Sparks from the Pluriverse #2: Firing up Alternatives
Sparks from the Pluriverse is a quarterly update that celebrates the ever growing pluriversal network and its dynamics. Building from the Nieuwe Instituut's In Search of the Pluriverse podcast series and exhibition, curators Erik Wong and Sophie Krier keep their ear to the ground and report in videos, stories, sounds, letters and other 'signs' from the pluriverse.
21 July 2024
Words by Sophie Krier & Erik Wong
For this summer edition we assembled a compact collection of stories, notes and one longer conversation to ignite your inner activist.
In the podcast series and exhibition In In Search of the Pluriverse (2020-2022) we brought together many practices, topics and locations: concrete manifestations of living pluriversally by embracing otherness, making kin, daring to say no, or letting go. This year, we revisit, reflect, tie new knots. How is everyone in the network doing? What is going on at the different ends of the pluriverse? There are many ways of knowing. We attempt to surface some of these ways, curious and unknowing as we are.
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JJ: hey sophie - so nice to hear your voice - re the sea video - "everything belongs to everyone and nothing for ourselves" - all art is to be shared, like life, like love, like the wind !!! The story is that i filmed it with my phone and the sound is just because its in slow motion !!! i’d be honored you use it !!! - Text message, January 2024
#1: The art of dealing with messines, with Jay Jordan (JJ) and Tomás Espinosa
A love & rage talk (50 min) on how to deal with violence, in ‘a world with not enough mud’. About walking the thin line between real violence, dignified rage and civil disobedience. About all violence starting with binary thinking and all rights starting with riots. About the fear of violence and the privilege of being non-violent. In the end activists are humans in pursuit of happiness. How do JJ and Espinosa provoke change and keep life light?
You can either jump right into the podcast below or read about the build up towards this talk and the references that surfaced during the conversation in this pdf. The idea was to edit the talk down to a compact 20 minutes, but — you know us — we decided to go for the full conversation. We hope you are willing to surrender to this rather intense encounter in which Sophie and Erik struggle with their positions in terms of ‘direct action’ and JJ and Tomás gracefully analyse where that ‘struggle to stride’ comes from. A conversation as masterclass.
Prevent them: Invitation to an impediment spell against Jordan Bardella.
#2: To fan the flames of discontent
A few weeks ago I (Erik) was triggered by this cute pink audio-cassette, published by Liza Prins and Marie Ilse Bourlanges as part of their (much) bigger project Songs of Flax. I wasn’t intrigued just by the pink. The duo dove into the history of agricultural/textile work songs. Songs that embody the same tension as Jay Jordan’s signature ‘love and rage’. These songs – sung by women workers – contain bawdy/raunchy texts about men and sex, and function at the same time as a let-out for discontent, injustice. How fitting for our heated summer sparks! Apart from historical audio research, Prins and Bourlanges organised workshops to create music that can accompany the harsh and complex process of turning flax into linnen. In September an opera-esq music piece will be performed as an outcome of this process. More information can be found here.
Oh… and during the studio visit we talked about Karl Marx, the plot of (flax)land Bourlanges and Prins cultivate, song as a way to unite and resist, free Palestine, clogg dance and circular storytelling. I say it again: check out these two powerhouses, who are new to the pluriversal network.
#3: Violence as an emptying force
Because we knew we wanted to dedicated this Spark to violence and how to counter it, I (Sophie) had to think of Ola Hassanain. Ola works with and through violence in artistic installations and films. In the main talk of this newsletter, "The art of dealing with messiness", JJ mentions that art tends to be co-opted by capital and plays a big role in distancing because it pretends to be neutral. It made JJ desert the UK “where artists contribute to gentrification” and academia. Ola, on the other hand, chooses for the art space and for academic writing to investigate what she calls ‘the emptying of space’ as a result of systemic violence. And she manages to carve out spaces (of thought, of reflection) where this violence is denounced: the teaser of this newsletter opened with a video still from a film Ola made with Sudanese filmmaker Ahmed Mahmoud about the 2019 student uprisings in Khartoum. These bottom-up attempts at reclaiming the city were harshly repressed by the state.
How does she achieve this? Sophie asked Erik to go see Ola’s current show at Buro Stedelijk in Amsterdam, and share his impressions. In her recent work WHISPERS (TELL THE WATERS WHAT THE CLAY KEPT SECRET II), Ola tackles the spatial dimension of catastrophe by sharing the story of her grandmother’s house that was severely damaged by the construction of a dam — another ‘emptying’ gesture.
More Ola via the digital archive of our 2022 exhibition at Nieuwe Instituut, under Ola Hassanain / Charette.
#4: Weaving a Pluriversity or, how to re-root our thinking
Early June, Sophie attended a Weaving Pluriversity gathering hosted by Framer Framed. A heart-to-heart conversation between Colombian spiritual leader Mamo Arwawiku – whom Sophie refers to in the opening talk of this Spark –, his grandson Dwanimako Arroyo Izquierdo and the Pluriversity Weavers (a.o. Aldo Ramos, Natalia Giraldo Jaramillo, Li Yuchen, Ana Bravo Pérez, Aliki van der Kruijs, Rolando Vázquez Melken). Central to the collective’s search is how to heal the broken relation between humans, communality and living territory. Can life-affirming practices undo colonial structures?
#5: I pity the country: music, lyrics, urgency
Back in 2022, when curating the pluriverse exhibition, Erik and Sophie held on to a quote by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson like one holds on to a life jacket: “(…) How we live, how we organise, how we engage in the world — the process — not only frames the outcome, it is the transformation. The how molds and then gives birth to the present. The how changes us.” Leanne is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer and artist. She also makes music. Last spring she came to Amsterdam. Sophie attended a round table on indigenous artists in Europe and the intimate presentation of her latest album Theory of Ice at Tolhuistuin. Sophie: “I fell in love with it: the music, the lyrics, the urgency of it all.”
This music video features Leanne joining Willie Dunn who wrote and performed ‘I pity this country’ in 1968. The song was accompanied by a film of edited archival footage of indigenous resistance compiled by Lisa Jackson. The film had incredible impact and is seen as ‘Canada's first music video.’ The video tells the story of stolen land and colonial betrayals faced by Indigenous communities in North America. (…) Dunn had a clear critique for all Canadians: ‘I pity the country, I pity the state, and the mind of a man, who thrives on hate.’” Why did Simpson end up ‘covering’ the song? “I'm an Anishinaabe woman performing a Mi'gmaq man's song from over 50 years ago. I had to believe every word in order to step up to the mic and sing it.” [Source: cbc.ca]
Read more about Leanne here.
#6: Meanwhile in Eindhoven
Remember the first spark talk with Mouna Belgrini and Mhairi Killin? Last May, Sophie guided an experimental session with Killin from Iona at Baltan Laboratories in Eindhoven, as part of the Raise Your Voice mentorship programme, a 5-month learning and coaching trajectory for Netherlands-based designers, artists and makers who focus on social, economic, political and ecological challenges in their work. Again the wind was inspiration. Find a PDF-report of the session here.
Sparks #3 preview
Curious what’s next? So are we. Here's a taster. Stay tuned, we’ll be back in fall (European fall, that is).
- Cook and textile artist Aslı Hatipoğlu recently teamed up with performer Alyssa Gersony and Bombyx Mori (domesticated silkworm) to explore modern day silk production, and how capitalist systems of production and medicine are reflected back to us in our clothes, bodies and social behaviour. A multi sensory sampling of texture, sound, dance and textile.
About Sparks from the Pluriverse
This network grew out of the project In Search of the Pluriverse and includes persons and collectives that curators Erik Wong & Sophie Krier met in person. They see the network as never-ending / ever-growing, including all makers and listeners who feel affinity with the pluriverse.
This series, Sparks from the Pluriverse, emerged from the first edition of the Travelling Academy, in which Wong and Krier went to the frayed edges of Europe in search of what the pluriverse is: a world that makes room for many different worlds. They translated their search into a series of more than 60 podcasts and an exhibition at the Nieuwe Instituut in 2022 with fringe programming and local satellite. With this new iteration, Wong and Krier work towards letting the network grow into a collective with the agency to co-define the agenda for the years to come. Find an overview of all previous editions here.
Editors: Sophie Krier & Erik Wong
Audio editing: Nina van Hartskamp
Audio post production: Rick Haring
Subscribe here if you want to be notified of new Sparks from the Pluriverse by email. Follow In Search of the Pluriverse on Instagram: @insearchofthepluriverse. If you feel the urge to respond, please do via pluriverse@nieuweinstituut.nl.