More-Than-Human Healthcare facilitates a multitude of voices – non-human, more-than-human and human. It pays serious attention to an ephemeral constellation of entities encountered through the contemporary tools of psychedelic medicine, the development of the AI doctor and plant intelligences. Employing a participatory approach, Knowles has produced a trilogy of artworks which includes two artist films, 'Indexed Beings' and 'Caring Code', and an immersive installation called 'Trust the Medicine'. Centred on the agency of these caring entities and how this agency is culturally and cosmologically underscored, the exhibition investigates a broad spectrum of differing practices, locations and relationships.
These are: psychedelic entities met during psychedelic experiences, as recounted by participants in psychedelic integration groups led by researchers at King’s College, London (KCL), plant beings of the forest with whom the indigenous Inga, Siona, Kamëntsá and Cofán communities, in Putumayo, Colombia, work to heal one another, and AI models being trained by researchers to cooperate with or usurp medical professionals in their healthcare practices, at the London AI lab, (KCL).
Knowles’s use of performance and film focuses on the relational and generative qualities of discourse. Adopting a decolonial agenda, the project facilitates the creation of a pluriversal, techno-diverse arena that engages all parties, to unpick cosmologies embedded in these ancient and novel tools of care.An exhibition by Helen Knowles
Gallery North, University of Northumbria.
April 2nd-16th 2025
Venue:
Gallery North, Sandyford Building, Sandyford Road,
Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 8QE
Special exhibition opening times:
12-4pm Mon – Fri 10–2pm Sat (Reduced opening time, Mon 14th, 2pm – 4pm)
Private View:
6pm - 8.30pm Tuesday 1st April
