Languages of Intimacy explores interiority and play from two distinct sick-disabled perspectives. As process oriented artists coming together through this collaborative project Languages of Intimacy explores the potential of illness and disability to facilitate intimacy in powerful and life-affirming ways. Existing in a world that does not value the presence of disabled people, the exhibition considers how intimacy emerges amongst isolation and marginalisation.
Khairani’s work explores Indonesian indigeneities and sick intimacies of crowded spaces within communal cacophony, juxtaposed in a surreal, playful manner with modernity and hypercapitalism. The practice is a rebuttal to the forced isolation and societal / medical neglect that disabled and ill people face, particularly the most vulnerable The concept of intimacy is expanded through the exhibition, exploring the presence of global majority knowledge and highlighting the threat that colonial capitalism poses to precious indigenous relationships between human and non-human beings.
Bella’s practice explores internal worlds and spaces of domesticity via the lens of sickness and cripness, exploring intimacy via ways we interact with the creatures and other living beings we share space with. The work examines ways in which play and radical relationships with those we surround ourselves with are essential strategies for survival in a hostile environment.
Both artists bring together the home, the sick-bed, family, familial care, love and respect for those who are human and non-human as fortifications against the systems that seek to undermine the sick-disabled experience at every turn. Taking into account the institutional context and the messiness of institutional practice, Languages of intimacy has responded to multiple complexities and structural barriers within city, architectural and funding infrastructures. The work demonstrates that sick and disabled perspectives are theoretically cutting edge, extremely relevant in the current social landscape and deserve to be discussed with rigour.
Languages of Intimacy considers the disabled body as the essence of crip time, sometimes it is simply a case of when the body has capacity to show up; in spaces, online, to build personal and communal safety. The opposite of this is violence. Lack of access to access is violence, and the expectations of existing timeframes and working paces are inherently problematic. To this end Languages of Intimacy acts as a starting point and meeting place for the artists to extrapolate the messiness of intimacy, to examine the strategies of home as survival and to allow sickness to facilitate the blurring of public and private space, where the muddying of bodies is inevitable but ultimately empowering.
Popcorn Fur by Bella Milroy is a body of work exploring the debris of domestic life and the living beings the artist shares their home with. Concerned with concepts of public and private spaces and how the sick-disabled body exists within them, these works consider the presence of softness, affection, love and devotion found in experiences which are often deemed disgusting or grotesque. Here, Bella poses the sick-disabled experience as a place of vast intimacy. Considering intimacy in its vastness imagines it as a landscape in which suffering can splinter and sparkle; the foul stench of dog breath in the most gentle of cuddles; the agony of pain set against the sweetness of a heavy exhale; the soft caress of mouthing flesh or fabric, teeth without bite. Here, vast intimacy facilitates connections with waste, with remains, with the litter of living existence, and to love amongst it.
Uni, 2025, Charcoal on paper
Carrot, 2025, Charcoal on paper
Piggy, 2025, Charcoal on paper
Owly 2025, Charcoal on paper
Gracie (house noise), 2025, Carbon on embossed paper
Kerokan Pol by Khairani Barokka is a series of four moving image works, shot in Jakarta, Indonesia. Kerokan Pol is a playful way of saying ‘kerokan to the max’ in Indonesian. The act referred to is a traditional Indonesian form of healing from cold and flu symptoms by taking a coin, and rubbing cajuput oil into someone’s back in stripes, until the marks redden (the redder, the more the person needed the intervention, or so we think). These four short films, show the varietal contexts, messiness, communality, and different sonic volumes of intimacy in place, and culture-specific contexts, juxtaposing them with hypercapitalist settings and pressures. Intimate playfulness and true warmth can seem surreal, a surrealism heightened in setting and highlighted by mirth.
Kerokan Pol represents some of what the artist perceives as the kindest of socioecological intimacies from their country of birth, sharing them with the place they have made a new home in. The films are captioned in Indonesian and English, with occasional asides and strategic opacities therein.
Saran, 2025, 17:07mins
Apotek, 2025, 4:58mins
Herbalisme, 2025, 5:02mins Mall, 2025, 4:41mins
Cast & Crew of Kerokan Pol:
Director, Concept: Khairani Barokka
Producer: Mitra S.
Assistant Producer: Esa T. P.
Line Producer: Didot Raharjo
Director of Photography: Didot Raharjo
Assistant Director of Photography: Alkris Morris
Camera Operator: Ekko Santoso
Gaffer: Ginda Maulana
Lighting: Sahirun
Suharyanto Nofiandi
Camera Assistant: Angga Ramadhan
Lighting Assistants: Rizal
Igit Purwanto
Cast:
Anton E. Girgis
Bagus Ade Saputra
Elghandiva Astrilia
Erik Lasmono
Hanna Masturina
Khairani Barokka
Kiki Narendra
Naomi Hitanayri Christy
Neysa Soediro
Rizal Iwan
Rummana Yamanie
Stylist: Allysha Nila
Assistant Stylists: Mutiara Ale
Angela Joanna Louisa
Make Up Artist: Mutia Danianti Tamala
Assistant Make Up Artist: Ayra
Access Aide for Khairani Barokka (Jakarta shoot):
Hanna Masturina
Audio Engineer: Aldino Hendar Kristianto
Runners: Muhammad Hafidh Ma’ruf
Wilson Demetrius Indra Jaya
Transportation: Sebani Muhamad Ali
Coffee Station: Organic Daily
Jamu: Bu Parti
Studio:
Kyabin Studio
Equipment: Digital Work Rental
Generator: Tio
Meals: Nagari
Indonesian captions and writing: Mitra S.
English translations of captions, captions writing and direction: Khairani Barokka
Video Editors: Leonie Rousham Florence Woolley
The artists would like to thank:
MJM Bespoke
The cast and crew of Kerokan Pol Khairani Barokka’s Family Hemal H. Jonathan Seargent
Demi Nandhra
Francesca Millican-Slater
Hannah Wallis
Beth Exley
Leah Hickey
Jo Capper
Cheryl Jones
Wysing Arts Centre
Birmingham School of Art for hosting
Languages of Intimacy is a transdisciplinary project presented as an exhibition, a programme of events and a publication to be launched with Jalebi Press in early 2026
Languages of Intimacy is generously supported by Arts Council England, The Elephant Trust, Shape Arts and DASH.
For more information please visit grand-union.org.uk
