Abi Palmer at Chapter, Cardiff
"Our idea of dirt is compounded of two things, care for hygiene and respect for conventions. The rules of hygiene change, of course, with changes in our state of knowledge. As for the conventional side of dirt-avoidance, these rules can be set aside for the sake of friendship."
- Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (2002), p8
What do we find disgusting? Perhaps activities and presences which remind us of the seemingly gaping chasm between human life and non-human life, or human behaviours deemed despicable, unacceptable, deviant. While there will be differences in attitudes between individuals, the prospect of perceiving something, or someone, as disgusting runs deep; every discrimination we can possibly think of will stem from the desire to separate oneself from a trait one finds disgusting.
The climate crisis is no stranger to this concept; man's dominion over nature is inextricably tied with desires, and uninhibited abilities, to destroy living organisms that do not comply with our rigid ways of life. This is particularly pertinent in Western thought. At Chapter in Cardiff, artist Abi Palmer subverts these ideas with the help of religious practices and iconography, for her solo exhibition, Slime Mother. The site of Chapter at once feels suitable for the show, providing a community and distinctly open layout; on a first visit, it does seem to be a great place for basking in culture of all kinds, whether that's film or visual arts, or even informal culture, such as meeting up with friends. It seems a basic observation, but such venues have become few and far between in times of relentless gentrification. (Why are there not more voices exclaiming the 'disgusting' nature of gentrification? Language is important; with terms such as 'whitewashing' often closely linked to gentrification, the socially constructed binary between dirty and clean rears its head once more.)
Installation view: Abi Palmer, Slime Mother, Chapter, Cardiff. 20 July - 6 October 2024. Photography: Dan Weill
Slime Mother takes place across a generous allocation of five spaces in Chapter's gallery, suggesting that Palmer has had space to develop her practice towards what the gallery calls an "immersive cosmology of care for a sticky, slimy and much-maligned mollusc - the slug". This "care" comes across immediately; from simple observations to deeper explorations, the exhibition feels like the artist is wrapping her arms around each and every slug. These sentences seem so bizarre to write, but fighting through what is expected, the art-speak, the niceties, is essential in forming new relationships to things that we usually do not have mental capacity for. As we move through the exhibition, Palmer's audience cannot help but start sharing these feelings, nowhere moreso than the opening eponymous film work, filmed at Walworth Gardens in south London.
Before getting into the film, the accessibility of the exhibition is worth mentioning. Upon entering the space, which is all at step-free ground floor level, the 'access' section of the printed exhibition guide is thorough and incredibly well considered, including the possibility to lower sound and lighting levels if required, welcoming assistance dogs, and the audio description version of the Slime Mother video which I believe runs once an hour. By chance, I happened upon this particular version (my first of three consecutive viewings of the piece), and I felt that the audio description provided unique insight into the work, expanding the medium of film beyond the purely visual. The artist's voice is present throughout Slime Mother, which documents the artist as a nun, taking care of what appears to be a slug sanctuary, but in reality is potentially just the garden in which the slugs dwell. The power of the work is its ability to transport the viewer into the mythology of the sacred slug, toeing the line between the mythical and the real. As Palmer narrates the footage of the slug, with the camera close enough to touch the intricate, slimy textures, she addresses us directly when she asks: "a slug can reproduce without a partner if it needs to. Is that not God-given? Is that not immaculate?".
Installation view: Abi Palmer, Slime Mother, Chapter, Cardiff. 20 July - 6 October 2024. Photography: Dan Weill
The role of faith and religion in the exhibition dominates the space almost as much as the trope of the slug. Allusions are made from the very beginning, with the sacred bond of the mother, and of course the iconography and "immaculate" maternal vision of the Virgin Mary. The elevation of the slug to a holy being, or species, is reflected through the lens of Christianity, firstly with church kneelers, essentially ergonomic cushions for the act of kneeling, with embellishments made by the artist; secondly with pedestal sculptures made by frosted and fused glass, holding synthetic candles, and thirdly with worn Communion shoes manipulated with a clay sculpture of an emerging slug. There is no sense of blasphemy or sacrilege in Chapter's space, instead a worship and awe towards the slug, using means that we recognise as sacred and reverent.
Installation view: Abi Palmer, Slime Mother, Chapter, Cardiff. 20 July - 6 October 2024. Photography: Dan Weill
Thanks in part to its accessibility considerations, Slime Mother is a comfortable show to navigate through. The opening film boasts seating and bean bags for optimum comfort, and there are benches in each of the five rooms. And still, the fourth space, hosting the installation A Shared Wetness, dives into the textural differences that we may encounter, and forces us to interrogate whether they are disgusting at all, or merely different. The trail of a slug is distinctive, whether spotted in nature or as a pesky invader in the home; that which it leaves behind can be incredibly meditative. A Shared Wetness embraces this fully, inviting visitors to dip their hands in a large dish of wet clay and smear freely on a designated canvas on the adjoining wall, below the handwritten caption, "Have no shame for the marks of your wetness". Grammatically it doesn't quite scan, but that seems to be part of the whole experience; the artist is breaking down the structures and relations of power, momentarily dismantling and pointing and laughing at anthropocentrism and, by proxy, capitalism. While language is important, it is not immutable; one could move through the exhibition entirely without paying attention to language and words, and still enjoy a full experience.
There is no productive purpose to what we are being asked to do in this (quite literally) hands-on exercise, and there is a real joy in that. The joy that we experience when we are permitted to break free from both hum-drum monotony and capitalist-driven productivity plays a huge part in how Palmer's audience receives the exhibition, as a whole and in its parts. We can never really know the extent to which non-human animals enjoy their lives (another sentence which feels mildly unhinged to write), but they are not programmed to (almost mindlessly) work as hard as humans are, and when they do work, it is for their nutritional survival, not for excessive desires or forces. When I arrived at the exhibition, the warmly welcoming assistant advised that the exhibition is across five spaces, culminating in "the slug disco". Lest we forget that any social cues that are perceived as weird or wrong are often treated as disgusting or repelling (thank you, standards of neuronormativity), I politely smiled and carried on my journey, instead of what should have been a sharing of excitement at such a prospect.
Installation view: Abi Palmer, Slime Mother, Chapter, Cardiff. 20 July - 6 October 2024. Photography: Dan Weill
While the space, another immersive one comprised of Long Wet Slugs at the Discotheque, Drunk Slug, and Slug Kiss, is indeed a slug disco, there is something oddly unnerving about it. Up to this point, the exhibition is lively, engaging, full of childlike wonder (something else that is beaten out of adults by neuronormative standards and capitalist demands on our energy), but as a glitter-ball and large scale jesmonite slug sculptures rotate, and visitors take a seat on the bean bags, the ambience is markedly dampened by the artist's choice of music. As I sat, ready to be titillated by the fairly surreal visual experience, Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender blasted out of an admirably crisp sound system. Once the next forlorn love song started playing, and the realisation occurred that the slow tempo was not an anomaly, the affect of an artist communicating her feelings to slug-life becomes clear. Slime Mother is concluded with a high school slow dance, where everyone finds their partner and sways from side to side, and Palmer's audience are mere observers. Despite this, we are so immersed in the theatricality and care that has been put into the work that we cannot help but leave Chapter feeling that we simply must rethink our relationship with the natural world. Every part of it. The beautiful connection between man and nature is so ready to be witnessed, ready to be acted upon, ready to produce a more liveable world, but it is entirely incompatible with capitalism and the destruction it leaves relentlessly in its wake. Palmer shows us that everything we need is already here; there is nothing to purchase, but everything to nurture.
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