Longing for Common Closeness
A performance by Hannah Toticki, curated for CHART art fair 2023
Created by Hannah Toticki during the COVID-19 pandemic, Longing for Common Closeness reflects on the physical and psychological effects of prolonged social distancing. For CHART 2023, the performance brought these internalised rules into the shared space, transforming an invisible social measure into something physical, tactile and visible.
The performers’ costumes became extensions of the body, materialising the distance imposed between people and turning an abstract regulation into a choreography of proximity, avoidance and desire. Through movement, touch and spatial negotiation, the work explored the tension between the need for closeness and the learned instinct to keep apart.
Although rooted in the specific conditions of the pandemic, Longing for Common Closeness continues to resonate in a society marked by increasing loneliness and social disconnection. The work asks what happens when distance becomes more than a physical condition: when it is internalised as a way of moving through the world, relating to others and protecting oneself. In this sense, the performance becomes not only a reflection on the pandemic, but on a broader contemporary longing for contact, community and common closeness.
Photo credit: Joakim Züger, Barsk Projects
Hannah Toticki (b. 1984, Denmark) is an artist whose practice draws on fashion, design and theatre to create a distinctive visual language. Her sculptures and installations often engage directly with the human body, taking the form of furniture, accessories and garments. Through humour, performance and lecture-based works, she explores subjects including work, economy, debt and productivity, bringing seemingly abstract systems into intimate and recognisable spaces.
In her recent practice, Toticki examines the relationship between personal and collective exhaustion, the cult of work and productivity, and the increasingly limited space for rest and sleep in contemporary society. She graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2016 and has exhibited widely in Denmark and internationally, including at Copenhagen Contemporary, EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, MOCAD in Detroit and Malmö Art Museum.