDEM’s “Hypermobility” Exhibited and Awarded Grant

Published January 30, 2018

Paintings from the “Hypermobility” series by MANDEM (the artist conglomerate fronted by FSU alum Maize Arendsee, MFA ’15) were presented at two Canadian medical conferences as part of an interdisciplinary art exhibit, and have been awarded an individual artist grant from the Ohio Arts Council for the second consecutive year.

The Ohio Arts Council is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally, and economically. The funding will be used to continue work on the “Hypermobility” painting series, which has exhibited in Italy, England, Canada, and the U.S. The Ohio Arts Council panel applauded MANDEM’s extensive community engagement with this painting series. “Hypermobility” depicts models with connective tissue disorders such as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, exploding the line between medical documentation and art while recentering disability as a form of beauty. “As art objects, their larger goal is to reinsert disabled bodies into the often-inaccessible homes of art and mythology,” MANDEM’s artist statement reads.

“The Body Electric / Le corps électrique” art exhibit premiered in Quebec City at the International Conference on Residency Education (hosted by The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada). It was also presented in Toronto at the AMS Invitational Symposium (hosted by the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences).

The curatorial statement describes the exhibit as “a forum where artists and healthcare practitioners engage, bringing diverse perspectives and practices to open up dialogue and exchange related to medicine and healthcare. The Body Electric understands art as an intervention that explores, disrupts, deepens and reimagines medicine.”

About MANDEM’s work, the curators wrote: “Many of the artists provoke contemplation and engagement through beauty. In ‘Hypermobility’ MANDEM presents portraits of models with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome to engage the viewer with an often-overlooked condition.” MANDEM’s artist statement further explained that “respectfully-represented disabled bodies are rare in the art canon. Our classical realist paintings assert the worthiness of such bodies within the realm of fine art.”

MANDEM’s “Hypermobility” painting series has received multiple grants and has been exhibited in Italy, England, Canada, and the U.S. Learn more about this project at http://MANDEMart.com/hypermobility.

Learn more about the Ohio Arts Council at http://oac.ohio.gov.

The exhibit catalogue for “The Body Electric” is available online at https://thebodyelectric-lecorpselectrique.ca/digital-catalogue-2017/.