Mads Monroe is someone you want on your side. Or even against you for that matter, because one learns so much from her opposition. To say that she injects an invigorating dynamic in every conversation or performance-based initiative that she begins would be something of a platitude. She speaks from the solar-plexus. In between that space and the wide world felt in all its tumbling, rushing complexity is the source of her artistic production. Maddie is not only willing to go further than most other people, she needs to go that extra distance in order to survive. Otherwise something very fundamental in her becomes suspicious of its surroundings. Her own burning spine pushes her on in a series of questionnings that are at turns maddening as well as intensely important, being a person concerned about the future of our species. Most of her time is either making art, helping people make their art or speculating somewhat miserably about the possible futures of our so-called “intelligent” civilisation and its sadistic refusal to base its basic principles of organisation on collaboration and sustenance rather than extortion and control. Throughout the pursuit of these dense and often dark reflections Maddie is both intellectual and human, which is rarely found amongst even the most insightful collegues and kindest friends. Sometimes you meet people who have a particular drive, a sort of x-ray vision concerning the thing that they love. Less frequently do those same people show the immense empathy and compassion of which Maddie is capable. I believe that this understanding for and attraction towards human fragility is one of the unifiying foundations of her work across all media, whether it be performance, video, textiles, poetry, painting etc. It is also my belief that the many institutional pedagogies which attempt, through their bureaucratic obsession with prestige and difference, to quieten that throbbing cry of compassion for life, wide impossible life with capital letters and exclamation marks, will ultimately disserve not only her immense talent but also Maddie’s purpose as an artist. – Gabriel Shields Hanau