Iris Bernblum:
Palliative Sedation

Palliative Sedation is the second iteration of Human / Nature, a body of work Iris Bernblum has been developing throughout 2026. The series grows out of what Bernblum calls her “conspiracy theory”: that the legalization of marijuana across much of the United States has coincided with the rise of the Right, a kind of mass sedation of a Left already in a state of overwhelm. Amid rising authoritarianism, violence, xenophobia, and environmental collapse, Bernblum is interested in how we cope, collectively and individually, through substances, escapism, and screens, and in the blurring line between truth and fiction.

The title borrows a medical term: palliative sedation is the relief of suffering at the end of life, when cure is no longer the goal. Here Bernblum turns to the entanglement of humans and the natural world. The installation brings together sculptures that are fragile, tender, and unsettling. Glass birds’ nests evoke shelter and vulnerability, while a glass gun hangs overhead. Two deer heads are cast in wax. A pair of legs, an image that recurs throughout Bernblum’s practice, appears as well: one foot holds a joint between its toes, while the other has been removed and turned into a planter, so that the body becomes host to new growth. Alongside these, a small watercolor of a mountain landscape offers a quiet, idealized view of the nature the other works call into question.

Together, the works ask whether comfort is a form of care or a form of surrender, and what is lost when we numb ourselves against a world in crisis.

Iris Bernblum is a cross-disciplinary, conceptually based artist. She explores ideas around human nature, power and vulnerability, focusing primarily on the way we frame our sense of self in regards to our current capitalist culture and its commodification of nearly every natural impulse. She has shown at venues including: Aspect/Ratio Gallery, The Arts Club of Chicago, Goldfinch Projects, and Weinberg/Newton Gallery in Chicago, Illinois; Osmos Station / Arts & Rec, Springs Projects, The Brooklyn International Film Festival, September Gallery, Artist’s Space and The Elizabeth Foundation in New York, New York; The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. She received her MFA from Columbia University in New York and her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.