The Goal of Our Health questions ideals of health and the ‘productive’ body, asking: why are some bodies seen as more deserving of life and care than others? Who counts and who is discarded? What do we mean when we talk about ‘health’?
The exhibition centres on The Treasury of Human Inheritance (2024), an experimental documentary that weaves personal stories about genetic inheritance with experiences of living alongside disease and disability. This is complemented by Fit to Work (2026), Alexis’ latest film, which explores connections between labour and the ‘use value’ of bodies under the conditions of capitalism, and Plates (2025), a series of short black-and-white film portraits that recreate poses from 20th-century photographic studies of the ‘ideal’ body in motion.
All three works were shot on 16mm celluloid film, processed by hand, and developed in liquids that relate to their content: The Treasury was processed in blood and urine, inscribing genetic material onto the film itself, Plates was developed in coffee, and Fit to Work in iron and beer – materials that trace connections between productivity, globalised labour and extraction.
The Goal of Our Health brings together these works for the first time in an immersive installation that draws on industrial, medical and fitness settings. Haunting the edges of the exhibition is a concern with the influence of the eugenics movement – a 19th-century ideology of genetic racism that permeated scientific discourse and became foundational to European fascism. The exhibition questions how eugenics-based thinking continues to linger in the shadows of health, labour, care and productivity – shaping how bodies are built, used and wasted.
Produced in partnership between Peer, JOAN and Site Gallery.
Event description by organisers.
