Finnegan Shannon

Multidisciplinary artist Finnegan Shannon creates interventions that prioritize accessibility. Their works reflect their overarching practice, which emphasizes making both physical and digital spaces more accessible and addresses the lack of provisions for basic physical needs such as fatigue and exhaustion. For example, within the contemporary art world's white cube space, in which furnishings themselves can become art, Shannon demonstrates that access can only be ensured when spaces and protocols are reconceived based on multiple needs, rather than conforming to the ideology of a normative body. In this way, the act of sitting becomes a protest, where the occupation of space suggests the presence of political bodies who often remain invisible in protest marches that require participants to be mobile. The day clocks, entitled “Have you ever fallen in love with a clock?”, move so slowly that it is difficult to tell if they are working at all. Shannon invites viewers to think about the question, “What are the objects of disability culture?”

Finnegan Shannon (*1989, lives and works in New York) graduated in 2011 from Carleton College, Northfield. Some of their recent work includes Anti-Stairs Club Lounge, an ongoing project that gathers people together who share an aversion to stairs; Alt-Text as Poetry, a collaboration with Bojana Coklyat that explores the expressive potential of image description; and Do You Want Us Here or Not, a series of benches and cushions designed for exhibition spaces. They have done projects with Banff Centre, ARGOS Centre for Audiovisual Arts, the High Line, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, MMK Frankfurt, LUX, Nook Gallery and Deborah Schamoni.

CV + Selected Press

Exhibitions