The Black (W)hole (2021)
During Museum Night Amsterdam on Saturday, November 6, 2021, the Tropenmuseum showcased "The Black (W)hole," a collage of film, music and performance that serves as the climactic conclusion to Radical Space, an interdisciplinary artistic journey that I curated. This event is the culmination of what was created at SHEBANG, an innovative creative platform that began this summer with me as guest-curator and program coordinator. Under the working title ‘Radical Space,’ I invited a diverse group of (inter)national and local artists explored and critiqued the gentrification process in Southeast Amsterdam.
On the second floor of the Tropenmuseum, science fiction, spirituality, and activism converge in the art project "The Black (W)hole." The Radical Space collective helps you escape the rat race of status, politics, and capitalism. Through films and performances, they reveal that the all-consuming black hole can also be a space for reflection, healing, and breaking away from current realities.
Participating artists
The name The Black (W)hole was given to this manifestation by the participating artist Rohan Ayinde, who has spent years researching black holes and other cosmic phenomena as metaphors for Black life.
Radical Space is composed of artists such as Poernima Gobardhan and Djuwa Mroivili, Poetronic (Smita James and Chris Chi), Adama Delphine Fawundu, and Rohan Ayinde. Curated by Richard Kofi, this project is commissioned by the nomadic development platform SHEBANG in Amsterdam Southeast, a project by the Bijlmer Parktheater, CBK Zuidoost and Imagine IC.
This project embodies my mission to intertwine art, heritage, and the histories with a vision of liberation.
Radical Space in theory
The name Radical Space is inspired by two books: Radical Space: Building the House of the People by Margaret Kohn and Radical Spaces by Christina Parolin. Kohn examines places where the working class mobilizes and defines the meaning of space, often against the original intentions of those in power. The working class repeatedly finds creative ways to reshape space as a playful form of systemic critique and resistance against control by the ruling class, the establishment, and the state.
Parolin focuses on the rise of popular radicalism in London from 1790 to 1845, where the most innovative social ideas were exchanged in prisons, cafés, and theaters. In her book, she even presents historical documents of secret services trying to suppress the ‘radical ideas of the plebs’ by censoring radical spaces. And of course, that never works out in their favour. How can our Radical Space remain a censorship-free safe haven?
This literature is one of many sources of inspirations for the activities I want to develop as a commentary on the development of Amsterdam Southeast and the role of the arts. Radical Space strives for art that questions, dissects, and decodes this complex legacy in the search for a more just and liberated future.
* SHEBANG is een initiatief van het Bijlmer Parktheater, CBK Zuidoost en Imagine IC.
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