Cuerpos de Agua

Cuerpos de Agua sees water as a fluid body which connects ways of life, economies, and crises. Installations, paintings, films, and videos examine the materiality of water and expand our understanding of a world where everything is connected to everything else.

In their installation THE ESG SHOW, Sonja Hornung and Daniele Tognozzi develop a counterstatement to green capitalism. The term ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) which was invented almost two decades ago by a United Nations work group to persuade the Global North’s financial world that climate justice can be profitable, has since been widely misused as greenwashing. THE ESG SHOW focuses on spaces, materials, economies, and activities that are either purposely excluded from productivity indicators or refuse to be relevant to them.

Turner Prize nominee Rory Pilgrim’s film The Undercurrent examines the climate crisis on a personal level. Ten young climate activists from the city of Boise in Idaho talk about the impact of climate change on family, religion, friendship, and gender inequality. Homeless people from the region also talk about how climate change touches on issues of safety, shelter, and communication.

Two artworks deal with the Atrato River in the Colombian province of Chocó. A landmark ruling by Colombia’s Constitutional Court (2016) which recognized the area around the Atrato River as a legal entity has since been lawfully implemented to care for these waters and address the severe damage and pollution caused by illegal gold mining. The documentary film Who Runs the Atrato River? by Carlos Gómez examines how much room for manoeuvre the ruling gives to the communities bordering the river.

Using photographs and sounds to portray fragments of the Atrato River Basin’s extractive waterscape, the installation Leakages by the collective ~pes (Elizabeth Gallón Droste & Pablo Torres) seeks to unfold a space of affective and sensory immersion in the Río Atrato River Basin. Leakages invites us to trace the stories that characterize the course of the river, helping us to imagine the future of such ever-changing ecosystems. At the same time, the installation enters into a dialogue with Hellersdorf’s local waterscape, becoming a flow of communication between the Atrato and Hellersdorf.

Kathrin Dröppelmann and Ada Kopaz examine a different river. Their video work M.I.A.U. (Militiancia Intervencionista Artística Urbana) looks from an ecofeminist perspective at the River Riachuelo in Buenos Aires and the destruction of its human and non-human ecosystems through pollution and resource extraction.

Juan Camilo Alfonso’s documentary installation Rios de Solidaridad narrates the process of creating a flag that was sewn and painted by Colombian migrants and used in performative actions on rivers in Germany and Colombia. The work seeks to draw attention to the disappearance of demonstrators during the nationwide strikes in Colombia in 2021, whose bodies were later found in the country’s rivers.

For his Turbulence series, Emilio Chapela transfers the movement of flowing water onto canvas: splashes, swirls, currents, eddies, waterfalls and waves. The repetitive, yet in their density and size differing brushstrokes illustrate the spontaneous order of seemingly turbulent water and human attempts to contain it.

Caroline Breidenbach’s interactive web documentary Wasserstories: our future-their reality deals with the question “who owns the water?”. Three multimedia stories transfer true events from Bolivia, South Africa and Portugal to German locations in a fictitious near future.

The CRA l Centro Rural de Arte makes the rippling of Argentina’s Río Salado River in Hellersdorf tangible. The sound installation Forms of Time III invites visitors to sharpen their hearing sense for the river and creates a subtle connection between human and hydrological bodies.

With her work LA MIRADA ES UN SALUDO A LA COSTA LEJANA, Nadja Henß creates a poetic exchange between Germany and Chile about the sea. In doing so, she reflects on diversity and on perspectives on the respective coastlines.

In her work be water, Margarete Kiss explores strategies of digital self-defense, using the protests in Hong Kong in 2014, 2019 and 2020 as examples. The work cites autobiographical experiences, film scenes and fragments of activists’ memories. It creates an immersive space between music video and tutorial.

Program:

Saturday, 17 June 2023, 5pm
Exhibition opening with a sound performance by ~pes (Elizabeth Gallón Droste & Pablo Torres) and artist/DJ Amuleto Manuela

Thursday, 29 June 2023, 4pm
Guided tour with the curatorial team (in German)

Saturday, 15 July 2023, 4pm
Guided tour with the curatorial team (in English)

Saturday, 29 July 2023, 4pm
Guided tour with the curatorial team (in Spanish)

Saturday, 12 August 2023, 6pm
Sonja Hornung and Daniele Tognozzi: Counterrepresentations of green finance. Artists’ talk with guests
Sound performance by ~pes (Elizabeth Gallón Droste & Pablo Torres)

Saturday, 26 August 2023, 6pm
Finissage with a sound performance by ~pes (Elizabeth Gallón Droste & Pablo Torres)