Shapeshifters – Digital

English:

Shapeshifters: On Wounds, Wonders and Transformation brings together works by al-yené, Antonio Jose Guzman & Iva Jankovic, Georges Senga, Kader Attia, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, Leah Zhang, Pei-Hsuan Wang, Sammy Baloji & Cécile Fromont, Mirelle van Tulder and Anna Safiatou Touré. Together, their practices examine how colonialism has shaped the ways museums, archives and other institutions of knowledge are perceived and understood, revealing the (im)material scars imposed by systemic violence.

This exhibition invites visitors to refigure one’s own relationship to these power structures by stepping into relations built on curiosity and empathy. The exhibition title draws from science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, for whom ‘shapeshifting’ refers not only to the ability to transform at will but to a survival strategy, an imaginative technology and a means of resisting domination. In the same vein, the artists in Shapeshifters use their work as a device to unsettle fixed narratives, confront entrenched systems of power and open space for alternative ways of knowing, relating and being in the world.

The catalogue features an introduction by Framer Framed director Josien Pieterse and researcher Emily Shin-Jie Lee, a special essay by decolonial scholar Rolando Vasquez, and information about exhibition design by Bureau LADA.