Deborah Schamoni

Finnegan Shannon’s (Berkeley, 1989) practice consists of designing interventions that make the physical and digital spaces in which their works are exhibited more accessible. Responding to the surrounding environment, Shannon pinpoints architectures and protocols that prevent non-conforming or disabled bodies from visiting or spending time in a venue. Their works highlight multiple needs, responding for example to the physical fatigue that a prolonged visit to a museum may cause. By addressing disabled people with disabilities first and foremost, Shannon’s works encourage the participation of subjectivities that would otherwise be excluded. Likewise, the artist highlights how everyday spaces and activities are conceived and designed according to a standard ideal of an abled body.

Do you want us here or not is a project started in 2018 consisting of a series of benches that invite people to sit and rest through handwritten phrases printed on the seats. For Pinacoteca Agnelli, Shannon designed a new set of benches confronting the ideology of speed and movement with which the FIAT car test track that now houses the project was conceived. “I prefer gradual to accelerated. Sit if you agree” or “I prefer staying to going. Sit if you agree” are some of the phrases written by the artist to invite people to take a moment to pause and rest along the track walk.

Also referring to a long history of demonstrations in which sitting represented an act of protest, Do you want us here or not suggests that occupying space with benches is a way of emphasising the presence of unseen and unheard bodies. For Shannon, accessibility is not a design concern, but rather a community-building issue, a matter relating to art and education. Accessibility is an ongoing learning process that prompts individuals, communities and institutions to question their responsibility to make spaces open to the largest possible number of people.

Text: Pinacoteca Agnelli
Finnegan Shannon, Do you want us here or not (Pinacoteca Agnelli), 2024-ongoing
Fabricated by Attitudine FormaCourtesy l’artista e / the artist and Deborah Schamoni
Photos: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano