AUTOPOIESIS
Recognizing kin across antipodal topologies
Andrew Ananda Voogel in Khirkee Voice / Christopher Udemezue / Dhrubo Jyoti / Elyla / Jesús Hilario-Reyes / Prabhakar Pachpute / Rajyashri Goody / Subas Tamang
Curated by Shaunak Mahbubani with curatorial advice from Vidisha-Fadescha, Eli Moon and Madhumita Nandi
Vernissage: August 03, 2022, 19:00 p.m. – 22:00 p.m
Exhibition: 04 – 30 August, Tuesday – Saturday, 12:00 – 19:00
public program
August 03, 2022
19:00 – 22:00 | Exhibition preview
20:00 | Do They Hesitate To Eat With You - Participative Reading by Rajyashri Goody
22:00 p.m. – 03:00 a.m. | Antipodal After Party with MORENXXX and Fadescha
August 05, 2022
18:00 – 19:00 | Testimony and Community in HIV Care - Conversation with Eli Moon & Shaunak Mahbubani
19:00 – 20:00 | Living / Loving in a Caste Society - Keynote by Dhrubo Jyoti
20:00 – 21:00 | Akin To The Hurricane - Performance by Jesus Hilario-Reyes in collaboration with Exael
August 20, 2022
16:00 – 17:30 | Curatorial tour with exhibition curators
17:30 – 19:30 | Artist Talk “Two Positions – Personal Story, Performance, and Precarious Homelands” with Elyla (Nicaragua) and Vidisha-Fadescha (India)
"We cannot give up writing stories about what it means to be human that displace those that are at the foundation of Empire." — Sylvia Wynter
In her evocation “Being Human as Praxis” (2007), Wynter explores the importance of the origin story and places the act of self-narrative at the heart of the process of establishing oneself as a full and complex human being outside of the Enlightenment definition of human—one step , which she refers to as “Autopoetic Turn/Overturn”. In line with Wynter's vision, AUTOPOIESIS explores the nuances of autobiographical art practices that have their roots in the contrasting locations of South Asia, Central America and the Caribbean. The project, which will be shown between August and December 2022 in Berlin, Kassel, Mexico City, Guatemala City, New Delhi and other locations in expanded exhibition form, aims to go beyond abstract notions of solidarity and to experiment with self-narratives to propose to develop deeper kinships through the recognition of specific embodied positions.
Separated by large latitudinal distance while overlapping in longitudinal spread, both regions have a palimpsestic density of indigenous networks, erased and metamorphosed by multiple waves of colonisation. This trajectory has triggered very specific social topologies which share broad adjacencies in their dynamics of caste-colourism, extractivism, and deep-rooted cultural erasure. Coming from systemically silenced positions from within these regions and their diaspora, each of the eight artists speaks from their own lived experience and engagement with ancestral cosmology, deploying creative strategies to re-energise wounded archives. Their sustained commitment to auto-narrative practice results in works that eschew a victim perspective, instead combining community research with empowered poetics to emulate Wynter’s vision of the full and complex human.
AUTOPOIESIS is the fourth part of the Shaunak Mahbubani-initiated curatorial series Allies for the Uncertain Futures, which explores the pluralistic co-creation of the future through the dissolution of the boundaries between self and other and is based on the Buddhist philosophy of non-duality . AUTOPOIESIS is being developed in collaboration with curatorial advisors and hosts Vidisha-Fadescha (Party Office, New Delhi), Eli Moon (Bataclan Festival, Mexico City) and Madhumita Nandi (Oyoun, Berlin).
Free entry!
Funded by the Visual Arts Project Fund of the Goethe-Institut
Artist biographies:
Rajyashri goodies artistic practice is shaped by her academic background and her Ambedkarite roots. Through writing, ceramics, photography and sculpture, she seeks to decipher and make visible the everyday power and resistance of the Dalit communities in India. Goody is currently a visiting artist at the Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. She has exhibited and presented at numerous venues, notably Harvard University in Cambridge, Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, ISCP in New York, Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai (2019), The Showroom in London and Khoj International in Neu -Delhi.
Elyla is cochonx chontalli barromestiza from Chontakes, Nicaragua, non-binary and active in performance art and activism. Elyla frequently works with the tensions surrounding identity politics, nationalist cultural identity, colonialism, queerness and otherness. Elyla is interested in the narratives that make up Mestizaje, with a focus on the colonial violence behind Mestizo rituals, folk festivals and other religious demonstrations. Elyla is a founding member of Operación Queer (2013), a Nicaraguan collective promoting transfeminist and decolonial reflections in the regions of Central America.
Prabhakar Pachpute uses portraits and landscapes with surrealistic motifs to critically engage with mining work and the effects of mining on the natural and human landscape. Based in Maharashtra, he combines research from around the world with personal experiences, moving from the personal to the global and examining the complexities of historical changes at the economic, social and environmental levels. In addition to several biennials and international exhibitions, he was awarded the Artes Mundi 2021 prize in 9 and was recently part of the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (2022).
Christopher Udemezue has exhibited in a number of galleries and museums including the New Museum, Queens Museum of Art and MoMa PS1. Udemezue uses his Jamaican heritage, the complexities of desire for connection and healing through personal mythology and ancestry, as a primary source for his work. He is the founder of the platforms RAGGA NYC & CONNEK JA and was recently elected Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Recess Gallery, Brooklyn NY.
Dhrubo Jyoti is a journalist and writer based in New Delhi, writing on national affairs at the intersection of caste and sexuality. Dhrubo is not only one of the few Dalit professionals in South Asian journalism, but also organizes the caste and sexuality movement in South Asia, which aims to remove upper-caste voices from the heart of LGBTQIA+ movements. Dhrubo writes narrative non-fiction dealing with the caste-shaped experiences of love and desire in South Asia and is interested in exploring the connections between caste and desire, particularly queerness through the works of BR Ambedkar.
Andrew Ananda Voogel is a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of video and installation. In his work he deals intensively with history, geography and personal narratives. Raised in Northern California, Voogel's research has focused primarily on the trade in indentured labor between India and the Caribbean. His work has been exhibited at the Kochi-Muziris Biennial, the Chonqing Changjiang Photo and Video Biennial, the City Museum, and Manifesta 11, among others.
Khirkee Voice/ खिड़की आवाज़ is a bilingual, hyperlocal tabloid published by Malini Kochupillai and Mahavir Bisht since 2016. The project and first edition were conceived in response to the Coriolis Effect: Migrations and Memory residency at the Khoj International Artists' Association. The newspaper is now in its 11th edition.
Subas Tamang belongs to the Tamang indigenous community of Nepal, whose history is largely based on oral traditions that are not well documented. In order to close this historical information gap, he tries to archive the cultural and social fabric of his and the surrounding communities. Tamang uses traditional skills inherited and learned over time, including carving, engraving and various forms of printmaking. He is one of the founding members of Artree Nepal and his work has been shown at Kathmandu Triennale 2022, Dhaka Art Summit 2018 and most recently at Savvy Contemporary, Berlin 2022.
Jesus Hilario-Reyes is an interdisciplinary artist with an interest in the impossibility of the black body and the flaws of mechanical optics. While Jesú's practice sits at the intersection of sonic performance, land installation, and extended cinema, the repetitive works examine carnival and rave culture across the West to find a necessary approach to the implications of the “destierro”. Hilario-Reyes' work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Black Star Film Festival (Philadelphia) and Parasol Unit (London), among others.
Curator:
Shaunak Mahbubani is a nomadic curator and writer. Shaunak's projects in the Allies for the Uncertain Futures exhibition series focus on pluralistic co-creation of the future through dissolving the boundaries between self and other, based on the Buddhist philosophy of non-duality. Shaunak is interested in creating experiences that inspire the queer work of enduring fluidity, complexity, and contradictions. These include, among others, projects for Party Office b2b Fadescha (documenta fifteen, Kassel), the Maxim Gorki Theater (Berlin), the ISCP (New York), apexart (New York), Casa Roshell (Mexico City), TIER (Berlin) and the Goethe Institute (New Delhi).
Curatorial Advisors:
Vidisha Fadesha is an artist and curator. Vidisha develops conceptual architectures that use lived experiences as norm-critical pedagogy for queer hegemonies. Fadescha's work focuses on the movement of the body as an archive of intergenerational trauma, the body as a site of one's own desire, and the party as a site of resilience and affirmative kinship. Fadescha founded the “Party Office”, an anti-caste, anti-racist, trans*feminist art and social space. It explores meanness through intersectional inquiry, dialogue and celebration for critical future publics. Party Office b2b Fadescha is Lumbung artist at documenta fifteen, 2022.
Eli Moon is a Mexican cultural promoter, curator, artist and activist. Eli organizes several long-term projects that stimulate conversations about gender and sexual gaps, gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS: Bataclan International, BataFems and Entre Sures. Eli is also currently working as International Affairs Officer at Agenda LGBT AC, a civic association with 18 years of experience defending LGBT human rights.
Madhumita Nandi is an artist and researcher deeply involved in cultures of remembrance and the re-examination and reformation of practices of collective memory. Her work focuses on examining and undermining the impact of colonial archival practices on contemporary society, with a focus on intangible heritage, indigenous and ephemeral art. She works as the artistic co-director of Oyoun, initiating and developing socio-cultural and artistic projects with queer-feminist, neurodiverse and class-critical perspectives.
