Black post box

[German below]

Co-curators of the BLACK POST BOX, Gugulethu Duma and Dylan Greene, explore racial and cultural melancholy by centralizing the work of Saidiyah Hartman who asks, "... what if depression could be traced to histories of colonialism, genocide, slavery, exclusion , everyday segregation, and isolation that haunt all of our lives, rather than to biochemical imbalances? How can we feel, deal and heal while the experiences of loss and alienation persist? The silent victims are countless, and their names remain unrecorded. The body carries this reality and functions. Day in and day out. The body functions in a dysfunctional state, we can hear, but do we listen? We can look, but do we observe? " 

In Anne Anlin Cheng's seminal work, The Melancholy of Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, and Hidden Grief, melancholy is defined as, "a transformation from grief to grievance". It's a state of being explored as an entangled relationship to loss where grief becomes legislated. Said another way, mourning passes whereas melancholy, an apparently endless condition, continues through the generations as it becomes the formation of identity and ego and diaspora themselves. As Ralph Ellison writes in Invisible Man "I am invisible ... like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings , themselves, or figments of their imagination. " Asking, within the framework of culture and the perception of it, "who distorts whom?" In this way, melancholia asks the self into cycles of reflexivity. 

Until the 19th century, Western science and medicine saw "melancholia" as both a physical and mental symptomatic condition. The melancholic were classified by a perceived common cause: an excess of black bile. At times, all forms of mental illness were associated with the concept. Some were deemed to be caused by a combination of excess black bile and a disorder of one of the other humors. As global societies begin to explore "generational trauma / transfer" and the lineage of hauntings turn to anxieties and physical conditions, we posit African and Asian sciences and medicines which long pre-date the white-bile of Western opinion.

In their contribution to Oyoun's Embodied Arts Festival, Gugulethu Duma's curatorial focus invites contemplations on melancholia, psycho-spiritual instability, and the color Black: Black as silence; black as emptiness; black as the unknown; black as the shadow; black as the night, as we move with earth still in a global lockdown. Dylan 'HUNTERCHEE' Greene's curatorial focus invites contemplations on immigration, the stasis within enslaving forms of transit, and cultural homelessness.

The BLACK POST BOX invites individuals to spend 20 minutes alone, listening and seeing compositions that seek to inspire conversation with the unrecorded self; observation of the silenced self; and recollection of forgotten selves. We invite our audience to write down reflections and submit them to our post box after engaging with the installation. They will be mailed through flame to the ancestors upon the closing of the installation.

A diasporic rhythm called 'displacement' is another way of describing home. Echoes of a global feeling; a mid-air suspension pleading, "is there grounding?"

The Black Post Box will be at Oyoun for both the opening and closing ceremony of the EMBODIED ARTS FESTIVAL.

From 9th-18th April, the Black Post Box will be stationed where May Ayim Ufer meets Oberbaumstrasse in Kreuzberg. It will be open every day between 12:00 - 18:00 - book your time slot to visit here.

About the contributors

Gugulethu Duma, Also known as You mother, is an artist, performer and sonic researcher, born in South Africa. Her transdisciplinary practice involves consciously deconstructing and critiquing archaic modes of representation of (Southern) African sonic and performance culture. Her interests intersect as practice based performance research, and interdisciplinary, collaborative bodies of work centered around political-poetic imaginations. > dumamamusic.com

Dylan "HUNTERCHEE" Greene is an Asian American drummer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer who collaborates deeply with dance and visual media. In 2019, he was commissioned by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA to focus on Ming Dynasty naval exploration as well as Chinese immigration to America. He is currently making work that explores perception and narrative through the experiences of mild traumatic brain injury and lenses of Eastern philosophy. Greene performed with Grammy nominated artists, A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, Bessie Award-winning choreographers, Rebecca Lazier and Christopher Williams, MacArthur Fellowship composer, Matt Aucoin, and the Peabody Award winning podcast, Radiolab. Dylan has been an artist in residency at Avaloch, a fellow at Mass MOCA with Bang On a CAN, and a Onebeat alumni, an initiative of Found Sound Nation supported by the US Department of State. He has taught at Carnegie Hall and now teaches a trauma conscious music methodology with Music Beyond Measure. HUNTERCHEE is an ambassador for Out Of Time Embassy, ​​a Berlin-based collective. > Hunterchee.com

Ayanda Duma is a video and film artist whose main objective is the re-representation of the marginalized people of South Africa. Through a subversive and an imaginative lens, her work encompasses an inquiry into the ways the past informs the present, reflecting on how this affects the representation of the South African & global youth. Ayanda Duma's film work embodies themes such as identity, sexuality, interpersonal relationships and politics within slice of life narratives that celebrate the magic in the mundane. She is an emerging female-identifying filmmaker from East London, currently based in Cape Town. Ever the curious artist, her creative inclinations, beginning in primary school, have spanned many years covering a range from classical piano, music composition, modeling, performance and visual storytelling in the forms of portrait photography and filmmaking. Her filmmaking journey began with Film School in 2016 and by 2017 my short film, Booked, was shortlisted for The Horizon Award with The Creative Mind Group. This accolade earned me an invitation and internship at the Cannes Film Festival 2018.

EMBODIED ARTS FESTIVAL

Curators, artists and cultural practitioners have been exploring identities, belonging and embodied memories through diasporic, decolonial and queer perspectives as part of Oyoun's first curatorial focus: EMBODIED TEMPORALITIES. The outcomes, encounters and queries will be presented and celebrated during the EMBODIED ARTS FESTIVAL from 8th - 18th April. View all events here.

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The co-curators of the BLACK POST BOX, Gugulethu Duma and Dylan Greene, explore melancholy related to race and culture based on the work of Saidiyah Hartman, who asks: "... what if depression had an impact on the history of colonialism , could be traced back to genocide, slavery, exclusion, everyday segregation and isolation that haunt all of our lives, and not (only) to a respective biochemical imbalance? How can we feel, live on and heal during the experiences of loss and alienation The mute victims are numberless, and their names remain unmarked. The body carries this reality and functions day in, day out. The body functions in a dysfunctional state, we can hear, but are we really listening? We can look, but are we really observing? "

In Anne Anlin Cheng's seminal work The Melancholy of Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation, and Hidden Grief, melancholy is defined as "a transformation from grief to grief". Melancholy is a state of being that turns out to be shackled by experiences of loss, in which grief is the law. In other words: grief passes, while melancholy as an apparently endless state persists for generations, as it forms the basis of identity, of the respective ego, and indeed of the entire diaspora. As Ralph Ellison in Invisible Man writes, "I'm invisible ... like the disembodied heads you sometimes see on circus programs; it's like I'm surrounded by mirrors made of hard, distorting glass. When they get close, they see only my surroundings, yourself or the figments of your imagination. " In the context of culture and its perception, one asks oneself: "Who is distorting whom?" In this way, melancholy lures the self into an eternal cycle of self-reflection.

Up until the 19th century, it was believed in Europe that "melancholy" had both physical and psychological symptoms. The melancholy states would be characterized by an excess of "black bile". At times all forms of mental illness have been associated with this concept, some believed to be caused by a combination of excess black bile and a disruption in one of the other humors. As global societies begin to explore intergenerational trauma and its transmission, and hauntedness and obsession to be reinterpreted as anxiety and somatic states, we refer to African and Asian scientific and medical traditions that precede the white bile of Western ideas.

The focus of Gugulethu Dumas' curatorial contributions to the Embodied Arts Festival invites reflection on melancholy, psycho-spiritual instability and the color black. Black as: silence; black as: void; black as: the unknown; black as: the shadow; black as: the night - while we are all still in global lockdown. Dylan 'HUNTERCHEE' Greene, on the other hand, makes us think about immigration, the stagnation caused by enslaved forms of transition, and cultural homelessness.

The BLACK POST BOX offers us the opportunity to be alone for 20 minutes and listen to and see compositions during this, which are intended to stimulate conversations with the undefined self, to observe the silenced self and to remember forgotten forms of the self . We invite our audience to write down their reflections and to drop them in our mailbox after they have dealt with the installation. After the installation is completed, they will be sent to the ancestors by fire.

The diasporic rhythm called 'expulsion' is another way of describing home. Echoes of a global feeling; a floating in the air that makes us beg for solid ground under our feet ...

The Black Post Box will be on display at both the opening and closing events of the EMBODIED ARTS FESTIVAL in Oyoun.

From April 9th ​​to 18th, the Black Post Box will be stationed at the eastern end of May-Ayim-Ufer, at the corner of Oberbaumstrasse. It will be open daily from 12:00 p.m. to 18:00 p.m. Here you can book an appointment for a personal visit.

About the contributors

Gugulethu Duma, also known as Dumama, ist a South African born artist, performer and sound researcher. In her transdisciplinary practice, she deliberately deconstructs and criticizes archaic forms of representation of (South) African sound and performance culture. She is interested in the connection between practice-based performance research and interdisciplinary, collaborative work that revolves around political-poetic imaginations. > dumamamusic.com

Dylan Hunter Chee Greene is a Sino-American drummer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer. Driven by the desire to create a diverse and mixed work, Dylan writes music as a session musician and as a commissioned composer. His compositions for dance, concerts, and visual art installations have been heard across the United States, including at Alvin Ailey, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Detroit Institute of the Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and the Mark Morris Dance Center. As a very versatile artist, Dylan worked with and for greats such as Shahzad Ismaily, Sō Percussion, Leila Adu, Mark Stuart, David Scher and Jeff Dolven. Greene has performed with Grammy-nominated A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra and counter-tenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, Bessie Award-winning choreographers Rebecca Lazier and Christopher Williams, MacArthur Fellowship composer Matt Aucoin, and the Peabody Award-winning podcast Radiolab. Dylan was an artist in residency at Avaloch, a fellow at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art with Bang On a Can, and an alumnus of Onebeat, a State Department-sponsored initiative of Found Sound Nation. He teaches a trauma-conscious music methodology with Music Beyond Measure and is an ambassador for the Berlin collective Out Of Time Embassy. > Hunterchee.com

The main interest of the video and film artist from East London and currently living in Cape Town Ayanda Duma applies to the re-representation of marginalized people in South Africa. In a subversive, imaginative way, she examines how the past affects the present, reflecting on how this affects the portrayal of South African and global youth. Ayanda Dumas film work focuses on issues such as identity, sexuality, interpersonal relationships and politics within slice-of-life narratives that celebrate the magic of everyday life. She has always been a curious artist, and her creative inclinations, which she discovered in elementary school, spanned a spectrum from classical piano, musical composition, modeling and performance to visual storytelling in the form of portrait photography and filmmaking. Her journey as a filmmaker began in 2016 with film school and in 2017 her short film Booked was shortlisted for the Horizon Award of the Creative Mind Group. This award earned her an invitation and an internship at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018.

EMBODIED ARTS FESTIVAL 

As part of Oyoun's first curatorial focus - curators, artists and cultural workers - EMBODIED TEMPORALITIES - dealt with identities, belonging and embodied memories from diasporic, decolonial and queer perspectives. The results, encounters and questions that arose from the projects will be discussed during the EMBODIED ARTS FESTIVAL presented and celebrated from April 8th to 18th. See all events here .