Leonie Kellein: A Wing Beat! A Wing Beat! (2022)

What happens when we see an animal's point of view through a camera technology? Where are the transitions between object and subject, material and action? Leonie Kellein’s multimedia installation A Wing Beat! A Wing Beat! creates an echo chamber between a view from the camera, an animal and the objects installed in the space. A video shows recordings of a camera that is transported by a pigeon – and thus functions like a drone. While the video shows recordings of the Hohenlockstedt area, the installation deals with the body of the pigeon itself. In this space, the never quite tangible perspective of an in-between world emerges, which is neither technical nor human nor animal. By exhibiting their resonances, the elements arranged in the space question the idea of technologies and precautions that serve humans; message transmitter, carrier material and shell become independent actors that correspond with each other. A Wing Beat! A Wing Beat! not only adopts a particular perspective, but opens up a broad section of points of views – where each becomes the site of its own medial conditions.

Leonie Kellein (*1993) is an artist working in film, video, and sculpture. The artist’s research-driven practice tests the permeability of matter and materiality, building complex narratives of trauma, embodied knowledge and historical continuities. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Hamburg and Goldsmiths University of London. Her work has been shown at Weltkunstzimmer Düsseldorf; Münzenberg Forum, Berlin; International Film Festival Visions du Réel, Nyon; APT Gallery, London and FID International Filmfestival, Marseille; amongst others. Leonie Kellein lives and works in London and Hamburg.

Dina El Kaisy Friemuth: Sheut – The Other You. No History at All Chapter 2 (2022)

How does history become visible? And what story does this act of becoming visible itself tell? Dina El Kaisy Friemuth's work Sheut – The Other You. No History at All Chapter 2 questions how community and belonging are negotiated through the sharing of stories – and from which point these narratives start. For this, Dina El Kaisy Friemuth places a large carpet in the room, contrasting the white walls with a possibly domestic atmosphere. The work introduces sheut, the ancient Egyptian concept of soul, and about how this invisible idea of inwardness emerges through moments of sharing. At the same time, semi-transparent, bright red photo comics cover the windows, transforming the exterior of the institution into a surface for further stories. What happens to sheut when objects like ancient busts and statues are no longer silent but articulate their colonial past? The serial work Sheut – The Other You. No History at All Chapter 2 creates a space for moments of togetherness that seem to have no material basis or consequence. They do however become politically and historically effective, by opening up decolonial and critical narratives through personal references.

Dina El Kaisy Friemuth’s practice questions gender, ethnicity and class and aims to create environments that put marginalised voices centre stage. Their activist practice often emerges in collaboration with other cultural practitioners and includes curatorial projects, texts, performances and video works. El Kaisy Friemuth (*1988) lives and works in Berlin and is co-founder of the collective Feminist Collective With No Name with Anita Beikpour. They graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 2016 and studied at the Berlin University of the Arts. Their recent exhibitions include No History At All, solo O-Overgaden, Copenhagen; the 11th Berlin Biennale; Ariel, Copenhagen; 1-1, Basel; Bergen Konsthall and 55-11 Gallery, New York. El Kaisy Friemuth has initiated and been a member of several artist groups and networks such as The Cultural Workers Union for People of Colour (Denmark), Another Dinner Ruined (Beirut) and Speculative Bitches (Berlin).