Where should we begin? – Falke Pisano Superhost summer 2022 –The Superhost space is changing

A film by Simnikiwe Buhlungu, My Dear Kite (You Can But You Can’t) – Late Yawnings, can now be viewed in the space. Recorded during the pandemic, the work attempts to make sense of the socio-cultural consequences that arise during times of confusion and uncertainty, as well as the artist’s bodily and geographic [dis]placement from Johannesburg, South Africa, having recently moved to The Netherlands. The work raises questions about what it means to be a creative practitioner, to stay productive and the (in)ability to respond artistically.

In July, the artist Karen Vantvelt – (s)he will add an intervention in response to the blue modular gate that Pisano installed between the two spaces on the 6^th floor. The collaboration stems from conversations between the two artists about the experience of working at the threshold of art (educational) institutions, in continuous negotiation with the existing institutional practices.

In July as well, the artist RA Walden will present a new language: ẍây ithřa. The project was initiated in response to the restrictive nature of the English language. Formulated over a period of months in close collaboration with the linguist Margaret Ransdell Green, ẍây ithřa consists of a 300+ word lexicon, complete with morphosyntax, phonology, and an ever-growing set of idioms. Drawing on the rich histories of queering lexicon, from argots and cants, to anti-languages and the use of constructed language within Sci-Fi and speculative fiction, Walden seeks to bring fluidity, ease and ‘access intimacy’ to those in sick, disabled and trans bodies. The artist uses world-building, not as a visionary tool for an imagined future, but as an embodied methodology for the ‘now’. As part of a Superhost project, we present prints and workshop in the form of a podcast explaining the principles of the language ẍây ithřa.

Magazin HART has published a special contribution by Falke Pisano related to the Superhost project. You can find it in the printed version of the magazine (issue 225, June 2022).

Artists bios

Simnikiwe Buhlungu is an artist from Johannesburg, South Africa. With a keen interest in how knowledge is produced, by whom and how it is disseminated, Buhlungu locates both socio-historical and everyday phenomena by navigating these questions and their inexhaustible potential answers. Through this process, she maps points of cognisance, i.e. How do we come to know?,      which situate various layers of awareness as syncopated and reverberated ecologies. Lately, she has been listening to mbaqanga music, thinking about apiaries, and seeking contributions to Simunye Resource Works, a publishing house that is forever yet-to-exist.

(s)he

(s)he lives inside

(s)he lives

(s)he lives a life

alive

her head is gone

her words are found

(s)he becomes

(s)he extended her legs towards the walls , and her fingers into an emotional layer of a hidden body . the body is stuck . you can call her he , but (s)he has breasts , doesn’t like bread and grew up in the West . Belgium rooted , but (s)he is not rooted , could not escape , but tries to . needs some help but isn’t helpless . (s)he cares without knowing , (s)he lives without growing . (s)he is made from clay . not found at an archeological sound , but sounds like the digital world behind . ( words . )

cries ( sometimes ) hides ( sometimes ) but mostly hangs around smiling .

(s)he is . (s)he is alive . but does (s)he know where (s)he is right now ?

RA Walden’s techniques span text, sculpture, printed matter, performance and video, all of which is undertaken with a socially engaged and research-led working methodology. Walden’s works question contemporary Western society’s relationship with care, tenderness and fragility in relation to our bodies, our communities and our failing ecosystems. They explore these issues through the lenses of crip theory, queer theory, sci-fi, speculative fiction and disobedient archives. Recent work has sought to disturb overly simplistic understandings of the disabled body, looking to bring an ethic of care, a connection between the land and the body, and a cripped concept of performance into conversation with the work.