Dina El Kaisy Friemuth & Leonie Kellein: INHABITATIONS

Curator: Agnieszka Roguski

INHABITATIONS presents works by Dina El Kaisy Friemuth and Leonie Kellein, the winners of the Arthur Boskamp-Stiftung Advancement Awards 2021/2022. They deal with relationships and contradictions that make new ideas of body and community in:visible. Their works subvert accepted ideas of space and gaze by occupying those spaces themselves. Against this background, INHABITATIONS not only presents two artistic practices, but relates them to each other as forms of seeing and narrating; and asks about potential complicity with powerful perspectives, but also about the potential for resistance.

Leonie Kellein: A Wing Beat! A Wing Beat! (2022)
What happens when we see an animal’s point of view through a camera technology? Leonie Kellein’s multimedia installation A Wing Beat! A Wing Beat creates an echo chamber between a view from the camera, an animal and the objects installed in the space. A video shows recordings of a camera that is transported by a pigeon—and thus functions like a drone. The installation deals with the never quite tangible perspective of an in-between world, which is neither technical nor human nor animal.  A Wing Beat! A Wing Beat! not only adopts a particular perspective, but opens up a broad section of points of views—where each becomes the site of its own medial conditions.

Leonie Kellein (*1993) is an artist working in film, video, and sculpture. The artist’s research-driven practice tests the permeability of matter and materiality, building complex narratives of trauma, embodied knowledge and historical continuities. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Hamburg and Goldsmiths University of London. Her work has been shown at Weltkunstzimmer Düsseldorf; Münzenberg Forum, Berlin; International Film Festival Visions du Réel, Nyon; APT Gallery, London and FID International Filmfestival, Marseille; amongst others. Leonie Kellein lives and works in London and Hamburg.

Dina El Kaisy Friemuth: Sheut – The Other You. No History at All Chapter 2 (2022)
Sheut – The Other You. No History at All Chapter 2 questions how community and belonging are negotiated through the sharing of stories—and from which point these narratives start. For this, El Kaisy Friemuth places a large carpet in the room, contrasting the white walls with a possibly domestic atmosphere. The work introduces sheut, the ancient Egyptian concept of soul, and how this invisible idea of inwardness emerges through moments of sharing. At the same time, photo comics cover the windows, transforming the exterior of the institution into a surface for further stories. The serial work creates a space for moments of togetherness that seem to have no material basis or consequence. They do however become politically and historically effective by opening up decolonial and critical narratives through personal references.

Dina El Kaisy Friemuth’s practice questions gender, ethnicity and class and aims to create environments that put marginalised voices centre stage. El Kaisy Friemuth (*1988) lives and works in Berlin and is co-founder of the collective Feminist Collective With No Name with Anita Beikpour. They graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in 2016 and studied at the Berlin University of the Arts. Their recent exhibitions include No History At All, solo O-Overgaden, Copenhagen; the 11th Berlin Biennale; Ariel, Copenhagen; 1-1, Basel; Bergen Konsthall and 55-11 Gallery, New York. El Kaisy Friemuth has initiated and been a member of several artist groups and networks such as The Cultural Workers Union for People of Colour (Denmark), Another Dinner Ruined (Beirut) and Speculative Bitches (Berlin).

INHABITATIONS is the third part of the IN:VISIBILITIES programme series by Agnieszka Roguski (Artistic Director 2021/22).

The exhibition is accompanied by further events and workshops. INHABITATIONS is funded by the Förderstiftung des Kreises Steinburg and the programme Neustart Kultur der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (BKM).