Exhibition opening with performance and poetry reading

Ayọ̀ Akínwándé
Monira Al Qadiri
Kat Austen
Marjolijn Dijkman
Rachel O’Reilly

Mit Poesie von Róža Domašcyna, Ibiwari Ikiriko and Julia Spicher Kasdorf

Ein Projekt der Prater Galerie zu Gast im

Großen Wasserspeicher
Belforter Straße, 10405 Berlin

Liz Rosenfeld and Dasniya Sommer with assistance from Fungi Phuong Tran Minh
Material Ways

In their durational performance Material Ways, Liz Rosenfeld and Dasniya Sommer deepen their established relationship with the practice of bondage, raising questions relating to physical burnout and the expulsion of energy. The performance connects the slowness of Shibari practice with the conversion and decomposition of material containing hydrocarbons, including dead plants. Shibari, a Japanese bondage technique, traditionally calls for larger bodies: the interaction between fleshiness and plant-based jute ropes is considered to produce valuable images. Rosenfeld and Sommer merge their creative strategies regarding the abundance of flesh (Rosenfeld) and the material relationship between ropes and bodies (Sommer), pushing the energetic sustainability of one another’s boundaries and exploring the puissance of the fleshy body. In acknowledgement of the many capitalist realities in which materials and bodies are constantly pushed beyond exhaustion, Sommer carefully works towards sculpting Rosenfeld’s body into full Shibari suspension, evoking the delicate precarity of human and more-than-human existence.

Poetry reading with Ayọ Akínwándé: Excerpts from Ibiwari Ikiriko’s Oily Tears of the Delta (2000)

In the video performance Ogoni Cleanup, which is on view in the exhibition Fossil Experience, Ayọ Akínwándé attempts to clean up a river course in Ogoniland in the Niger Delta with his bare hands. The area has been scarred by more than half a century of oil production, leaving behind environmental damage of ecocidal proportions. The presence of the oil-producing industry, the pollution of water, air and soil, and the serious human rights violations carried out by state actors and companies like Royal Dutch Shell represent recurrent themes in contemporary Nigerian literature. At the opening, Ayọ Akínwándé will read poems from Ibiwari Ikiriko’s poetry collection Oily Tears of the Delta, published in 2000. Ibiwari Ikiriko’s political poetry bears witness to the Delta’s despoiling, and calls for concrete action to be taken to address the wanton destruction and neglect of the region.

The exhibition Fossil Experience is supported by Stiftung Kunstfonds, LOTTO-Stiftung Berlin, and the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, kindly supported by Förderband Kulturinitiative Berlin.

The presentation of Stranger to the Trees by Kat Austen in cooperation with postgallery.online is supported by Neustart Kultur.

Media partner:

Prater Galerie