AIR in Zuidoost #2023

Wanneer: 7 december 2023

The exhibition AIR in Zuidoost # 2023 showcases works by (inter)national artists who participated in BijlmAIR, the artist-in-residence program of CBK Zuidoost, over the past year. The opening took place on December 7.

The starting point of a BijlmAIR residency is to create new work that relates to or reflects on Amsterdam Southeast. The artists stayed in Heesterveld, where the BijlmAIR studio is located. The exhibition demonstrates how the community of Zuidoost consistently manages to inspire (inter)national artists in a unique way.

Meanwhile in Brazil

Patricia Ribas, Para M., 2023

While (inter)national artists came to Amsterdam Zuidoost to live and work, Patricia Ribas traveled to Brazil to film her latest project Para M., a film centered on the enduring impact of Dutch colonial history.

*BijlmAIR is the Artist in Residency of CBK Zuidoost, in collaboration with the Department of Painting and Sculpture of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, Ghana, and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

1. Monika Dahlberg

Wearable works from Revolte: One-Tété Lohkay, Queen Nanny, Harriet Tubman, mixed media, 2023

Gatekeeper, mixed media, 2023

During her residency in Zuidoost, Monika Dahlberg worked on artworks that were carried during the SouthEast Parade on August 24 of this year. This was prompted by her participation in Revolte, a CBK Zuidoost project where artists were commissioned to create depictions of enslaved people who rose up against their oppressors in former colonial territories. Dahlberg drew inspiration from women who resisted, namely One-Tété Lohkay (a 19^th-century freedom fighter during the final days of slavery in Sint Maarten), Queen Nanny (ca. 1686 – ca. 1760, an 18th-century leader of the Jamaican Maroons), and Harriet Tubman (an American abolitionist, herself escaped from slavery, who helped enslaved people escape via the ‘Underground Railroad’). The works were created together with residents of Zuidoost and carried in the Southeast Parade.

In addition, she created a new sculpture for her Gatekeepers series, an ongoing project in which Dahlberg explores ideas of inclusion and exclusion within the art world.

About the artist:

Monika Dahlberg (Kenya, 1975) creates sculptures, installations, collages, photographs, and texts, drawing inspiration from African figure sculptures and popular visual culture. She frequently employs anthropomorphism: attributing human characteristics and emotions to non-human beings. Her work is characterized by art-historical references linked to her own biography. In doing so, she has developed a unique visual language interwoven with how she lives and experiences life. Her work is expressive, direct, and offers a critical perspective that can also be uncomfortable and confronting for viewers.

2. Patricia Ribas

Para M (To M), 2023, 11:47 min

A female voice passionately addresses the enigmatic figure “M” in a narrative that initially shows a positive shift when one colonial ruler replaces another. Ultimately, however, the story exposes the persistent and oppressive nature of the colonial enterprise within a lasting framework.

The initial “M” refers to Maurice in John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen, a seventeenth-century governor sent to Brazil as a representative of the Dutch West India Company. Despite the prevailing positive perception of this change in governance and the idealized views of Maurice’s presence in Brazil, recent research exposes the dark legacy of his dictatorship. The letter “M” emerges as a symbol branded onto the skin of enslaved Africans in his possession.

In her essay film, Ribas meticulously weaves a poetic letter by juxtaposing images of women with reclaimed colonial artifacts in and around Recife—an outpost of the Dutch occupation in Brazil. Through this, she attempts to articulate the discernment of the subaltern voice. The film powerfully underscores that while articulating the truth may take time, its revelation remains an inevitable prospect.

About the artist:

Patricia Werneck Ribas (Brazil, 1972) is an Amsterdam-based artist who works primarily with moving and still images. Her figurative work is often elusive, yet it is never detached from a specific historical moment. It always belongs to and expands upon the complexities of memory, time, and location. Questions of ‘identity’ are ever-present in her work, where the word identity is based on defining what we are not as a way of thinking about who we are. Her focus lies in inviting the viewer to empathize with the other. She disrupts familiar perceptions by exploring how personal stories relate to broader political and social debates and concerns.

3. Lard Buurman

Work In Progress, multimedia installation, 2023

Lard Buurman is working on a multi-year research project for a film about the urban developments of the H-Buurt in the Bijlmer and their consequences for current residents and users. From the BijlmAir Residency, one overlooks the Hakfort parking garage. In the coming year, it will be demolished to make way for an apartment block. A second block of apartments will be built on the vacant site where the Huigenbos parking garage previously stood. The small square between the two will be renovated. The consultation (or participation) process with residents regarding this has now been completed. From the meetings Buurman attended, he gained the impression that, despite good intentions, residents hardly felt heard.

In May, he began following and filming the daily life of the H-buurt: activities organized by residents on the square, the Nigerian restaurant Obalade Suya in the plinth of the Hakfort garage, and the Maranatha Community Transformation Centre (MCTC church) are a few examples. The future of all these enterprises is uncertain.

In the coming years, he will follow these developments and aims to document how the tension between the lived world and the systemic world hopefully, slowly but surely, diminishes. The works in the exhibition are therefore primarily a Work In Progress.

About the artist:

A recurring subject in the work of Lard Buurman (NL, 1969) is urban public space. This space is defined not only by buildings, architecture, and infrastructure, but primarily by the people within it. His interest is initially directed toward these people, their use of the city, the functioning of public space, and (co)existence within an urban culture.

4. Black Speaks Back

Zwarte Ibis, The Spirit of Black Intimacies, installation, multimedia, 2023

Zwarte Ibis: The Spirit of Black Intimacies is the title of a new film project by the grassroots media platform “Black Speaks Back.” This project was commissioned by the Amsterdam art organization “If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution” as part of their biennial Edition IX – Bodies and Technologies (2022-23) and is supported by the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Mondriaan Fund, Ammodo, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, and the Creative Industries Fund NL. The project includes a short film and podcast exploring ideas and experiences regarding intimacy within African and Afro-Caribbean communities in the Netherlands. The film will premiere in January 2024 at Melkweg Cinema Amsterdam.

To conclude their time in the BijlmAIR residency program of CBK Zuidoost, Black Speaks Back will present an installation featuring materials from their research and production processes, such as audio elements from our 2022 Kitchen Table Talks, collective notes from scriptwriting in Heesterveld at the CBK studio in February 2023, and behind-the-scenes footage from the filming in the summer of 2023.

About the artists:

“Black Speaks Back” is a Belgian-Dutch grassroots platform founded in 2016 in Brussels and currently based in Amsterdam. They are dedicated to amplifying Black narratives from the Netherlands and Belgium, facilitating discussions, conducting arts-based research, and creating poetic short films. Zwarte Ibis is led by Chris (Ci) Rickets, Emma-Lee Amponsah, and Alexine Gabriela.

5. Jacopo Grilli

Where are we now? (The making of the Multicultural City), ink on paper, books, digital prints, 2023

Jacopo Grilli is working on a multi-year study of human sensitivity in urban space. He operates as an artist-in-residence and urban designer by combining visual explorations with urban thinking. While staying in the Bijlmer (specifically Bullewijk), he noticed how the design of new neighborhoods fails to account for the diversity of the area’s residents. With his project Where are we now? Grilli aims to underscore the importance of preserving diverse groups and values, observe the emergence of individual culture, and consider the importance of culture as a lever for innovation.

His project is divided into three phases/questions that the artist poses to himself and the audience. “From who I am to who we are?” questions his perception of his own culture by generating a diary of images and poetry, attempting to achieve a progression from personal to universal cultural values. “Who are you?” is a series of interviews with residents of Bullewijk. Portraits are developed through their metaphysical aura, and their quotes enrich their perception of group or individual culture. “Where are we now?” relates not only to a temporary situation but ultimately maps the emotions and beliefs of the artist and the research participant.

The locally oriented project culminates in a series of visions and visualizations for the old and new Bijlmer, featuring a visual manifesto of an architectural typology that addresses the residents’ need for cultural manifestation and the city’s need for densification and inevitable gentrification.

About the artist:

Jacopo Grilli (Italy, 1991) is an urban planner and multidisciplinary artist based in Amsterdam. He operates between visual arts and urbanism, in a field where he has space to stimulate the collective imagination regarding urban and social issues. The focus of his work is on reflecting on contemporary themes, expressed in a unique visual language that aims to enrich the imagination for the future of our cities. By approaching time and space with intuition and enchantment, he combines philosophy and design to create an emotional narrative for our living environment.

6. Giovanni Jona

Suma nay yu?, cement, acrylic, graphics, sand, thread, 2023

Giovanni Jona stayed at the BijlmAIR studio to create new work for CBK Zuidoost’s exhibition Knights in Shining Armour, an exhibition about reclaiming, self-mockery as a shield, and art as trauma therapy. He was asked to create new work that could provide an answer to the central question of this exhibition: is there room in art for a sense of humor, satire, or comedy when it comes to (institutional) racism and oppression?

Jona created two sculptures, the diptych Suma na yu? (Who are you?), in which he shows the subversion associated with reclaiming and the European hyper-obsession with the Black body. The female figure in the diptych refers to the story of Saartjie Baartman, a South African enslaved woman who became famous as a human attraction because of her buttocks. The male figure refers to the Surma—the East African people with a tradition among Surma women of creating dilations in the lower lip by placing a plate.

About the artist:

Giovanni Jona (Suriname, 1986) was born in Albina, a small village in northeastern Suriname. After primary school, he began technical training, but soon ended up working in the gold mines to support himself. His desire to draw and paint led him to the Nola Hatterman Art Academy in Paramaribo, where he specialized in portrait painting. His unique style, rooted in the rich Maroon culture, is a blend of colors and intricate patterns. Recently, he has also begun creating sculptures.

7. Hassan Issah

During his BijlmAIR period, Hassan Issah, much like in his hometown of Kumasi, looked at the architecture, the built environment, and the details in and around the houses. Much of his work is inspired by bringing these types of elements together. This is reflected in the drawings he made and the way he presents his work. Additionally, he sought collaboration with various people from the cultural sector in Amsterdam Zuidoost and incorporated elements of their work practices into his pieces. For example, he used scraps of fabric from a local fashion designer in his new collages and worked with wax-printed fabrics from a friend of his in Zuidoost. Another element that recurs in his work is his period at AGA-LAB. There, he learned new printing techniques that are visible in his work and which he will also take back to Ghana to give workshops in his community. (Hassan Issah is still in his residency at the time of writing; he is still developing new work, so the text will be updated before the start of the exhibition.)

About the artist:

Hassan Issah (Ghana, 1993) lives and works in Kumasi, Ghana. He studied at the Department of Painting and Sculpture of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

Science and Technology (KNUST).

His work raises questions about power in relation to architecture and modernity, and its effect on our contemporary society. The references in his work range from murals in the houses within the ‘zongo’ community where he grew up, to canons resulting from Africa’s encounter with Islam, the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, and modernism.

Issah’s interest in the material and object culture in Zongo communities, especially within Kumasi where he grew up, led him to use materials such as posters, acrylic/oil paint, henna on canvas, and objects such as cast iron/aluminum and steel pipes. These entities are usually welded together or constructed into a constellation of objects and installations that refer to aesthetics from specific eras in history (Baroque, Rococo, Abstract Expressionism) that reflect the ordinary.

---