Janina, Maria deliver Shapes of Shelter
Collab between Namibian and German artists
Shapes of Shelter, opening at The Project Room next Wednesday (29 November) deals with safe spaces and has its origins in the feminist and queer movements of the 1960s in the USA and refers to a place where people who feel excluded in the prevailing society can find safety.To this day, it refers to underground clubs, hide- and hangouts or entire neighbourhoods that transform themselves at night and offer the queer "family" a place of community.
Nowadays, safe spaces are also used in the context of identity politics. In many countries, they offer a haven for BIPoC and protagonists of the anti-racist movement.
The multi-media artists Maria Mbereshu and Janina Totzauer - from Namibia and Germany respectively – are busy creating their very own "Safe Space" in The Project Room. The bidirectional discussion about their common colonial past and their two situations as women from different global hemispheres flow directly into the textile patterns created on-site.
Symbolic protection rituals and talismans are transferred into textiles and assembled into a huge carpet. The walls are adorned with Totzauer's "Isles of Exile", small multifunctional tents that may serve the viewer as secret places of escapism. In between, Mbereshu's abstract textile patterns are positioned, directly referring to her experiences as a woman and thus paying tribute to being a woman in all its beauty.
On the evening of 6 December, there will be an opportunity to listen to three speakers in their fields at the Intimate Carpet. Hermien Elago, Adriano Visagie and Natache Iilonga will summarise their current heart projects in short 20-minute slots.
All three are pioneers in the LGBTQIA+ movement and advocates of equal rights for all. There will be time for questions, drinks and snacks during the non-hierarchical gathering on the carpet.
The artists met in June last year at the joint online residency of the .lab collective on the theme of post-colonial exchange. Since then, they realised several collaborative textile artworks and exhibited them in the exhibition "To the land" in Munich and at Moos Space in Berlin. In 2022, Totzauer visited Mbereshu in Windhoek and they came up with the idea of a joint residency and exhibition at The Project Room.
Safe Space can be viewed until 6 December, when it comes to an end with the Intimate Carpet event at 18:00.