PROSPICIENCE

“Prospicience:” the act of looking forward, foresight, or the ability to anticipate future events and needs. The work pulled together for this exhibition under the umbrella of this title refers to both the act of hopeful looking towards the future and the big and small acts we perform in the hopes of it bringing good luck our way, but also of the habit of trying to anticipate and fulfill the needs and wants of others before one’s own. Van

Starkenburg’s work typically delves into the lives of girls and women and pulls out strange tableaus of them busily doing things: taking medicine, making notes, building human pyramids, counting bodies, dowsing for water, riding horses… there is no end to things they do. What they have in common is that they are all acts of survival: physical and psychological acts to stay alive and stay safe. The figures are in fight or flight mode, but also fawning or playing dead. They are also pretending at decorum so they can secretly get on with their important w