Joseph Noonan-Ganley's exhibition Our Bed reimagines Andes disaster through textiles and queer intimacy

Irish artist Joseph Noonan-Ganley presents Our Bed at Steam Works in South London, an exhibition exploring the 1972 Andes flight disaster through textiles, film, photography, and performance. The show focuses on how survivors repurposed airplane debris and clothing to create sleeping bags and bunk beds for survival in sub-zero temperatures, rather than emphasizing the cannibalism that occurred. Noonan-Ganley has developed this body of work over several years, with previous iterations shown in Ireland and the UK. The exhibition includes facsimiles of survivor diagrams, reproductions of artifacts, and a video featuring a jockstrap alphabet that flashes alongside fragments of survivor testimony from Piers Paul Read's 1974 book Alive!. This Netflix adaptation Society of the Snow premiered on January 4, joining the 1993 film Alive! in retelling the story of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash that killed 29 of 45 passengers. Sixteen survivors were rescued after 72 days, following a ten-day trek by two survivors into Chile. The artist imagines a queer dimension to the incident, despite the survivors being straight, using the actual intimacy of the events as a starting point for creative exploration. Novelist Megan Nolan reflects on the exhibition and the disaster's portrayal in popular culture, noting how survivor negotiations about cannibalism involved mutual respect rather than imposition of will.