The Re-Enchantment of oBJeCts
founded by Claude Jansen & Bisrat Negassi (2020-2022) is a non institutional Atelier and network developing decolonisation (relation) practices such as animism* activism* healing* in arts, design, education and curatorship – in the sense of
curare: to bring together; to take care of; to cure; to poison …
and response-ability: the ability to respond; to call; to listen;
to resonate within the world of so called 'objects'.
COME iN TENT wants to emphasise that subject vs object is colonial thinking.
The reality and within its social world, biosphere, psyche, body (human and non-human) is a victim of massive colonisation. For the past centuries colonialism has deeply damaged the vitality of the earth and her balance system. Colonialism has produced enormous suffering, economical asymmetries, ecological damages, psychological and emotional displacement, alienation and dissociation.
We believe that white men's concept of splitting up the world into subjects and objects – subjects who are in power to act and objects who are made to act with (to degrade, humiliate, use & abuse, torture, kill) has been the foundation to establish and to justify colonization.
We refuse to accept such separations as
subject vs object; white vs black; culture vs nature; reality vs dreams; holy vs profane; modernity vs tradition; civilisation vs savage; life vs dead; men vs women; heaven vs hell; Europe vs Africa a.o. any longer – especially by observing the actual worldwide renaissance of THE white heterosexual man (racist and misogynous) presenting himself as the universal archetype, still operating with the concept of binary systems to hold power over anything that is on the other side of subjects, white, reality, life, men, …
This initiative finds its initial spark within the current museum debates about provenance and restitution of so-called 'looted museum objects' – millions of things that have been violently appropriated, abused and intentionally misinterpreted by colonialists.
Together with artists, curators, healers, activists, academics from African countries; diaspora and other places on earth we would like to re-enact; re-construct; re-member; re-enchant; re-animate; re-vitalise; re-claim the stories and biographies of the last witnesses of colonialism, according to their precolonial, colonial and post-colonial lives to give a voice to those who have been silenced by colonialism and to change mind sets of binary thinking.
COME iN TENT cares about MATTER cause MATTER MATTERS
matter is sacred and female (Marion Woodman).
In contrast to seemingly 'lifeless objects' that have only symbolic (representative) power matter is in relationships with matter and its multi-dimensional agency.
We believe that so called 'objects' – which we like to call THINGS are guardians of countless stories: emotional, social, cultural, political, spiritual, ...
COME iN TENT and let us initiate different encounters and working alliances
let us re-think, re-feel and re-embody history
let us become aware of how deep colonial structures are ruling our systems and societies (individually, culturally, economically, socially, spiritually, politically, physically, emotionally)
and let us initiate transformation processes that moves from
politics of representation and identity (nation, religion, culture, gender, race)
towards politics of relation and being sensitive and open to the world – human & non-human – visible & invisible.
COME iN TENT wants to initiate sustainable, long lasting, rhizomatic relationships. To overcome white male constructions of identity and power. To develop concepts on global and local decolonisation practices in arts & education based on relationships & alliances within spaces that are more than human. To enter processes of vital transformations and flows: a constant 'in-the-becoming'
Thank you for your attention
Bisrat & Claude
Landscapes are like theaters accumulating memories of performances over may many years
Der Antihumanismus lehnt das dialektische Denkschema ab, demzufolge Differenz konstitutiv für die Abgrenzung des sexualisierten Anderen (der Frau), des rassisierten Anderen (des 'Eingeborenen') und des naturalisierten Anderen (der Tiere, der Umwelt, oder der Erde). Die herrschende Subjektnorm rangierte ganz oben auf der hierarchischen Skala, die den Nullpunkt der Differenz zum obersten Ideal macht. Das war der Mensch im klassischen Humanismus.
...there is a spiritual dimension to every relationship, no matter what its origins, whether it is acknowledged as spiritual or not - two people come together because spirit wants them together - what is important now is to look at the relationship as spirit-driven, instead of driven by the individual.
Funded by Elbkulturfonds Hamburg and the Goethe Institut. In Cooperation with MARKK, CROSSINGS e.V. and M.Bassy e.V.
