TALKING OBJECTS
The Cosmologies of Objects
think tank and exhibition
3. – 6. July 2024
@Villa 102 & Museum Angewandte Kunst.
The TALKING OBJECTS ARCHIVE is a digital platform looking at questions of decolonial knowledge production and will be launched in December 2024. The archive is strongly informed by the accompanying ongoing artistic research project TALKING OBJECTS LAB and is interested in poly-perspectivity and plural knowledge systems. Starting with objects coming from the collection of European and African Museums we are fanning out a polyphonic universe of knowledge. Objects are thus made to speak – TALKING OBJECTS – serve as door openers and enable a different form of relating. The archive is developed together with African Digital Heritage (Nairobi) and a variety of thinkers and artists experimenting with text, images, audio and video to create their own cosmologies of objects in digital space. The digital archive will be open to the public and is aimed at researchers, practitioners working in the arts and those interested in decolonial perspectives on knowledge production.
Three think tanks will be held to accompany the development of the TALKING OBJECTS ARCHIVE: in Dakar (May 2023), in Frankfurt (July 2024) and in Nairobi (November 2024). The think tank in Frankfurt deals with the cosmologies of objects and focusses on three main topics materiality, spirituality and gendered objects. The think tank will take place in the Villa 102 of the Kfw Foundation and in the Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt and will be accompanied by an exhibition with artists from the TALKING OBJECTS Artist Residency Programme.
The think tank Program as well as the Exhibition Cosmologies of Objects have been curated by Isabel Raabe and Mahret Ifeoma Kupka.
Programme
Wednesday, 3 July
6pm @Villa 102
Exhibition Opening The Cosmologies of Objects
TALKING OBJECTS artists in residency Élise Fitte-Duval, Karwitha Karimi, Adam Yawe.
Please register via kfw-stiftung.de/en/events
Thursday, 4 July
10am – 5.30pm @Villa 102
INTERNAL Workshop with the members of the TALKING OBJECTS team, members of African Digital Heritage, members of Groupe of Action and Critical Study Africa/GAEC, Visual Intelligence, Erik Stein, members of the participating German museums.
7pm – 9pm @Museum für Angewandte Kunst
TALKING TO OBJECTS
A performative conversation with objects from the collection of the Museum Angewandte Kunst, hosted by Aisha Camara (moderator/community organizer, Frankfurt). Researchers from different disciplines as well as the public are invited to share their experiences with an object. There is no hierarchisation of knowledge. What does it trigger? What associations does the object evoke? What questions do I want to ask the object, what do I want to know about it? A polyperspective view of the object and an interactive conversation with the object emerges.
Friday, 5 July
10am – 5 pm @Museum Angewandte Kunst
INTERNAL Meeting of the Digital Group
10am – 1pm @Ledermuseum, Offenbach am Main
INTERNAL Workshop
Saturday, 6 July
3pm – 5.30pm @Museum Angewandte Kunst
Listening to Objects
What can objects tell us about gender roles? Can objects lose their spirituality or can other objects take their place? And how does materiality behave in digital space?
3pm
Introduction Isabel Raabe (curator, TALKING OBJECTS, Berlin) & Mahret Ifeoma Kupka (curator, TALKING OBJECTS, Frankfurt)
3.10pm
Film Screening “Becoming Kaspale” by Syowia Kyambi
3.30pm
3 Sessions on Materiality, Spirituality & Gendered Objects
Conversations on Materiality with Mutanu Kyany’a (researcher, Nairobi) & Adam Yawe, (artist, Nairobi), moderated by Isabel Raabe
Conversation on Spirituality with Abdourahmane Seck & Eleonore Wiedenroth Coulibaly (community organizer & activist, Frankfurt), moderated by Malick Ndiaye (curator, Dakar)
Conversations on Gendered Objects with Mũthoni Mwangi (researcher, Nairobi) & Elise Fitte-Duval (artist, Dakar, moderated by Mahret Ifeoma Kupka
5pm
Muuga? Grief is a portal; bring your heart, I’ll bring the water.
Poetry Reading by Karwitha Kirimi (artist, Nairobi)
The think tank will be held in English.
Event Venues:
- Villa 102 – KfW Stiftung: Bockenheimer Landstraße 102, 60323 Frankfurt am Main
- Museum Angewandte Kunst: Schaumainkai 17, 60594 Frankfurt am Main
Funded by: Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien/BKM (Federal Cultural Commissioner for Culture and the Media), KfW Stiftung, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Auswärtiges Amt (Federal Foreign Office), Goethe-Institut.