I first step into the space on a day when there’s a market outside the gallery
There are stalls that sell food and knick knacks
It’s the night of the inauguration
People strolling by the river
come in and out of the space
Two girls pose for a TikTok video in front of the work GLORIA –
a mouth of a Black figure
surrounded by hardcover books
being fed by german sausages and meats
The mouth of the artist
The mouth without a face
The mouth wide open
Who is the hungry one?
The mouth being fed or the feeder?
***
The second time I come around
it’s early morning
before the town awakes
I stay on the other side of the water
that shimmers in a golden light
The wind washes over the old linden trees
that stand tall by the river Aura
(Aura, the energy field around us,what we
cannot see. In Finnish it also means vein or a seam)
***
A glimpse of gold across the river
lures me into the space
‘The Archive / a work-in-progress”
filling the front room with golden rescue blankets
covering pedestals and walls
Maps of constellations hold within them secret codes
exposing looted cultural objects from the West African collection
stored in cellars of the Ethnologishes Museum in Berlin
concealed in spaces that are perfectly monitored
sprayed with chemicals against insects and decay
(un)touchable
not transportable
toxic
The gold is seductive, conspicuous, blinding
Gold is resistant
Not easily tarnished
So are the constellations of the night
Why would the stars not see us?
Have we become so arrogant to think that we are the only ones who can see?
Have we lost our imagination?
***
Fugitive objects of divinity
fold up in the air as augumented reality
in orbital view
This is a master trick
The work of a trickster
The trickster as the one who disrupts and imposes
The trickster as the magician
one hand pointing to the sky
the other one pointing to the ground
of what might yet to become
The trickster as a transient being
that speaks of
urgency
queerness
and
hope
that guides us to face the monster
The trickster as the artist
that subverts and questions
their method carnivalesque
unruly
committed
***
I circle around the empty pedestals
with a telephone in my hand
scanning the night skies
I need an extension, a guide to see what is there
The mobile phone becomes the transporter
The space fills with hungry digital ghosts
their bodies suspended in the air
appearing and disappearing into
no
thing
Nkisi Power, a human sized figure from Kongo
is brought into light by a cluster of stars belonging to the Canis Major
(home to the brightest of the them all – Sirius)
Nkisi Power stands at the end of the room
a figure of healing
a sacred object
carved under the divine authority
in consultation with spirits
slippery, ephemeral forcing us to see
what’s not there
Nkisi Power
the only one
that doesn’t allow us
to move around it
It’s back facing the wall
protected,
protecting
a more-than-human
a curadora
filled with oils
pierced with nails
a ritual vessel
a house of spirits
it’s shimmering presence
speaks back about
the haunting
the evidence
the knowledge
of what is not visible
but is there
Lotta Petronella kirjoitti tekstin vierailtuaan LÄSNÄ / häikäisevä näkymättömyys -näyttelyssä. Lue lisää näyttelystä.
Teksti on osa vuoden 2023 TITANIK-julkaisua. Kokeelliset kirjoittajat vierailevat näyttelyissä ja tuottavat tämän jälkeen niiden kanssa resonoivan tekstin. Aiempia tekstejä on luettavissa täällä.
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Lotta Petronella wrote the text after visiting the exhibition LÄSNÄ / radiant invisibility. Read more about the exhibition.
This text is a part of this year’s TITANIK publication. Authors working with various forms of experimental writing are invited to produce a text responding to each exhibition. You can read the earlier contributions here.
