Automat Collective
July 5-August 1, 2026
Philadelphia, PA
Negotiation Curated by: Jo Nakayama
Min Baek
Megan Biddle
Marley Edelman
Leslie Finn
Eilish Henderson
Kiran Jandu
Jaeeun Lee
Kait O’Brien
Julia Taylor
Lulu Xue
The works in negotiation demonstrate a self-reflective capacity of art, capable of revealing and articulating quiet natures of the body. This mode of art parallels what is known in somatic studies as “threshold work,” a navigation from stasis into unfamiliar territory which, while risking discomfort, also presents an opportunity for growth. Threshold work dips into a moment of transformation, when we negotiate our sense of self with a body that exceeds us. These moments position the body as an expanse beyond will or intention, and show us that being situated—in dialogue with place—informs a dynamic sense of self. Somatic negotiations as part of an art practice reveal the oscillation between self-stability, and noticing where our boundaries merge (or collide) with other relational entities, i.e. externally prescribed sociocultural interfaces, or ecogeological forces shaping the embodied experience. Plainly, the art reminds us who we are, but equally challenges that very status.
Notably, the term somatic threshold in clinical use points to the moment when a body no longer shows signs of life. It suggests the creative transformation as a passage—perhaps through shedding or dying off—opening toward an emergence. What happens when we read these threshold negotiations, these creative transformations, by way of analysing the broader contextualization of the situated art? Using the conventions of a variety of disciplines, the artists exhibit fundamental tools to articulate the phenomenological individual, but read as metonymy—for the symbolic social body—also create bridges from the personal to the collective. Through analysis and discourse, the formless somatic potentials of the creative process permeate into networks of language to create meaning toward a more relational and interdependent understanding of the world.