Kunstinstituut Melly Archive

Item sets

• Nokukhanya Langa: A Downward Spiral Is A Loaded Spring
  Nokukhanya Langa is the winner of the C.o.C.A Award 2021, and is currently based in Ghent, Belgium. In this exhibition, curated by Ellis Kat, the artist presents an installation that is about our overwhelmed inner worlds, depicting thoughts racing like a mosh pit. Through the different mediums of painting, sculpture and text, she seeks to visualize hallucinatory realities, through use of playful jargon and aesthetics. Langa’s practice is characterized by her distinct and subversive visual language that is at once abstract, narrative and figurative. She is interested in exploring this versatility to create a sense of confusion and ambiguity. In her work, there are hidden meanings and political expressions proclaimed with a playful wink. Subtle and incendiary subtexts are hidden behind cheeky gestures, such as a cartoon magic wand capable of conjuring away our intrusive thoughts and grim phrases painted in the most cheerful colors imaginable. The exhibition is developed with C.o.C.A. Foundation (Collectors of Contemporary Art). C.o.C.A. is composed of a group of collectors whose aim is to support the work of young and promising artists in the Netherlands via working grants. This is the second time a solo exhibition for the winner of the award is presented at Kunstinstituut Melly, in conjunction with Art Rotterdam. The exhibition was developed with Kunstinstinstituut Melly’s curatorial assistant Julija Mockutė. Participants Nokukhanya Langa Curators Ellis Kat Network C.o.C.A. Supported By Mondriaan Fund <div class="
• Rotterdam Cultural Histories #21: Gone Within 2 Years, The Studio Crisis
  This edition of Rotterdam Cultural Histories draws attention to the working conditions for artists amidst the city’s rapidly shifting cultural landscape. While a growing number of institutions have provided Rotterdam with space to present and enjoy contemporary art since the 1970s, it was the artists working and living in the city who formed the foundation for the city’s vibrant artistic milieu. The mix between established institutions and the many grassroots initiatives that spring from the artists’ communities themselves has received international recognition as the unique strength of Rotterdam’s culture. But what will happen if this city can no longer provide its rich multiplicity of artists with a working base? This presentation on the studio situation in the city has been compiled by De Atelier Unie Rotterdam (Studio Union Rotterdam). Their poster collection visualizes their ongoing research into the urgent need for studio facilities in the city. De Atelier Unie Rotterdam was also the initiator of the Big Rotterdam Studio Survey. Follow De Atelier Unie Rotterdam via: @atelierunierotterdam Or join forces with them via: www.atelierunierotterdam.nl Special thanks to: Piet de Jonge, Tess Martin, Sandro Setola, Sander van Wettum, TimeWindow About Rotterdam Cultural Histories This exhibition is presented by TENT Rotterdam. It is part of Rotterdam Cultural Histories, a collaborative project between our institution and TENT Rotterdam, both housed in this building. Begun in 2014, this long-term research project focuses on studying these institutions' common roots in Rotterdam. Network TENT Series Rotterdam Cultural Histories <div class="
• Beatriz Santiago Muñoz: The Navel of the Dream
  This exhibition marks Beatriz Santiago Muñoz’s first in the Netherlands and is presented as part of Gatherings and Passages, a multi-year collaboration with Sour Grass, the Barbados-based curatorial agency led by Annalee Davis and Iyawo (Holly Bynoe Young). The initiative aims to foster a more comprehensive understanding of Caribbean contemporary art and culture, as well as to raise awareness about colonial histories, and experiences of post-colonialism and decolonization. Here, Sour Grass has written an introduction to the exhibition. — Beatriz Santiago Muñoz is a Puerto Rican-based artist who works primarily with expanded moving images. She develops her films and videos through writing, as well as through chance encounters and structured improvisation with nonactors. Over the years, she has been investigating what she refers to as the “sensorial unconscious.” Using tools of ethnography, she mines popular culture, history, and indigenous mythologies placing stories within stories, universes within universes, creating rich and textural interventions juxtaposing documentary with fiction and storytelling. Muñoz’s artworks highlight multiple voices and points of reference from her homeland and its complex colonial histories with Spain and the United States. More recently, she’s been exploring the intersection of the anti-colonial unconscious with a growing awareness of ecosystems and the environment and how each is informed by place. In the making of her work, the artist’s lens becomes a witness to familiar sites that are portrayed anew, provoking a sense of disorientation within the viewer through her use of non-linear filmic strategies. Including newly commissioned and recent film works The Navel of the Dream develops the artist’s ideas around visual archeology, decolonized spaces, and alternative models of being. These works are exhibited in conjunction with a new series of drawings and objects through which she continues to question possible futures in the region. Participants Beatriz Santiago Muñoz Curators Holly Bynoe Young, Annalee Davis Network Sour Grass Series SOLO DUETS Supported By AMMODO <div class="
• Pablo Castañeda: Border Autofictions
  Border Autofictions includes over forty paintings, from 2006 to date, by the Mexican artist Pablo Castañeda. It will also present a new mural painting created by the artist on-site. This is Castañeda’s first solo exhibition in Europe. Urban micronarratives, absurd and surrealist scenes, and desert landscapes figure extensively in the artist’s work. He often inserts self-portraits of himself in these scenarios, most of the time depicted as a painter at work, as well as portraits of his friends who have served at one time or other as models for his paintings. Also, pictures of well-known artists or artworks—from a portrait of Dante to one of Cindy Sherman’s Film Stills—appear as framed pieces hung on walls or as city billboards in the backdrop. At times, his paintings are composed like misè-en-scene for film noir. Other times, these are composed as miniature panoramic narratives or appear as fragments of larger frieze paintings. In this exhibition, Castañeda’s work is grouped in different types of scenarios, rather than chronologically or by the artist’s painting series. This arrangement is to emphasize the source of the painting’s imagery and what these images narratively, and even cinematically, emulate within a composition. An artist living in Mexicali in Baja California, Mexico, Castañeda has for decades focused on picturing his immediate environment and surrounding landscape, his friends, and the local arts community. Like many artists, his knowledge and trajectory in the art field has been shaped through a combination of curiosity and discipline, and not through professional or academic degree-granting programs. Instead, kinships formed through lived experiences, self-organized art workshops, and intellectual affinities have been his primary forms of schooling. And yet, Castañeda is not a so-called outsider or self-taught artist. He is well versed in art history. He has preferences. He resists certain definitions, too. He does not champion binary framing devices like life and work, nor being inside-out, nor pictorial dualities, such as surface and depth. Castañeda is an avid arts reader and onlooker; he silently wanders about, day and night, which enables him to focus on what has been left behind—love, emptiness, desire—and yet is instilled everywhere—stories, fantasy, imagination. Castañeda is hearing impaired; this plus his incapacity to speak in a field where orality has been championed, intensifies the value images have for him and in his work. He has been able to convey a world where souls glow at twilight and where the contrast given by claro-oscuro elucidates not just borders but their liminalities. The exhibition title, Border Autofictions, alludes both to the artist’s context, as much as to his milieu figured in this work. The artist’s hometown, Mexicali, borders Calexico in California, USA. These so-called twin cities are part of a desert valley. South of the border, Mexicali’s century-long development has been heavily influenced by a binational water treaty, first, and, decades later, by an international trade agreement. While the former allowed agronomy and agricultural development (its sustainability, questionable), the latter embedded an international manufacturing culture, which, while creating employment, has deepened economic inequality in the region. In any case, both kinds of development have been reasons for emigrants to settle in this arid land. Another reason for settling in Mexicali has been the impossibility of crossing the border into the ‘land of opportunities’ that the US has been considered by too many and for too long. Kunstinstituut Melly’s director, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, is the curator of this exhibition. Like the artist, she is also from Mexicali in Baja California, Mexico. This exhibition is inspired by her conversations with Chris Kraus, who lives in Baja California, and by her writing, which has given focus to social art practice fostered by kinship. Hernández Chong Cuy’s work at Kunstinstituut Melly has continuously explored presenting work that is locally relevant and globally meaningful. Participants Pablo Castañeda Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy Series SOLO DUETS Supported By AMMODO <div class="
• Rotterdam Cultural Histories #22: Hortus Botanicus
  Our institution’s building — located on Witte de Withstraat 50 in Rotterdam — stands on what was the original location of the city’s nineteenth-century Hortus Botanicus. Sited on these grounds from 1826 to 1870, this botanical garden was established for educational purposes, especially used by the Clinical School (1828–1866). In 1870, the Hortus Botanicus was demolished to pave new roads, including Witte de Withstraat, and to build the surrounding area as envisioned in a city plan developed by William Nicolaas Roos. For this twenty-second edition of Rotterdam Cultural Histories, newly recovered documents and maps of the Rotterdam Hortus Botanicus are presented here. Among the materials is a plant catalog kept by the Hortolanus Carsten Witte. This small book extensively documented the botanical garden plants according to stars and planetary markers, such as the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. It also includes dried leaves and flowers, which are purported specimens of that historic botanical garden. The research for this presentation was done in collaboration with the Rotterdam Stadsarchief. It was developed in conjunction with an art commission to the painter Sam Samiee. Fascinated by both gardens and psychoanalysis, Samiee turns his focus on this building’s side street, Boomgaardsstraat, which intersects Witte de Withstraat today and which once marked the perimeter of the Hortus Botanicus. The artist’s exhibition, A Garden of Clouds, is sited in the gallery upstairs, and is on view until Saturday 31 December 2022. This edition of Rotterdam Cultural Histories, as well as Sam Samiee’s A Garden of Clouds, are both part of our Anchored project series. Begun in 2020, Anchored explores the histories of our building, street, and neighbors. Rotterdam Cultural Histories #22: Hortus Botanicus is organized by a team at Kunstinstituut Melly: Paul van Gennip, Wendy van Slagmaat-Bos, Jeroen Lavèn and Vivian Ziherl. Participants Paul van Gennip, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Jeroen Lavèn, Wendy van Slagmaat-Bos, Vivian Ziherl Series ANCHORED, Rotterdam Cultural Histories Supported By Stadsarchief Rotterdam <div class="
• Sam Samiee: A Garden of Clouds
  The exhibition A Garden of Clouds by painter Sam Samiee explores processes of symbolic social ‘anchoring’ in different times — under different names — and amid a dream-scape of clouds. A Garden of Clouds is inspired by a close engagement with the Rotterdam Stadsarchief, to look at the construction of our Cool neighborhood in the 1870s, following cholera and tuberculosis epidemics. During this time, the botanical garden and Clinical School (1828–1866) were transformed into a newly built environment including our former namesake the Witte de Withstraat. Today the botanical garden is known by the Boomgaardsstraat or ‘Orchard Street’, the smaller and quieter street that references the natural environment and gardens existing in this area of Rotterdam prior to its urban development. Together with Research and Programs Manager Vivian Ziherl, Samiee has consulted city maps, journals and a botanical catalog holding pressed botanical specimens. For Samiee the Garden of Clouds is a site of day-dreaming and association. The artist draws upon his psychoanalytic training to contemplate the two personae of our name change — the seventeenth-century colonial Admiral Witte Corneliszoon de With after whom the Witte de Withstraat is named, and the former art student Melly Shum whose image appears on the Boomgaardstraat in a billboard by Canadian artist Ken Lum. Images of plant specimens, medical history, Persian gardens and Dutch maritime painting are brought together with portraits of de With and Shum as ‘floating signifiers’. Between layers of history, Samiee welcomes a collective renegotiation of the colonial patriarch as a symbolic father. This exhibition takes place as part of our Anchored series, which explores the histories of our building, street, and neighborhood. The presentation takes place alongside Rotterdam Cultural Histories #22: Hortus Botanicus, presented in partnership with the Rotterdam Stadsarchief and presenting newly recovered nineteenth-century maps and a plant catalog. The exhibition A Garden of Clouds is developed with the support of Stichting Elise Mathilde Fonds. On the occasion of the exhibition, the Rotterdam City Archive will launch a new page dedicated to the botanical garden and Clinical School — a new addition to their online documents of the city. Participants Sam Samiee Curators Vivian Ziherl Series ANCHORED Supported By Stichting Elise Mathilde Fonds <div class="
• Jennifer Tee: Still Shifting, Mother Field
  The exhibition Still Shifting, Mother Field, by artist Jennifer Tee includes newly commissioned ceramic sculptures, textile installations, performances, and collages. Tee was born in Arnhem, the Netherlands in 1973. She lives and works in Amsterdam. As part of the solo-exhibition Still Shifting, Mother Field at Kunstinstituut Melly, Dutch artist Jennifer Tee is staging a performance developed with Korean improvisation choreographer and dancer Miri Lee. Performances will take place at scheduled Fridays and Sundays throughout the exhibition period. In Jennifer Tee’s work her interest in the in-between state of what she calls “the soul in limbo” is of central importance. The soul in limbo is restless and alive and caught in an unnamed place–a conceptual, mental, psychological, and physical space–on the border between the present and the possible. Tee also researches contemporary life, with its cross-cultural identity and narratives, its instability and complexity, and its potential for the loss of identity, language, and kinship with original cultures. In addition, Tee explores various forms of ideological concepts of life and their potential for creating a new and more beautiful and soulful world. With her work, she encourages the contemplation of life’s fragile connections, evoking spiritual realms with active material experimentation. A central element of Jennifer Tee’s exhibition at Kunstinstituut Melly is her Tampan Tulip series. It’s a series of collages made from pressed tulip petals, with motifs taken from Tampan weavings. These textiles can be found in the Lampung region of southern Sumatra, a part of a crucial trade route for hundreds of years. The area has long been a crossroads of cultures and artistic traditions. The square-shaped woven Tampans were exchanged during important rites of passage. The motifs often include a ship with human souls, animals, and plant-like forms in motion to the afterlife: references that explore diasporic narratives, migration, and the tree of life in relation to genealogy and ancestry. Commissioned and produced by Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam and Vienna Secession, Vienna. The exhibition is on view in Vienna from 16 September to 6 November 2022, and in Rotterdam from 20 January to 21 May 2023. Participants Miri Lee, Jennifer Tee Curators Jennifer Tee Network Vienna Secession Series SOLO DUETS Supported By AMMODO, Henry Moore Foundation, Mondriaan Fund, Stichting Jaap Harten Fonds <div class="
• Rotterdam Cultural Histories #23: Under Six Meters of Sand: The Disappearance of the De Beer Nature Reserve
  The port of Rotterdam, where the BP refinery and the ore and coal storage are now located, once was the site of a large nature reserve. The construction of the Nieuwe Waterweg shipping route in the 1860s produced a sand bank which grew into a 1300 hectare jagged dune area. Known as De Beer, the area was a 1300-hectare avian paradise. The nature reserve ended with the development of The Europort in the late 1950s and early 1960s. During the 1964 breeding season, the site was scorched away with car tyres and burning oil. The villages of Blankenburg and Nieuwesluis were also flattened and buried under the sand to make way for industry. There was little resistance at the time, and any critical voices were ignored. The port’s economic growth was the undisputed priority. It was understood that increased prosperity would naturally lead to greater general well-being. Though authorities made a promise to ‘compensate’ for the De Beer’s disappearance, it was never honoured. In their documentary ‘Under Six Meters of Sand’ artists Nöelle Ingeveldt and Juriaan van Berkel (Studio Berkveldt) investigate the rationale of the Port Authority and the Municipality of Rotterdam and the consequences of De Beer’s destruction. Historian Ed Buijsman shares documents about this period, which he collected while researching the history of De Beer nature reserve. Rotterdam Cultural Histories is a collaboration between TENT and Kunstinstituut Melly that explores our common roots in Rotterdam. TENT curated this edition. Curators Nöelle Ingeveldt, Juriaan van Berkel Network TENT Series Rotterdam Cultural Histories <div class="
• A new artistic environment in MELLY by Loes van Esch and Simone Trum from the graphic-design studio known as Team Thursday, architect Tomas Dirrix, and artist Koen Taselaar
  An interdisciplinary group of Rotterdam makers—including Tomas Dirrix, Loes van Esch, Koen Taselaar and Simone Trum—create a new artistic environment for MELLY. MELLY is admission-free, and open to the general public during Kunstinstituut Melly’s regular gallery hours: Wednesdays through Sundays from 11 am to 6 pm, and Fridays until 9 pm, as part of Kunstavond. Developed in 2018 as a curatorial project at the intersection of art and education, MELLY is Kunstinstituut Melly’s ground-floor gallery turned multipurpose space. Here, numerous artists have created new work, whether hung on the walls, displayed in vitrines, presented live, or a combination of all the above. Here, too, numerous activities and public programs take place year-round. MELLY’s creation came together with the institution’s work-learn project, called Collective Learning in Practice a.k.a. CLIP, which is now in its fifth annual edition. The space also includes a cafe plus a bookshop, which carries publications related to Kunstinstituut Melly’s exhibitions and programs, as well as CBK’s selection of titles, with a special focus on books made by Rotterdam artists. Working collaboratively, Dirrix, Van Esch, Taselaar, and Trum, reflected on MELLY as not just a place to experience art; it is often a space used to rehearse ideas and to perform publicly. Considering this, they envisioned that the various elements they would create for MELLY could be conceived of as a dance troupe. The shared trait of their design pieces is that these can be easily re-arranged to serve as either a bookshop and cafe lounge, as well as to conduct a workshop, accommodate a lecture, or convene a meeting or even a dance itself. (Speakers and a disco ball already hung in MELLY; removing these was the only thing they were not allowed to do.) In this sense, the environment can host different scores and perform various kinds of functions. Among the new elements for the space designed by the Rotterdam makers is a rectangular aluminum frame, which is three-meter-tall and sits on wheels. This mobile piece can glide through the space, and be used in different manners: at times, as a floor lamp; at other times, as a lightbox for an artwork or signage; sometimes, perhaps as a room divider, as a structure to hold a backdrop, or in any other imaginable way. The environment by Dirrix, Van Esch, Taselaar, and Trum also includes textile and silkscreened paper designs. The latter is pasted on most walls within MELLY. In both their form and content, these are partly inspired by a sense of interconnectivity communicated by bodies and their shadows in movement, specifically by a choreographic score of Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. These silkscreens also appear to bring the bustle of public space inside. The entire space—and whenever there’s programming, its activities, attendance, and spirit—can be seen through the large windows on MELLY’s main perimeter walls, which are lined to the street. A distinctive element in the new environment created by the Rotterdam makers is a trio of cone-shaped bookshelves, a design that could well refer to pompous crinolines, a Bauhaus stage costume, or the architectural centerpiece in Pieter Bruegel’s Tower of Babel. With a ludic approach, these bookshelves, co-designed with Phil Proctor, are equipped with wheels and topped with plants. So are some layered tables and seating they’ve made for MELLY. And while not all their chairs for the space include a set of wheels, their lightness, and slanted shapes do inspire movement. Or play? Or drunkenness? These pieces also recall archival photography showing the uses of Kunstinstituut Melly during the late nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Those images picture a group of women in different modalities, from studying to dancing to posing with geometric models (including a prominent cone) in what appears to be a drawing class. Built in the 1870s, Kunstinstituut Melly’s building was originally designed as a school; at present, this institution devoted to the art and theory of our present insists it is a site of learning. Since MELLY has focused on the art of our present and in public engagement, the space and its various elements had to be versatile. For this reason, ensuring collaborative work and a sense of dynamism was a guiding principle for this artistic commission. MELLY’s new environment created by Dirrix, Van Esch, Taselaar, and Trum is part of the institution’s initiative Tools for Conviviality, promoting the creation of brave and safe art spaces that are functional, experimental, and inspiring. An earlier iteration of this initiative is the long-term and slowly-evolving group exhibition 84 STEPS, begun in 2021 and sited in Kunstinstituut Melly’s third-floor gallery; the title itself refers to the number of steps in the stairwell connecting MELLY on the ground-floor to Kunstinstituut Melly’s top-floor gallery. This summer, Kunstinstituut Melly also convenes at its venue her network partners in Tools for Demodernizing, a program to develop a toolbox for making meaningful transformations in the arts sector. This program, as well as the exhibition-oriented strategy Tools for Conviviality and the recent publication Tools for Collective Learning, have been developed by Kunstinstituut Melly as part of its Name Change Initiative. Such a multifaceted initiative came with the promises to rename the institution (it was formerly known as Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art), as well as to make structural change. Without a doubt, these initiatives, including the co-creation modus operandi of CLIP, have been instrumental in diversifying the institution’s personnel, public, and program over the past five years. The new artistic environment by Dirrix, Van Esch, Taselaar, and Trum is the first commission for MELLY since the summer of 2020. It replaces a floor- and wallpaper design featuring monochromes and color-gradient shapes, their hue inspired by the light signage at Kruiskade, a local street lined by cafes and shops reflective of Rotterdam’s cultural diversity. That design was created in Spring 2020 by Enchilada, a Rotterdam communication firm, and it indicated the social-distancing measure required during the Covid pandemic. Beforehand, MELLY’s space featured a group exhibition involving poster commissions to 12 artists from the region, celebrating the renaming of that gallery space, which was once called Untitled. During the year-long Untitled name period, the space featured a room-size painting commissioned to artist Federico Herrero. The core furniture used in the space since 2018, which was made by graphic designer Manuel Raeder, is replaced June 2023 with pieces designed as part of Dirrix, Van Esch, Taselaar, and Trum’s new environment for MELLY. Following the collaboration for MELLY, Koen Taselaar has created a special limited edition commissioned by Kunstinstituut Melly. See here for more information. Participants Team Thursday, Koen Taselaar, Atelier Tomas Dirrix Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy Series MELLY Bookshop & Café <div class="
• Falke Pisano: not to be governed like that by that
  For her project-based exhibition at Kunstinstituut Melly, artist Falke Pisano presents a new work that stems from her year-long research into the first savings bank in Rotterdam. Established in the early nineteenth century, the Savings Bank in Rotterdam (Spaarbank te Rotterdam) was created by a group of affluent residents and an emerging local bourgeoisie. Some of the people involved in this bank’s foundation were related to the Society for Public Welfare (Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen), which, for its part, had been established a few decades earlier, in 1784. The purpose of this foundation was to stimulate personal growth and self-discipline amongst working-class citizens and those who were financially underprivileged. The foundation saw the dissemination of “virtue” as a way to mend a divided society. The opening of Spaarbank championed this belief, too. At the Rotterdam City Archive (Rotterdam Stadsarchief), Pisano had access to board-meeting minutes, reports, and correspondence pertaining to these institutions. She also regularly visited the Engelfriet family's website, which shares various kinds of histories about Rotterdam. These findings, along with further reading, introduced her to the advent of a “civil society” in The Netherlands at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The artist explains that, through her research, she came across the so-called bourgeois “civilizing offensive” of the 19th Century, and that she was able to place the history of the Savings Bank in context. “I focused largely on the way common values and worldviews of the upper classes were conveyed through administrative language,” she says, “which I found future-oriented and patronizing, and, as such, disruptive and transformative of social relations and institutions.” In her new work, not / to be / governed like that / by that, Pisano straddles the legacy and contemporary currency of such viewpoints and language around poverty prevention. The centerpiece of Pisano’s installation is shaped after a typical boardroom table. The tabletop is made up of seven separate panels, each with unique screen-printed illustrations underneath. These illustrations show actions, spaces, and moments of exchange, crisis, and control. While at first concealed, the illustrations are revealed during scheduled performances by Pisano, where she will use them to deliver different narrations. This also means that, formally, the artist’s performance involves overturning the sculpture’s main surface, and thus the purported function of a table connoting decision-making power. The artist's performance consists of a three-part monologue; each part is performed once a month by Pisano between September and November. The first part of the performance focuses on the establishment of the Rotterdam Savings Bank in 1818. It speaks to forms of resistance and positions against notions of virtue, both then and now. The second part revolves around the national financial crisis of 1844, which sparked a public debate, eventually leading to the creation of new policy and a modern approach to personal and societal responsibilities. A key topic of conversation at the time was the bill proposed by Finance Minister Van Hall for an extra tax levy – avoidable if wealthy Dutch people provided a loan of 127 million guilders to the state by purchasing government bonds at 3% interest. The third part of Pisano's performance focuses on 1899, when the Savings Bank began to take steps towards expansion. The bank office was reorganized: teller counters were introduced to improve customer flow; banking services were no longer carried out by board members but by trained officials; opening hours were extended to eight hours a day. Optimization also began to appear in other institutions at the time. Whether it was the development of living rooms in homes or social welfare programs, spatial and legal arrangements in society were shaping institutions into managers. On Sunday, 11 June 2023, as part of the exhibition-opening weekend programs, Pisano will give a brief introduction to not / to be / governed like that / by that. Then, during the summer, she will meet with different people experienced in matters and policies pertaining to savings, debt, and social welfare. These meetings will be held within her exhibition, lending another use to her sculpture and art installation. The artist anticipates that the conversations held there will have meaningful repercussions for her work. These exchanges will shape not just the script’s narrative, but likewise the artist’s overall performance. For example, they may sway the viewpoints and voices she takes on, her body movement, and her uses and displays of the image panels. The composition of Pisano’s not / to be / governed like that / by that will thus take different arrangements over the course of its five-month exhibition period. Her installation also includes a series of posters displaying, among other things, historical announcements from the Savings Bank and the Society for Public Welfare, plus an audio piece by the artist. The latter serves as a voice-over to the mise-en-scène of changing value systems that Pisano’s work comes to picture. Her attention to the current financial inequality experienced in Rotterdam motivates and informs her new work. So does her long-standing artistic interest in changing value systems that support, transform, and upend common language and social relations, as much as civic institutions. Pisano’s exhibition is titled after a fragment of a longer line in a text on “critique” authored by Michel Foucault. The artist splits the cited words with line breaks, encouraging interpretations in the breaths marked by the pronunciation of each segment: not / to be / governed like that / by that. With this new work, her critique is directed towards economic “autonomy” and financial “independence” as guiding principles, terms common in the arts sector and no less in conservative discourses on wellbeing. These are ideologically-charged terms, often promoting blank statements on “freedom” to romantics, as much as to the working class of an ever-precarious society. The work of Pisano, whose artistic practice has engaged with language for nearly two decades, is thus an invitation to meaningfully probe: who comes to use these terms as guiding values; when, and to what ends; at what cost? For the artist, “making and presenting art is a way to publicly think about enduring ideas, customs, and institutions.” Pisano’s artistic practice persistently engages with institutions so as to address and challenge their roles in society. With not / to be / governed like that / by that, she inaugurates a new body of work exploring historic and contemporary forms and domains of governance; what has unsettled these in the past, what could unsettle these today? Falke Pisano not / to be / governed like that / by that is curated by Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, and organized by Julija Mockute. Her performance-based exhibition is presented in the project space of Kunstinstituut Melly’s second-floor galleries. This space was created in 2020; before then, it was the director’s office and a meeting room. Pisano was commissioned to realize this new work as part of Anchored, an exhibition series focused on the institution’s building, its street, and its neighbors and vicinity. This series promotes the understanding that making meaningful transformation requires historical awareness as much as an understanding of the present. Two earlier projects of this exhibition series, which were also presented in this project space, were created by artist Sam Samiee and artist Michel Huijben, and curated by Vivian Ziherl and Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, respectively. In recent years, other projects of Anchored have included documentary displays about other nineteenth-century developments in Kunstinstituut Melly’s street. These were developed through research at the Rotterdam Stadsarchief, conducted by Wendy van Slagmaat-Bos, and have featured a defunct museum and a demolished botanical garden. Thanks to Peter Graafland / Mesh Print Club for silkscreen production Participants Falke Pisano Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy Series ANCHORED Supported By Stichting Elise Mathilde Fonds <div class="
• Kelly Sinnapah Mary: The Fables of Sanbras
  Kelly Sinnapah Mary lives and works in the island of Guadeloupe, an overseas territory of France. Through her work, she engages natural, historical, folkloric, and ancestral materialities of this archipelago in the Caribbean. Her paintings, tapestries, sculpture, and artistic interventions draw from her personal background, her direct environment, and the springs and waters of history. Sinnapah Mary is a descendant of indentured workers, who, originally based in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, were relocated with force, deceit, and/or some degree of choice to Guadeloupe following the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century. Storytelling and archetype inform her inquiry into her island, exploring its abundant ecologies of mangroves, ravines, volcanoes, pastures, and promontories, as much as its contested histories and revolutions. For the artist, it has been relevant to ground her work through the lens of philosopher, poet, and writer Aime Césaire, especially his notion of ‘the return’. For Césarie, one of the founders of the Négritude movement in Francophone literature, this meant advocating for human dignity and cultural equality while resisting colonial values and celebrating African culture. Also influential to her is the work of poet Khal Torabully, the novelist Maryse Condé, and other Caribbean intellectuals who wrestle with experiences and the impact of colonialism and diaspora. Sinnapah Mary has a keen interest in interweaving human and non-human expressions of kinship. The artist says this interest is partly inspired by her grandmother, Violette. In different ways, Sinnapah Mary’s work acknowledges the care this elder mentor gave to her garden and the orphaned animals she nurtured. Showcasing existing and newly commissioned artworks, this exhibition is Sinnapah Mary’s first in The Netherlands. In creating these works, the artist considers daily rituals—such as feeding hens and watering plants every morning—and the flora and fauna surrounding her home and art studio. She works with a repository of memories, existing mythologies, and common superstitions, which together wrestle with certain ideological constructs that have been imposed by the West. Her paintings reference rituals, as well as encounters between native and invasive creatures from land and sea. The main character featured throughout the artist’s work is called ‘Sanbras’. Part child, part woman, the Black body of Sanbras is regularly pictured intertwined with flora and fauna. Her long braid is at times a nest for blue-speckled duck eggs. Her musings through the forest involve medicine findings as much as mischievous play. Also often featured in Sinnapah Mary’s visual fables is a mongoose. She pictures this small carnivorous mammal transforming from a dangerous pest to an adored pet. These kinds of entanglements picture the dawning of a new era, where a human and more-than-human world find alliance and kinship. A caring relation to the environment here is also to contest empires and colonialist projects that have sought to determine and control the role of the natural world. Kelly Sinnapah Mary: The Fables of Sanbras is curated by Sour Grass as part of Gatherings and Passages, a multi-year initiative at Kunstinstituut Melly focused on the Caribbean contemporary art and culture. Sour Grass is the Barbados-based curatorial agency of Annalee Davis and Holly Bynoe. Begun in 2021, Gathering and Passages programming has touched upon histories of enslavement and Diaspora, post-colonial experience, and ecological crisis. Participants Kelly Sinnapah Mary Curators Annalee Davis, Holly Bynoe Young Network Sour Grass Series SOLO DUETS Supported By Ammodo, Institut français NL, Mondriaan Fund has contributed to these exhibition through the Artists' Fee Compensation Scheme. <div class="
• Lucy Beech: Ooze
  While much attention is paid at present to how society creates waste, Lucy Beech is preoccupied with how waste shapes society. The latest works by the visual artist and filmmaker consider ways in which the uses of waste, for example in the context of science and fiction, have come to “blur boundaries between social constructs and biological realities.” They probe both real-life and imaginary experiences that expand on understandings of gender, desire, and at times, crisis. The artist’s solo exhibition, Ooze, presents their new film Flush, commissioned by Kunstinstituut Melly. It also includes the Dutch premiere of Beech’s Warm Decembers (2022), as well as their earlier work, Reproductive Exile (2018). To create these films, Beech corresponded with historians, poets, and doctors as well as shadowing specialists in waste management and reproductive science. They focus in particular on waste matter that does not easily fit into a single category nor field of research and production. A common thread throughout the moving images presented in Ooze is the probing of ideas about waste, value, gender, and productivity, as much as the reproductive links between them. However differently, each of the films also conveys—or may perhaps trigger—a form of resistance. This is evident in the sheer density of scientific research that Beech has succinctly elucidated in their moving images; by an impending sense of rejection in the storylines, images, or characters these films present; and, no less, by the abject and visually palpable viscosity of fluids featured throughout. Beech explains that, “A focus on viscosity offers a lens through which to consider the forces and stresses involved in the de/formation of waste materials, language, and ideas about the body.” The fluids in the works range from gluts of piss and wastewater to drops of blood and injection spills. Liquid organisms twirl through microscopes, and endoscopes capture unsettled fluids. There is rain and mud, runny feces and teary eyes. Colored substances fill buckets, pipes, and hoses, vials, syringes, and catheters. Water is kept in basins for cleansing bodies, and floors are made reflective by floods. Beech melds this kind of imagery with close-up takes of animal and human skins, of eyes meeting, of eavesdropping. In Beech’s films, animals seem to copulate in the wild, while subject to testing in both farms and labs. Whenever this is the case, the footage shows real events shot by the artist at different locations. In their films, people, too, happen to fall upon or willingly submit themselves to altered inner states and experiment rooms. These shots are staged and recorded by Beech. Ultimately, the films show biological matter moving between characters and across borders, which are marked by governing ethical mores, the limits of laboratories, national boundaries, or, ultimately, by some combination of these. Each film displayed in Ooze presents a unique scenario. Experiments in endocrinology are a point of contention in the newest film Flush (2023), the protagonist of which is the freemartin: an intersex calf born from twin-pregnancy. From birth, these cows are neither deemed total waste nor fully used in industry, be that food or science. Beech visits a research lab, where human placentas are studied for information on hormonal flows and reactions, a process which was created in the study of freemartins. In Flush, which was largely shot in the Netherlands, Beech maps fluids flowing in and out of these experiments, which can be traced to urine donation centers and the pharmaceutical world. Urine from horses and from people experiencing menopause are among the fluids that seep throughout Reproductive Exile. In this film, the main location is a fertility-assistance medical center of the Future Life Group, where Anne, the protagonist, comes to meet and correspond with Eve, who is a stainless-steel reproduction of Anne’s own reproductive system. In Warm Decembers, Beech weaves together experiences of crisis, love, and gender in psychological and biological transitions. There are recurring expressions of tending and tenderness in this film. Shot in a variety of landscapes, and in dreamscapes and stage sets created by Beech, the work is inspired by words that didn’t quite make it into a prose poem by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick; Beech draws on Sedgwick’s “wasted” notes. In Ooze, a particular time period cannot easily be discerned. It is most likely our present, possibly a near future. Geographical location is left unspecified, too, though it's presumably in Europe. Regardless, the storylines unfold in familiar spaces; grass plains, forests, farms, labs, spas, and medical clinics. The intentional looping of each film leaves any origin undefined, any linear narrative unable to accumulate. The scenes propose no clear-cut conclusion to the scientific experiments, nor resolutions to poetic musings. The opacity of the storylines is thus counterposed with the clarity of images, the crispness of surround sound, and the lucidity of thought voiced in these films. Epistolary monologues, demonstrative speaking, character dialogues, poetic recitals, and group conversations; these are the various types of verbal expression that Beech beautifully couples with their moving images. While some lines appear as voice-overs in places, commanding essayistic narrations are largely avoided. To create the scripts, Beech worked with writers, scholars, and scientists. One of their collaborators is science historian Tamar Novick. The author of the forthcoming book Milk and Honey: Technologies of Plenty in the Making of a Holy Land, expected July 2023, Novick’s work delves into waste and reproduction along the human-animal divide. Beech and Novick co-authored The Sex Panic and The Productive Infertility of The Freemartin (2023), from which the poetic film script for Flush was developed. For Warm Decembers, Beech collaborated with poet Cassie Westwood, who is featured reading parts of her work The Use of the Poem in Transition (2022) at the start and end of the film. The film’s title comes from an earlier text by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, The Warm Decembers ​​(1978 –1987). These are among many other collaborators listed in a fourth film projection playing at the start of the exhibition, designed as a rolling credits film intertitle. Beech, who was born and raised in the UK, has just completed a two-year fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Located in Berlin, where Beech lives and works, the focus of this research institute is on “scientific thinking and practice as historical phenomenon.” There, the artist’s research gave special attention to the relationship between bodily waste and reproduction processes. Beech also created the research group Working with Waste, composed of artists, scientists, and other practitioners. But while Beech conducts rigorous research, and while some of the experiments featured in their films are real, the work of their artistic practice falls decidedly into the category of speculative fiction. The artist champions the hypothetical and generative “what if?” that art, creativity, and science share. The films presented in Ooze were shot by Beech in 4K and include surround sound. The duration of each is between 15 and 30 minutes. At Kunstinstituut Melly, the experience of these films’ lush images and sound is heightened by insulated, darkened galleries. Ooze is presented in the institution’s second-floor galleries. To realize this exhibition, Kunstinstituut Melly collaborated with two institutions in Germany: Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst in Oldenburg and Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof in Hamburg. Lucy Beech: Ooze is curated by Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, with curatorial assistance by Julija Mockutė. Flush was commissioned by Kunstinstituut Melly, thanks to the support of Ammodo. The exhibition is additionally supported by ifa: Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and Mondriaan Fonds. Warm Decembers was made possible thanks to the support of Kunstverein Gartenhaus in Vienna, Edith-Russ-Haus für Medienkunst in Oldenburg, Stiftung Niedersachsen, and Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. Reproductive Exile was commissioned by Lafayette Anticipations in Paris. Participants Lucy Beech Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Julija Mockute Series SOLO DUETS Supported By Ammodo, ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), Mondriaan Fund has contributed to these exhibition through the Artists' Fee Compensation Scheme <div class="
• Rotterdam Cultural Histories #24: Mama Aisa
  Kunstinstituut Melly invites Boris van Berkum and Marian Markelo in light of the 150th commemoration of the abolition of slavery in Suriname which is celebrated during Keti Koti on the 1st of July, and the 24th edition of our Rotterdam Cultural Histories exhibition. Marian Markelo opened the ceremony in Amsterdam on the 1st of July by performing a libation, accompanied by dancer Vanessa Felter, who wore a Kabra-ancestor mask made by Van Berkum. Markelo and Felter have worked together since 2013. Van Berkum made a sculpture in collaboration with Markelo, of the Winti goddess Mama Aisa, who represents love, compassion, and inclusivity. With the work forming the focal point of this exhibition, we aim to center care, understanding, and connection with each other. Part of Keti Koti’s 150th commemoration, the Rotterdam Cultural Histories exhibition, entitled Mama Aisa, focuses on Winti culture. By presenting the work of Van Berkum and Markelo, we want to contribute to the representation of Surinamese diaspora, culture, and beliefs. People of Surinamese descent make up the largest minority group in Rotterdam, where Kunstinstituut Melly is based, and we recognize the importance of giving voice to stories and histories that are institutionally underrepresented. Winti developed in Suriname. During Dutch colonization, enslaved people brought West-African beliefs and perspectives to Suriname, where these concepts formed the basis of Winti. People living in Suriname, as well as the country’s diaspora, continue to practice Winti today. Winti rituals and traditions are about being with others and taking time for each other, both with the living and the deceased ancestors. The Winti god of creation is Anana Keduaman Keduampon, who created a number of Winti gods and goddesses, sent to help humans. Winti, another word for these deities, is often connected to the forces of nature: air, earth, water, and the forest. The highest Winti is Mama Aisa (Mother Earth), also known as Wanaisa or Maisa. The creator of life and death, Mama Aisa is the goddess of flora and fauna; protector of the arts, medicine, and commerce. In making their work, Van Berkum and Markelo celebrate the power of connection, diversity, and cultural exchange, inviting audiences to engage with Winti beliefs and traditions. Central to this exhibition is the representation of one of the most important Winti, Mama Aisa, Mother Earth. The sculpture, created by Boris van Berkum, was modeled on Marian Markelo, for whom Mama Aisa plays an important role in Winti culture and practices. In his designs, Van Berkum incorporates West-African art objects that he and Markelo select from the collections of Dutch ethnographic museums. He makes 3D scans of these artworks and assembles them into new designs. Before the selected pieces are scanned, Markelo performs a libation to the ancestors, inviting the object’s makers to participate in the project. Namely for Van Berkum and Markelo, the African ancestors are important collaborators. For more information and updates on the Mama Aisa sculptures, also visit: mamaaisa.nl. Participants Boris van Berkum, Marian Markelo Curators Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Jessy Koeiman, Wendy van Slagmaat-Bos Series ANCHORED, Rotterdam Cultural Histories Supported By CBK Rotterdam, Mondriaan Fund, Kayden Stone & Ceramics <div class="
• Rotterdam Cultural Histories #25: 25 Years of Tubelight — Critical Art Critique
  This edition of Rotterdam Cultural Histories celebrates the 25th anniversary of Tubelight with an anniversary exhibition. The roots of Tubelight can be found at number 53 Witte de Withstraat, directly across from TENT and Kunstinstituut Melly. Once upon a time, MK Galerie was located here. The gallery owners, Emmo Grofsmid and Karmin Kartowikromo, along with co-initiator Antoine Achten, started an experimental review magazine back in 1998. This small initiative grew over the years into a launching pad for emerging writers, editors, and designers. In the exhibition space, you can explore the physical edition of Tubelight #126: a magazine in the form of an exhibition. In this space, you can discover all previously published editions of Tubelight, view artworks, and read accompanying reviews and texts about Tubelight. The texts are available on loose sheets in the space, and you are welcome to take them with you. New contributions will be added throughout the exhibition, gradually expanding the issue. Tubelight #126 is designed by Kai Udema, who also created the sanctuary in this space. The Rotterdam Cultural Histories series is a collaboration between TENT and Kunstinstituut Melly, in which we take turns highlighting subjects from the history of art and culture in Rotterdam. This edition is a production of TENT and was curated by the Tubelight editorial team. Network TENT, Tubelight Series Rotterdam Cultural Histories <div class="
• Music for My Oma
  A line-up of concerts and sound performances organized by Kunstinstituut Melly in partnership with the Amarte Foundation, as part of the 'Melly X Amarte' sound art and music program. The program was initiated in September 2023 with an open call for existing or newly proposed music or sound pieces inspired by grandmothers or ancestral knowledge. This is the line-up of performances, taking place throughout the galleries and spaces at Kunstinstituut Melly from 8-10 December 2023. Friday 8 December 5 – 9 pm 6 PM Channa Boon, Khachapuri Channa Boon will play a 20-minute sound piece using 64 ceramics, each in the shape of Khachapuri, a traditional Georgian bread. Boon co-creates with the ‘Acoustic Body’, a term she coined that speaks to an experience of presence and energy in the inanimate and inaudible. Although her family restricts any conversations about the dead, Boon has always felt her grandmother as a presence, one that is strong, loving, and supportive; in that sense, this piece is performed for her as well. 7 PM Elsa van der Linden, In binnen in Elsa van der Linden performs a solo set that embarks on a search for polyphony within the self. Wondering whether she might resemble the younger version of her grandmother, or if her mother might share features with her great-grandmother, or whether her mother might be represented in a future generation.. As a saxophonist, Van der Linden can only play one tone at a time, but through improvisation, graphic scores, and performative objects, she questions how to make consonance with herself. 7:30 PM Cosmic Bride, A performance in _____ Natalia Kharetskaya: voice, body, sensors Tomas Valečka: sound engineer Raz van Isac: visual artist Cosmic Bride, the artistic act of Natalia Kharetskaya, presents A performance in _____, a 30-minute immersive experience. Described as ‘3D audio,’ the piece foregrounds its setting to welcome the audience into the music itself, conceived as a piece of sonic architecture. The audience can wander around and hear and feel the music spatially, as it travels above their heads and behind their backs. Through wearable sensor technology, Cosmic Bride alters the sounds of both her own voice and the accompanying string quartet. 8 PM Het Duo Leve: Jasperina Verheij and Mathilde Lettinga Performing compositions by: J. Dowland (1563-1626) / J. van Eyck (1589-1657) - Flow my Tears L. Malossi (1996) - RUZIE (2023) E. Beunk (1999) - Vacuüm (2023) G. Jacob (1895-1984) - Flow my Tears Jasperina Verheij and Mathilde Lettinga perform a series of compositions spanning between the 1500s and today, sharing songs that build on each other through improvisation and re-interpretation. A primary component of the work is a poem that used to hang in the bathroom of Mathilde’s grandmother’s house; poetry now permeates the music both artists play. Central to the piece is an intergenerational conflict born from misunderstanding, that becomes ultimately resolved in an emotional and connected manner. 8:30 PM 12 Tribes of Mars, Past Times​ Andrius Dereviancenko - saxophone/fx ​James McClure - trumpet/fx Azubike Onwuk- - bass guitar Franky Douglas - guitar Dario Trapani - guitar Onno Govaert - drums Performing their original music at Kunstinstituut Melly, Tribes of Mars will share a set made for dancing. Originating from diverse age groups and cultural, musical, and geographical backgrounds – from improvisation to pop to funk, from Africa to the Caribbean – the group will combine their sounds into a seamless composition. In between songs, they will explore the acoustics of the gallery space, blending and processing them live with effects. Challenging both the spatial dynamics and the rhythm of the listeners, they will incorporate quick mood changes and surprising extensions to keep listeners on their toes. Saturday 9 December, 2 – 6 pm 5 pm Melvin Moti, Rootless Melvin Moti extends the idea of ‘rootless voicing’ – a term closely associated with the piano style of jazz pianist Bill Evans – to the idea of the rootless self. Generations of (im)migration in Moti’s family have created a certain rootlessness. But like in jazz, where there are no wrong notes on a piano, so every chord, no matter how rootless, has a home, the artist sees familial rootlessness also as a good thing. Having to adapt to new environments and figure things out for oneself encourages a familiarity with change. For My Oma, Moti performs a piece beginning with noise and chaos, from which musical ideas will appear. The electronic music, ranging from aggressive to minimal, will reflect a feeling of rootlessness. 5:30 pm Peter Scherrebeck / Misty Superdeluxe, Hide my Face Choreography/Composition/Performance: Peter Scherrebeck / Misty Superdeluxe Performance: Paca Faraus Ceramics / Counseling: Christin Johansson Peter Scherrebeck / Misty Superdeluxe with Paca Faraus present Hide My Face, a work based on a praxis they developed called ‘Mouth Singing.’ Performing a song written by Scherrebeck en route to Portugal, on a journey through the maternal line and intergenerational trauma, two figures take up various positions as they sing into each other’s mouths. As they sing, their bodies use one another as a resonance chamber, and they become vessels through which the past, present, and future flow. Accompanying the performers is a video installation inside a ceramic vase, displaying another iteration of the performance. Sunday 10 December, 2 – 6 pm 3:30 pm Maria Magdalena Kozłowska, COMMUNE For My Oma, Maria Magdalena Kozłowska along with Teresa Costa (flute), Beatrice Miniaci (flute) and Bjørk Delcroix Semey (double bass) will perform a selection of songs written for her opera COMMUNE, conceived as a tribute to her own grandmother, who appears in the piece as a hybrid between herself and Rosa Luxemburg. In the work, the ghost of a communist grandmother teaches young musicians how opera can be used as a form of resistance. 4 pm Eveline Ypma, 10 Eveline Ypma shares a new ambient work that commemorates her grandmother, who passed away in February this year. Wanting to find places where her grandmother had felt happiness, Ypma was drawn to the beach campsite where her family had holidayed every summer for ten years. Made along the route from the campsite’s entrance to the sea – a journey her grandmother would often make – Ypma’s piece, 10, combines local environmental sounds, instrumental compositions, and voice, lasting the same 17 minutes of the walk’s duration. 4:30 pm Gabriel de Oliveira, Where Dona Nina Saw The Fire Gabriel de Oliveira: 8-string guitar, electronics, vocals River Adomeit: double bass, vocals Zenzele Mthembu-Salter: electric bass, vocals Sberna: vocals Gabriel de Oliveira presents a new commission that reveals how the musicality embedded in his grandmother Nina’s life, struggle, and surroundings has paved the way for his own creativity, aiming to make a bridge between their timelines. The series of new compositions collects songs, spoken word, instrumental scores, and samples of Nina’s speech, performed and arranged by a small mostly acoustic ensemble. Much of the material is translated from a spontaneous audio recording of an interview with Nina, made by the artist in 2021 upon a visit to his father’s hometown of Guarulhos, Brazil. The recording captures not only Nina’s stories, but the organic and day-to-day sounds of her household. Departing from this sonic information, de Oliveira’s work incorporates songwriting, regional Brazilian rhythms, and choral singing. The series imagines the spaces of his grandmother’s stories, sonically mapping the geographies of her life. 5:30 pm Mallet Collective, Mallet Collective plays Keiko Abe, grandmother of marimba Mallet Collective play works composed by Keiko Abe, the ‘grandmother of the marimba.’ Abe, a Japanese marimba player and composer, who invented the marimba as we know it today, makes music that always has a connection with nature and rituals. Her music is a big inspiration for Mallet Collective, who have worked and performed with her in Japan. The collective also draws on the work of other composers who build on Abe’s unique style. Responding to Abe’s wish to expand her audience and preserve her work, Mallet Collective, as ‘grandsons of Abe,’ are happy to make music in conversation with her legacy. Participants Channa Boon, Het Duo Leve: Jasperina Verheij and Mathilde Lettinga, Eveline Ypma, Peter Scherrebeck / Misty Superdeluxe, Melvin Moti, Elsa van der Linden, Mallet Collective, Cosmic Bride, Gabriel de Oliveira, 12 Tribes of Mars, Maria Magdalena Kozłowska Network Amarte Fund Series My Oma Supported By Amarte Foundation <div class="
• My Oma
  My Oma is a curatorial project focusing on the figure of the grandmother. The project overall explores personal and cultural legacies mobilized by affection as much as by conflict. It convenes artists and narratives, as well as artworks and theory that articulate central issues of our time: experiences of immigration, dissonant heritage, and changing gender roles. My Oma gives special attention to embodied knowledge and micro narratives. In the light of increasing political polarization, My Oma promotes historical learning, strengthened intergenerational bonds and celebrates knowledges held among diaspora communities. The bilingual title—with the English my and the Dutch oma for grandmother—is meant to communicate this personal approach. As such, we address grandmothers as plural protagonist imbued with agency as well as being the subject of social projections. The figure of the grandmother thereby allows for various approaches to histories, traditions, and ancestry. It also welcomes the reconsideration of gendered and ageist determinations surrounding cultural and material legacy. Organized by Kunstinstituut Melly, My Oma involves a large group exhibition of contemporary art including new commissions, existing work, performances, and events. Participating artists are: A Maior (Portugal), Funda Baysal (Turkey), Yto Barrada (France), Meriem Bennani (Morocco), Nurul Ain Binti Nor Halim (Thailand), Lia Dostlieva and Andrii Dostliev (Ukraine), Shardenia Felicia (Curaçao), Susanne Khalil Yusef (Germany), Charlie Koolhaas (The Netherlands), Liedeke Kruk (the Netherlands), Marcos Kueh (Malaysia), Berette S Macaulay (Sierra Leone), Silvia Martes (Curaçao), Hana Miletić (Croatia), Jota Mombaça (Brazil), Sheelasha Rajbhandari (Nepal), Anri Sala (Albania), Stacii Samidin (the Netherlands), Kateřina Šedá (Czech Republic), Julia Scher (United States), Buhlebezwe Siwani (South Africa), Judy Watson (Australia), and Sawangwongse Yawnghwe (Shan State, Burma). During the opening weekend, from December 8th to 10th, a number of performances and presentations will take place at Kunstinstituut Melly under the name of Show and Tell: Ola Hassanain (Sudan), Yoeri Guépin (The Netherlands), Melike Kara (Germany), Raimundas Malašauskas (Lithuania), Amanda Moström (Sweden), Maria Pask (Wales), Laure Prouvost (France), Sara Sallam (Egypt), and Asa Seresin (United Kingdom). A complete list of participants and program schedule will be published here in November. Additionally we present a new collaboration with Amarte Fund, Music for My Oma. In this program musicians and sound artists perform at Kunstinstituut Melly as part of the opening-weekend festivities: 12 Tribes of Mars (Amsterdam), Channa Boon (Amsterdam), Cosmic Bride (Rotterdam), Elsa van der Linden (Utrecht), Eveline Ypma (Amsterdam), Gabriel de Oliveira (Amsterdam), Het Duo Leve: Jesperina Verheij and Mathilde Lettinga (Den Haag), Mallet Collective (Nieuwegein/Rotterdam), Maria Magdalena Kozłowska (Amsterdam), Melvin Moti (Rotterdam), and Peter Scherrebeck / Misty Superdeluxe (Amsterdam). My Oma is the closing exhibition and public-engagement project of Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy’s tenure as the director of Kunstinstituut Melly. It marks her six years of transformational institutional work here. The exhibition and its parallel projects result from curatorial research and public outreach conducted by her and her team—including curators Rosa de Graaf, Jessy Koeiman, Julija Mockutė, and Vivian Ziherl—during this span of time. Curatorial advisors to My Oma include: Diana Campbell (chief curator Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh), Edward Gillman (director Auto Italia, London, UK), Sun A Moon (director Space AfroAsia, Dongducheon, South Korea), and Manuela Moscoso (director CARA, New York, USA). During the My Oma exhibition opening weekend, Hernández Chong Cuy will present a report of her tenure that began in 2018 and is concluding at the end of 2023. This event will be organized in the format of a Town Hall, a public forum that will welcome questions and encourage discussion. Throughout the exhibition period of My Oma special programs will also take place; please stay tuned for a calendar of events published here. * Sensory Map Our exhibitions may be overly stimulating for neurodiverse visitors. To address this, we’ve developed a sensory map of our galleries. This map serves as a preparation guide for your visit and aids in navigating the exhibitions. It includes all current sensory stimuli present in the exhibition. The map is available on location and digitally via this link. Participants Yto Barrada, Funda Baysal, Maria Pask, Meriem Bennani, Nurul Ain Binti Nor Halim, Lia Dostlieva, Andrii Dostliev, Shardenia Felicia, Yoeri Guépin, Ola Hassanain, Melike Kara, Susanne Khalil Yusef, Charlie Koolhaas, Liedeke Kruk, Marcos Kueh, Berette S Macaulay, Raimundas Malašauskas, Hana Miletić, Jota Mombaça, Amanda Möstrom, Anri Sala, Asa Seresin, Julia Scher, Kateřina Šedá, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Judy Watson, Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, Bruno Zhu, A Maior, Stacii Samidin, Sara Sallam, Silvia Martes, Sheelasha Rajbhandari, Laure Prouvost Curators Rosa de Graaf, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Jessy Koeiman, Julija Mockute, Vivian Ziherl, Diana Campbell, Sun A Moon, Edward Gillman, Manuela Moscoso Network Amarte Fund Series My Oma Supported By Amarte Foundation, AMMODO, Czech Centre Rotterdam, Creative Australia, Hartwig Foundation, Fonds 21, Mondriaan Fund, SAHA Association (Supporting Contemporary Art from Turkey provided support for Funda Baysal), Teiger Foundation, VriendenLoterij Fonds. <div class="
• My Oma: Show and Tell
  Artist’s talks, lectures, and performances take place inspired by personal grandmother stories, as well as by ideas, objects, or traditions inherited by their grandmothers or passed on through generations. Friday 8 December 2023, 5 – 9 pm 5 pm Laure Prouvost, Here Her Heart Hovers, 2023 GRANDMA, soft feminine. Hidden but with strong vision, carries with her the past of the past of her past, made of so many experiences crossing through a century, almost. Likes making teapots and tapestry to tell stories and her point of view on things, loved by many. Known for her immersive and mixed-media installations that combine film and installation in humorous and idiosyncratic ways, the work of French artist Laure Prouvost addresses miscommunication, and ideas becoming lost in translation. Playing with language as a tool for the imagination, Prouvost is interested in confounding linear narratives and expected associations among words, images, and meaning. She combines existing and imagined personal memories with artistic and literary references to create complex film installations that muddy the distinction between fiction and reality. For My Oma’s Show & Tell, Prouvost explores ideas of the grandmother as both a real and imagined social matriarch by gathering and exchanging stories of grandmothers of all kinds around a campfire at Kunstinstituut Melly. This work can be read as an extension of the body of work around the figure of the oma, the nana, the grandma, that the artist has developed recently. 6:30 pm Ola Hassanain, Watching Debris, 2023 Grandmother always told us to watch the cracks. Watching Debris is the latest work in a cycle of installation, photography, and research for the Sudanese artist Ola Hassanain. The piece connects the mass-modernization of the agricultural Gezira Scheme in 1920s Sudan with the disintegration of the artists’ grandmother’s house this year, due to cracks produced by the draining of water tables. The work reflects on the cyclical nature of catastrophe through waves of modernization and colonization across the world, and how this contradicts ideas of linear growth. The work is a punctuation in Hassanain’s ongoing investigation into forms and mechanisms of the physical and ecological “emptying” of the spaces we inhabit, namely through urbanization and globalization. How can we take back our claim to “built form” in order to resist or even rebel against these systemic removals? In her presentation for My Oma’s Show & Tell, the artist’s research references the architectural forms for water control through canals of irrigation in the Gezira Scheme of Khartoum. This work captures and thinks through the impact of water-flow deviations and traces left behind on clay soil – mainly in her grandmother's house, located inside the Scheme. The house is currently exhibiting irreparable cracks due to the jeopardized state of the soil. Watching Debris, through photographs and a live presentation, Hassanain conjures her grandmother’s house as a resonant site, amid cyclical patterns of emptying and evacuation. Saturday 9 December, 2 – 6 pm 2 pm Maria Pask with her daughter Liv Kluiters, her twin sister Helena Maitland, and Paul Wilkinson, an adult she parents, milde vänner/gentle friends, 2023 Mormor’s swear word was “milde vänner” which means “gentle friends” Maria Pask is an Amsterdam-based artist whose performance and installation works interpret the nature of collective creativity, empowerment, and the live moment. Working with open formats and social structures, her works take the form of drawings, paintings, performances, and textiles that often come together in installations. For My Oma’s Show & Tell, Pask is joined by family members – her daughter, Liv, her sister, Helena, and an adult she parents, Paul – in a performance reflecting on the legacy of preparing for death in Sweden. This custom, Dödstädning (in English, ‘cleaning up death’) is something that greatly preoccupied Pask’s Swedish grandmother, Thora Stork. She dedicated herself with great enthusiasm to bequeathing everything she possibly could, from her prized recipes, core values, and cautionary tales, to her tea towels, and a wooden spoon. Pask became especially interested in how, in the absence of monetary wealth, her grandmother’s primary offering was her ethos of service. Inspired by this, together the family host a fika (a Swedish concept and state of mind that refers to making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of tea, coffee, and a little something to eat). Maria and her twin sister, Helena, serve a selection of their grandmother’s Swedish cookies, baked by their mother, Gunilla Pask, while Paul, inspired by Thora Stork’s love of ghost stories, reads gory extracts from his book The Mosquito Could Not Suck Blood. 2:30 pm Yoeri Guépin with Fung K. Leung Wong, Gardens, 2023 I find oma in many people. Yoeri Guépin is a visual artist, researcher, and passionate gardener based in Rotterdam. His projects are long- term and collaboratively oriented, involving experimental forms of care, working with embodied knowledge, storytelling, and ecosystems at the margins. His experience of being brought up at a biodynamic farm, and helping his parents in the fields from a young age, led to an interest in (agri)cultural histories. Mrs. Wong is a fellow gardener and Chinese herbal medicine expert. After moving to Rotterdam in the 1970s from Shenzhen, China, she started a garden in the city, where she continued growing and preserving medicinal plants that had been local to her in Shenzhen. She has been sharing a garden with Guépin for the last three years. For My Oma’s Show & Tell, Guépin and Mrs. Wong will have a conversation about their shared passion for gardening. Their exchange will be facilitated, for the first time, by a Cantonese/Dutch translator. With language barriers making it difficult to engage in conversation, this is the first time their exchanges will be aided by a translator. Throughout the years they have known each other, Mrs. Wong has been teaching Guépin about different Chinese medicinal plants and their uses through notes in their shared garden, passing down her knowledge to the next generation. As Guépin’s late grandmother also grew medicinal plants, the exchange, and care they show for each embodies the caring relationship between grandparents and their grandchildren. During their conversation, they will reflect on the garden throughout the years, and invite participants to try one of Mrs. Wong’s recipes. 3 pm Asa Seresin, Your Arms in His Sink, 2023 My grandmother was my grandfather’s cleaner – that is how they met. Writer, researcher, and critic Asa Seresin remarks that his grandparents ended up more divorced than they had ever been married. They met in their line of work; Seresin’s grandmother had been her grandfather’s cleaner and, as such, a labor contract preexisted their romantic relationship, which never crystallized into a legal marriage. A marriage relationship, Marxist-feminist critics of romance have argued, shrouds what is usually an exploitative labor relation under a veil of obscurity. As the 1970s feminist slogan proclaimed: “It starts when you sink into his arms, and ends with your arms in his sink.” Seresin’s grandparents’ love story moved the other way around. It started with her arms in his sink and ended with other arms, other sinks. For My Oma’s Show & Tell, Seresin presents Your Arms in His Sink. Beginning with the story of his grandparents, the artist explores the ongoing relevance of the Marxist-feminist critique of romance, while also probing its limits. Marital ceremonies involve vows to care for and support one another, but such promises are both nonspecific and unenforceable – that is, until the moment of divorce. Looking from the perspective of divorce allows a new insight by stripping away the idealizing and mystifying operations of romantic love. What can be determined about the ethics of labor and love when we start with this compromised object? 3:30 pm Amanda Moström with Ruby Wroe, Greta and Enid, 2023, courtesy the artist. Mormor and many friends Amanda Moström is an artist living and working between London, UK and Ålbo, Sweden, whose practice lies at the intersection of object making, photography, and creating sites of interaction. Her work takes a strong interest in interdisciplinary exchanges and playfully engages with family archives. In this work produced for My Oma’s Show & Tell, she has collaborated with fellow artist Ruby Wroe. The work consists of a newly written text and a collection of quotes by Wroe that are directly informed by conversations between her and her Moström. In response, Moström has created an eclectic collection from her grandmother Greta’s archives of photographs and handwritten letters, as well as mobile phone footage of Greta. Together, this tactile and performative presentation seeks to locate the unique relationship that grandmothers have with their grandchildren. 4 pm Sara Sallam, When Her Lighthouse Was Shining, 2023 Nena also talked to plants. I wonder if, in my walk, I came across a tree that she spoke to in her youth. Sara Sallam is an Egyptian multidisciplinary artist, publisher, and educator based in the Netherlands. Her research-based practice includes photography, film, writing, voice narration, archival interventions, and self-publishing handmade books. Her work focuses on the retelling of history by imagining counter-narratives and exploring fiction as ways to reclaim and decolonize her ancient Egyptian heritage. For My Oma’s Show & Tell, Sallam retraces her grandmother’s childhood in Port Said, Egypt. When her grandmother was growing up there, the city was a melting pot for a multinational community, prospering in the trade and tourism that resulted from the passing of ships. Sallam remembers her grandmother telling her about watching sunsets at the lively port, eating ice cream at the Swiss restaurant, dancing in casinos, and spending time at the family’s beach house. Her grandmother never talked, however, about the British troops stationed at the canal, the French, and Italian engineers who segregated the residents in designated neighborhoods, and what it was like to live under the control of the French and British colonial empires. In her artistic reading of postcards of the city, Sallam seeks to unearth the remnants of the city’s so-called golden era, while forming a more profound understanding of the youth of the girl who later became her beloved grandmother. 4:30 pm Raimundas Malašauskas, The Dowery, 2023, courtesy the artist. Baba spills the grid. Raimundas Malašauskas is a curator and writer who lives and works in Brussels. He has a distinctively reflexive approach to writing and curating, drawing from various modes of communication. His questioning of the exhibition concept often results in unpredictable, playful projects. For My Oma’s Show & Tell, Malašauskas invites audiences to spend time with the multiple dimensions of a piece of linen cloth woven by his grandmother in 1936. The cloth has an intricate geometric grid and was prepared by Malašauskas’ grandmother from raw flax all the way through to the weaving of white thread. The presentation is conceived in three parts. The first and second comprise a recorded conversation between Malašauskas’ mother Aldona and her long-time best friend, Zna, starting with the question; “how is linen produced?” The conversation evolves in two layers; one that brings to life the hand-making of linen, and the other which recalls a childhood amidst wartime, marked by memories of soldiers, looting, and death. These two realities cannot quite become one story, but coexist in a dreamlike shared reality. Here, Malašauskas revisits the linen together with a video projection made by Ona Julija Lukas Steponaityte for My Oma’s Show & Tell. Sunday 10 December, 2 – 6 pm 2 pm Melike Kara with Jeannel, Die Straße führt zu dir, 2023 Dêka Melike Kara is a visual artist who lives and works in Cologne. She works across various mediums, including painting, sculpture, and photography. Her artistic practice revolves around themes of displacement, marginalization, and exclusion, with a particular focus on amplifying the voices of those often overlooked and unheard. In 2019, Kara presented a solo exhibition of new work here on the second floor of Kunstinstituut Melly that was , in part, inspired, in part, by her relationship with her grandmother. Having emigrated from Turkey to Cologne, her grandmother kept their family’s Kurdish roots alive, imparting oral histories, rituals, and lullabies. For My Oma’s Show & Tell, Kara returns to source material that had been central to her exhibition here at Kunstinstituut Melly – a recording of her grandmother singing a Kurdish lullaby. On this occasion, the artist has invited her life-long friend and musician, Jeannel, to create a new musical piece based on both the lullaby and Kara’s grandmother’s recording of it. The result is an exploration into the commonalities of two seemingly non-related ancestral lineages, layering the songs of both their grandmothers into a piece of its own. Die Straße führt zu dir (‘The road leads towards you’) was deliberately created as a vocal piece to honor the voices, songs, and stories of both grandmothers, paying tribute to what connects them: womanhood, sisterhood, resilience, strength, solidarity, friendship, and a longing for home; attributes mirrored in Jeanne’s and Kara’s bond. Commissioned specially for My Oma, the piece will be performed for the first time, accompanied by a video created by the artist. 3 pm Charlie Koolhaas, Harriët Freezerstraat, 2023 I'm looking for my grandmother in every woman. Charlie Koolhaas uses photography, architecture, and writing 'to create landscapes that tell stories', especially in and about places she dwells and visits. The artist grew up in London, and is based in Rotterdam. She is one of three Dutch artists especially commissioned to realize a photo-based project for My Oma; the other two artists are Liedeke Kruk and Stacii Samedin. For this exhibition, Koolhaas creates a body of work about her late grandmother, Wilhelmina Eybergen, better known in The Netherlands by her pseudonym Harriët Freezer. Freezer passed away just before Koolhaas was born. For the past year, the artist has been learning about her grandmother’s life and work, her career and influence. In the process, she has gathered scrapbooks made by Freezer, as well as related materials, memorabilia, and oral histories gathered through interviews. Koolhaas has also been visiting cities and towns throughout the Netherlands that have streets named after her grandmother’s pseudonym. From the 1990s to date, sixteen different streets go after this namesake. Koolhaas visited all of these, and took portraits of women at each of the streets; at times they pose accompanied by a partner, friend or colleague. Participants Yoeri Guépin, Ola Hassanain, Melike Kara, Raimundas Malašauskas, Amanda Möstrom, Maria Pask, Asa Seresin, Sara Sallam, Laure Prouvost, Charlie Koolhaas Series My Oma <div class="
• Sijben Rosa: Bewaard
  Sijben Rosa (they/them) is a Dutch artist interested in how creating objects and choreographing situations around them can foster social connection. Bewaard (Kept) is the outcome of Sijben’s months-long, community-oriented commission. For this, they collaborated with four people in The Netherlands whose sense of mortality is heightened due to aging or illness. Through conversations each collaborator, together with Sijben, set out to identify meaningful objects from their personal surroundings. These ranged from a pinball machine and a BDSM knife, to a nettle leaf and fur coat. However idiosyncratic, these objects speak to their life stories, encapsulating the lasting, personal values identified by each. Inspired by these objects as conversation pieces in themselves, Bewaard consists of an installation of biodegradable sculptures created by Sijben. Warped in both scale and form, the artist uses color as a means to further portray their collaborators. For example, charcoal-like tones echo the black ink of tattoos, and reddish hues are borrowed from a cherished painting of Jesus Christ. For Sijben, a crucial component of these artworks is their respective afterlives – whether bequeathed to the collaborators’ close communities; incorporated into their own burials; held onto within their homes; or destined to disintegrate. Contingent in nature, objects may come and go over the course of the exhibition, in unison with the chosen bewaarder (in English, “keeper”). An exploration of how objects attain significance and value through lived experience, Bewaard by Sijben Rosa is curated by Rosa de Graaf. This presentation marks the last iteration of Kunstinstituut Melly's Solo Duets exhibition series. Begun in 2018, Solo Duets involved commissioning artists to create work, which was then presented with existing artworks by the same artist, contextualizing this with their artistic research and trajectory. * Sensory Map Our exhibitions may be overly stimulating for neurodiverse visitors. To address this, we’ve developed a sensory map of our galleries. This map serves as a preparation guide for your visit and aids in navigating the exhibitions. It includes all current sensory stimuli present in the exhibition. The map is available on location and digitally via this link. Participants Sijben Rosa Curators Rosa de Graaf Series SOLO DUETS Supported By AMMODO <div class="
• KIJK
  “Kijk” (Look), says Paul, as he takes out the pencil from his pocket. Just like that, the unsolvable problem you brought to him is figured out, with a drawing, a call, or a thing he has seemingly held onto for this exact moment. Paul van Gennip has worked for over 34 years at Kunstinstituut Melly as Deputy Director. As he retires, the book PAUL delves into his legacy, focusing on the everyday aspects that reflect his determination to make art happen. Paul’s long-time colleagues, line kramer and marjolijn kok, who together form THE KOKRA FAMILY, were commissioned for the book to document the vast collection of objects Paul has accumulated at the institution over the years. They spent over a year developing the project, selecting and documenting more than 500 objects. A selection of this photographic series, accompanied by descriptions authored by Paul, is displayed in the exhibition. A few items from his collection are presented in their original form: as ‘things’. From a charred fuse to a chair from the (1995) exhibition of Paul Thek, these objects symbolize the institution's exhibition history The exhibition is curated by Julija Mockutė in collaboration with THE KOKRA FAMILY and Paul van Gennip, with the assistance of Alexis Medina Trejo. Special thanks to 75B, Wendy van Slagmaat-Bos, Tubelight, and Jordy Walker. Curators Paul van Gennip, THE KOKRA FAMILY, Julija Mockute PUBLICATIONS ↳ PAUL, an unofficial institutional history through the hands of Paul van Gennip <div class="
• Cihad Caner: (Re)membering the riots in Afrikaanderwijk in 1972 or guest, host, ghos-ti
  Cihad Caner is an artist whose work explores the politics of image-making and how images influence and are influenced by socio-political realities. Originally from Turkey and based in Rotterdam for the past decade, Cihad works in video, photography, music, motion capture, and CGI. His art challenges the linear and often one-dimensional narratives that dominate popular media, focusing on issues of representation, language, marginalization, and the processes of image production and circulation. His works frequently feature fictional characters in nonlinear, multilingual narratives that use humor, absurdity, and poetry to offer alternative perspectives on how we understand the world around us. In his solo exhibition, Cihad examines a largely forgotten event in Dutch history: the 1972 riots in Rotterdam’s Afrikaanderwijk neighborhood, where guest workers were targeted. With the riots as a focal point, Cihad expands his exploration to include how the neighborhood was named in commemoration of the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa, as well as the particular challenges of gentrification it faces today. This project explores the nature of memory—how we remember, how subjective experiences shape collective memory, and the role of reenactment in bringing the past into the present. Featuring film, sculptural installations, a space for public activations and tours of Afrikaanderwijk conducted in languages widely spoken in the neighborhood, Cihad delves into the fluidity of memory, recognizing it as an ever-changing phenomenon. By revisiting the Afrikaanderwijk riots through individual recollections, the artist draws out varying perspectives within these memories. He uses reenactment not just to recreate events but to activate archives and recuperate forgotten narratives. Through this process, Cihad forms a multifaceted understanding of this pivotal event, addressing the complexities around how history is remembered and retold, and the implications this poses for the community. First Double 1 & 2 Cihad’s exhibition is part of the series First Double 1 & 2, which takes its title from a collaborative album by South African musicians Madala Kunene, Baba Mokoena, and Sibusiso Mndaweni. The album’s lyrics connect seemingly unrelated activities—such as a mother going to the marketplace, a father attending a racecourse, and anti-colonial resistance chants—to reflect deeper connections between everyday life and broader socio-political themes. Similarly, the five solo exhibitions in First Double 1 & 2 explore diverse yet interconnected topics, including spiritual technologies, mineral extraction, land-related issues, queer cosmologies, and the recollection of historical events. Also included within the series are solo exhibitions by Jabu Arnell, Luana Vitra, Nolan Oswald Dennis, and Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide). Participants Cihad Caner Curators Gabi Ngcobo, Rosa de Graaf Series FIRST DOUBLE 1 & 2 <div class="
• Jabu Arnell: Turn off the Lights: Disco Ball #13 A Kind of Black
  For his upcoming solo exhibition at Kunstinstituut Melly, Jabu will create a new installation entitled, Turn off the Lights, Disco Ball #13: A Kind of Black, 2024. This sculpture will grow from built, ready-made, and stumbled-upon materials during the exhibition period. With Disco Ball #13 the artist digs deeper into Disco as a cultural and historical pillar for queer communities and as a pillar in his own artistic practice. Furthermore, the work questions the intuitive and etymological definitions and implications of its related forms. For the exhibition opening, Arnell will also present the accompanying work, Portrait of [Disco] [Ball] #13 in which he experiments with assumptions and responses to the idea of disco, the form of a ball, and the conceptualization and physicality of the disco ball. In 1979, Comiskey Park, a baseball stadium in Chicago, planned a promotional event to increase ticket sales. Baseball fans were given a discounted entry ticket to the stadium if they brought a disco record with them to the game. At the end of the evening a massive crate of disco records were destroyed in a theatrical explosion which was returned with the cheers of more than 45,000 people in the stadium. As a herald of Queer, Black, and Hispanic/Latin joy, the music and culture of disco was viewed as a threat to the status quo and pursued with a mixture of fear, excitement, violence, and celebration. For Arnell, the disco ball behaves as a gateway to exploring various phenomena such as vulnerability, beauty, cringe, and glamor. Jabu Arnell’s artistics practice is made up of often temporary works which are made using a processed-based method which he describes as “conceptuitive”. His work is created through a practice of spontaneous but intentional explorations of themes such as performativity, vulnerability, and impermanence. These themes are explored through the intuitive use of found objects, sculpture, music, light, and collage. Through engagement with such objects Jabu uncovers relationships of push and pull, cause and effect, beauty and ugliness. The work Turn off the Lights, Disco Ball #13: A Kind of Black was selected by the Commissioning Committee of Hartwig Art Foundation and acquired through the Hartwig Art Production | Collection Fund. It will subsequently be donated to the Dutch state, becoming an integral part of the national art collection (‘Rijkscollectie’), available for institutions in the Netherlands and abroad. First Double 1 & 2 Jabu's exhibition is part of the series First Double 1 & 2, which takes its title from a collaborative album by South African musicians Madala Kunene, Baba Mokoena, and Sibusiso Mndaweni. The album’s lyrics connect seemingly unrelated activities—such as a mother going to the marketplace, a father attending a racecourse, and anti-colonial resistance chants—to reflect deeper connections between everyday life and broader socio-political themes. Similarly, the five solo exhibitions in First Double 1 & 2 explore diverse yet interconnected topics, including spiritual technologies, mineral extraction, land-related issues, queer cosmologies, and the recollection of historical events. Also included within the series are solo exhibitions by Cihad Caner, Luana Vitra, Nolan Oswald Dennis, and Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide). Participants Jabu Arnell Curators Gabi Ngcobo Series Call & Response Supported By AMMODO <div class="
• Luana Vitra: The beads of my rosary are artillery bullets
  Since the beginning of her artistic career, Luana Vitra has dedicated herself to understanding the mineral realm. Drawing from the geography of the Brazilian mining region of Minas Gerais, where she comes from, Luana feels deep kinship with matter that makes up the ground of the earth. Recently, her interest in the physical, chemical and spiritual aspirations of matter led her to pursue a six-month long self-directed residency in eThekwini (Durban), South Africa. In this region, popularly known as the Kingdom of the Zulus, she immersed herself in learning traditional wire weaving and beading techniques typical to the area. Luana’s interest in these two techniques is connected to her understanding of stitch, line and repetition as the cradle of spirituality. For her solo presentation at Kunstinstituut Melly, Luana reflects on the relationship between manual work and prayer. She grew up observing the hands of prayers traversing the beads of the rosary, repeating the same prayer over and over again. In her perception, spirituality is also a journey that the hands make over the beads, as if these points were leading the body into the invisible, fostering protection and a sense of purpose. This aspect transcends various cultures, connecting to the energetic properties of different metals and the patterns formed by beads and metals through history. Inspired by complex geometric forms and patterns connected to the spiritual abilities used as communicative objects to express affection, such as Zulu love letters, Luana transformed these shapes to her own understanding of the spiritual world. The arrows and spears are elements that create the vectors of the energies present in the works, and within the mythology of the Orixás these instruments are related with the hunt, the forest, abundance, war and the energy of metals. Her installations are made with a wide variety of materials that raise political questions linked to the ongoing spiritual and historical warfare perpetuated in Brazil and other countries. Luana Vitra was selected by the Commissioning Committee of the Hartwig Art Production | Collection Fund to research and learn new techniques in order to produce a new work to be included in the collection. The piece will subsequently be donated to the Dutch state, becoming an integral part of the national art collection (‘Rijkscollectie’), available for institutions in the Netherlands and abroad. First Double 1 & 2 Luana's exhibition is part of the series First Double 1 & 2, which takes its title from a collaborative album by South African musicians Madala Kunene, Baba Mokoena, and Sibusiso Mndaweni. The album’s lyrics connect seemingly unrelated activities—such as a mother going to the marketplace, a father attending a racecourse, and anti-colonial resistance chants—to reflect deeper connections between everyday life and broader socio-political themes. Similarly, the five solo exhibitions in First Double 1 & 2 explore diverse yet interconnected topics, including spiritual technologies, mineral extraction, land-related issues, queer cosmologies, and the recollection of historical events. Also included within the series are solo exhibitions by Cihad Caner, Jabu Arnell, Nolan Oswald Dennis, and Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide). Participants Luana Vitra Curators Gabi Ngcobo Series FIRST DOUBLE 1 & 2 Supported By AMMODO <div class="
• MELLY: Tools for Conviviality
  The second edition of Tools for Conviviality continues our ongoing work to transform the bookstore, café, and event space into a lively environment that invites people to gather, read, listen, dance, talk, and share food, among other things. Developed in collaboration with our new neighbors, Hiphophuis, this edition focuses on creating ‘common ground.’ An expression of this common ground is our shared interest in the sonic. The space includes a collection of 5,000 vinyl records, housed in custom furniture designed by Amsterdam-based artist Dimitri Madimin. This collection, cared for by Dimitri along with Rotterdam-based programmer Philip Powell, serves as the basis for storytelling, DJ-led sonic lectures, and community gatherings, integrating sound into the daily rhythm of the space. With a joint wish to create a more welcoming, lived-in atmosphere, the space is transformed by carefully selected second-hand furniture as opposed to newly made pieces; all elements arriving to MELLY with their own histories and stories to tell. Amsterdam-based artist Thato Toeba is leading this effort, selecting furniture and objects as part of their artistic contribution. Their approach re-imagines Melly as a living-room environment, inviting hosts to change the displays as they choose over time. Alongside these sourced items, Thato is creating a custom-built console for the curated vinyl selections, which they approach as a three-dimensional collage. Curators Dimitri Madimin, Lara Silva Santos, Thato Toeba Network Hiphophuis Series MELLY Bookshop & Café <div class="
• Nolan Oswald Dennis: geo-logics
  Nolan Oswald Dennis’ solo presentation geo-logics comprises of two major recent works, Specifications for a Reverse Archaeology and Isivivane/Superpositions, both 2022-23 Nolan is concerned with the hidden structures that condition our social and political imagination, which move across multiple realms (technical, spiritual, economic, psychological, etc) and works to produce alternative-diagrams and systems, which sometimes oppose and sometimes compliment each other. geo-logics engages with current discussions around remediating the contentious colonial heritage of technical and science museums – asking whether a non-imperial and healing approach to these types of museum collections unearth other dispositions, lines of possibility and potential histories. Nolan complicates these concerns by posing questions around the discipline of archaeology and its techno-political bonds with other histories of extraction as conventions of colonial practices. Specifications for a Reverse Archaeology, 2022-23 In Specifications for a Reverse Archaeology Nolan enacts a reverse archaeology of the Mapungubwe collection housed at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Reverse archaeology refers to the artist’s critical counter-approach to the discipline of archaeology. Instead this work performs a series of alterations to the instruments, structures and technologies of archaeological practice in order to prepare them for more radical paths. Reverse archaeology is a refusal to treat the past as a resource to be extracted (from the earth). It is rather a tool to unearth the violences against memory and soil that produces knowledge as a rehearsal for a practice that will happen at another, unspecified, time. The installation comprises of a speculative film, time-map lightboxes, a set of viewing rocks and seating responding to the botched excavations, gold artefacts, surveys, misinterpretations, metallurgic symbolism, mythologies, material and spiritual histories surrounding the sacred hill and ancient capital of the precolonial Mapungubwe state. Specifications for a Reverse Archaeology was selected by the Commissioning Committee 2021/23 and acquired through the Hartwig Art Production | Collection Fund. It will subsequently be donated to the Dutch state, becoming an integral part of the national art collection (‘Rijkscollectie’), available for institutions in the Netherlands and abroad. Isivivane/Superpositions, 2022/23 Isivivane/Superpositions, explores the political and spiritual history of the land in South Africa as a necessary framework for how we encounter, understand, and transform our planet. The work is an installation of geopoetic gestures that takes inspiration from the artist’s ongoing conversations with geologists and geology museum curators. For Nolan, dispossession, racialization and restitution are important parts of how we may think about the world on a geological scale: a planetary science also known as reparation. Working with digital and physical simulations of geological objects this work offers itself as a platform for collectively learning a way back to another world. 'Superposition' is the term used by geologists to describe a vertical conception of time. In geological terms depth is a measure of duration, going down is a movement through space and into time. A superposition is also the act of placing one thing on top of another. The accumulation of rocks and other material is therefore also an accumulation time (and other immaterial). 'Isivivane' is the isiZulu word meaning a cairn, a pile of stones marking a significant point in the landscape. It is also the word for making a contribution or working together. Isivivane/Superpositions forms part of a commission made possible by INSITE through COMMONPLACE, a project taking place between Mexico, South Africa and Peru. iduku [01]: A Limited Edition by Nolan Oswald Dennis Developed from Isivivane/Superpositions: iduku[01]—currently on view at Kunstinstituut Melly—this edition expands Nolan’s ongoing inquiry into land, memory, and cyclical systems of reproductive labor. The 3D-printed rocks which this installation produces over the course of the exhibition are modelled after geological specimens from South African museums, reinforcing the work’s exploration of land, displacement, and planetary time. Produced in an edition of 200. Link to the limited edition: iduku[01] First Double 1 & 2 Nolan's exhibition is part of the series First Double 1 & 2, which takes its title from a collaborative album by South African musicians Madala Kunene, Baba Mokoena, and Sibusiso Mndaweni. The album’s lyrics connect seemingly unrelated activities—such as a mother going to the marketplace, a father attending a racecourse, and anti-colonial resistance chants—to reflect deeper connections between everyday life and broader socio-political themes. Similarly, the five solo exhibitions in First Double 1 & 2 explore diverse yet interconnected topics, including spiritual technologies, mineral extraction, land-related issues, queer cosmologies, and the recollection of historical events. Also included within the series are solo exhibitions by Jabu Arnell, Luana Vitra, Cihad Caner, and Sara Sejin Chang (Sara van der Heide). Participants Nolan Oswald Dennis Curators Gabi Ngcobo Network Insite (Commonplaces) Series FIRST DOUBLE 1 & 2 <div class="
• Pickup Notes: Liz Johnson Artur, Madiha Sikander, and Zara Julius
  Pickup Notes is a group exhibition that features work by Liz Johnson Artur, Madiha Sikander and Zara Julius. The title refers to notes that occur before the first downbeat of a piece of music. Pickup Notes create a sense of motion and anticipation and are used to establish a tone delivered in rhythmic waves in a musical piece. Liz will show a series of cyanotype prints drawn from her Black Balloon Archive developed over 30 years. Liz’s intimate images taken at PDA (Public Display of Affection), a cult South London club, are developed from negatives using the cyanotype printing formulation. The images suggest tensions between invisibility and hypervisibility of bodies and their relationship to photographic agency. Madiha Sikander’s Majmuā, a ‘curtain’ assembled using cloves, beads and monofilaments makes its first appearance through windows facing Witte de Withstraat, it releases a scent before it can be seen in space, first in its totality, then in detail. In Zara’s Maroon Time, a man (Vusi) dances to South African jazz pianist Andile Yenana’s 2002 composition Tembisa (The People). Vusi’s captivating, improvised dance moves simultaneously flow with and against the music. Music here stands for Time (past, present, future) whilst the reference to the maroons* helps us think about escape, or fugitivity as a way of performing possibility in the context of ongoing oppression faced by people in the ‘global south’. *A Maroon is a member or descendent of formerly enslaved Africans who ran away from captivity to form communities in the mountains and forests. Participants Liz Johnson Artur, Madiha Sikander, Zara Julius Curators Gabi Ngcobo, Rosa de Graaf Series PICKUP NOTES <div class="