Parthenogenesis-a Maze of Silence within a Roar

 

PARTHENOGENESIS: A Maze Of Silence Within A Roar -
An Epic Spatial Work by A k u z u r u
Including Performances , Installations, Sculptures , Drawings and an Experimental Film 2024

-Statement from the Central Bank Museum Trinidad & Tobago

Art has the power to shift our perspectives and help us to see the world differently. We are honoured to open our gallery to artists like A k u z u r u whose work expands the minds and hearts of all who visit.

This exhibition has been 4 years in the making and the Central Bank Museum is pleased to be able to host this important show by one of Trinidad and Tobago’s foremost performance/installation artists. The premise of the exhibition revolves around the concept of parthenogenesis – this is a term that is associated with the remarkable biological phenomemon where an organism, typically female, can reproduce without the need for fertilization by a male. This process occurs in various species across the animal kingdom.

For the artist this phenomenon represents the idea of female centrality and status and the concept of the power of feminine energy in the development and transformation of life in all of its forms. A k u z u r u uses the concept in conjunction with the extraordinary story of Bolo, an enslaved African woman in the 18th Century who was a “whale watcher” stationed in Chaguaramas, West Trinidad to weave together a performance and exhibition that is as complex and epic as it is meditative and ephemeral. To witness these monumental works of art within the corporate space of the Central Bank is to be transported to another world, where the concepts of time and place become irrelevant. The artwork leads viewers through a maze of subtle colour, unusually juxtaposed materials and palpable emotion. One cannot help but be left in awe at the magic that is Parthenogenesis.

As we journey on in this the 20th Anniversary year of the Museum and the 60th Anniversary year of the Central Bank, we hope that this exhibition programme continues to inspire the public, transform our thinking about art and the world around us and support artists like A k u z u r u to continue their important art practices that serve as the societal inquiries and interrogations that we did not know we needed.


 



T R AN C EmuTATION SongMine
A monumental performance by  A k u z u r u


Metropolis M Review 

The artist as a shaman - Echoes of Shamanism
24.09.2018 | REVIEW - Nadeche Remst
https://www.metropolism.com/nl/reviews/36284_echoes_of_shamanism_zone2source



Performance event  curated by Nina Boas and Ieke Trinks ( organized by PAE Performance Art Event )

Is there a better way to understand shamanism than to experience it? In the weekend event Echoes of Shamanism organized by PAE (Performance Art Event) at Zone2Source, artists and thinkers bend about ideas about shamanism in contemporary art practice by having everyone experience it.

Dimple B. Shah from India asks the audience to stand outside in a circle, hand in hand, to feel the other's pulses with our eyes closed. She starts by squeezing the person next to her, after which the intention is that the gesture goes around the entire circle and returns to Shah herself. In the end no one comes back to her. She closes by giving a wipe of turmeric to everyone's right hand. Nobody understands exactly what this is for, but her credibility ensures that it is accepted accepting as something meaningful.

In the exhibition space Irina Birger shows her video work The Book of Happiness and Sadnesssee. In the video she leafs through her sketchbook, while she talks about her experience during an Ayahuasca ceremony, a centuries-old ritual in the Amazon, that serves as a medicine for body and soul. In a monologue Birger talks about this psychedelic experience, in which different themes seem to come back, such as relationships with others, but also themselves. In brightly colored drawings geometric structures can be seen that raise questions about femininity and emancipation, while she tells how men and women separated from each other in a ceremony. And you always hear her ask her questions about the inevitable dependence of the sexes: "It is necessary to realize that the mission is still needed," says the voice-over.

What the artists share is the belief in the possibility of human transformation

Birger's work is about the relationship between the individual and the collective, about belonging to a group such as during the Ayahuasca ceremony, which ultimately falls apart after experiencing the spiritual journey. There is social criticism in it. In recent years, undergoing such a ceremony has increased in popularity. The search for your inner self by immersing yourself in rituals and traditions of indigenous cultures is a beloved activity, after which everyone returns to the individualist, capitalist society. Such social criticism can also be seen in the work of Jasper Griepink, with his project Ultra Ecosexual Polyamory. Permaculture ASAP(2017) gives a utopian answer to the interaction between man and nature. In the accompanying spoken word manifesto he encourages man to deter the established order (the degenerative system of capitalism) by making love with nature. He wants to restore the relationship between man and nature and also develop a regenerative system that enables nature to be able to restore itself. At a time when it appears that human action is destructive for the earth, this seems more than necessary.

On Friday, when the emphasis is on contextualizing shamanism in performance art, with a closing lecture by philosopher Fons Elders, the most important element seems to be missing: the experience of the performances. The Saturday afternoon is planned for this, with sometimes simultaneous performances by Irina Birger, Jasper Griepink, Kleoni Manoussakis, Dimple B Shah and Akuzuru Tala. As a visitor you become whether you want to or not on the path to transformation and emotional purification. In the Glass House of Zone2Source also installations by Jasper Griepink, Dimple B. Shah and A k u z u r u  can be seen, which are (or will be) part of the performances. Irina Birger's office setting also looks like an installation, where a screen shows the continuous animation Ouroboros or What's Eating You(2016) shows - which Birger developed during her residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin for the series TOTALITARIAN (2017). Ouroboros is the Greek word for tail-eater: a snake that eats its own tail, creating an infinite circle, an age-old mythical symbol for infinity, as a metaphor for the human condition.

Irina Birger invites the visitors to take a seat in front of her. She talks to you for ten to fifteen minutes, where she almost acts as a therapist, asking about your personal frustrations. In the meantime Birger intuitively draws with chalk on a black A4 sheet, which later on the glass wall allows a series to be formed - as a representation of the diversity of individuals.

A completely white appearance appears between the green branches of a pine. Jasper Griepink moves gracefully through the man made city park. He plays with the branches and rubs them against his body in a sexual manner. I hear a child respond: "And I also hear a nice song!" This is in contrast to the strange looks he gets from people who happen to be walking through the park.
In the accompanying spoken word manifesto, Griepink urges people to deter the established order (the degenerative system of capitalism) by making love with nature.

Dimple B. Shah created in the dark exhibition space of the Glass House a performance called Negotiating Purity - Albedo (Encoutering Catharsis) , with rituals from Jainism . I end up in an area stunned by incense, where Shah has installed her tent wrapped in white cloth. Visitors are given the opportunity to experience a ritualistic process by sitting in the tent opposite her. The emphasis here is on the involvement of all five senses. She concludes with the request to make a figure from the side-by-side heaps of rice, as a step towards catharsis .

The highlight is how  A k u z u r u, allows the visitor to experience a process of transformation. The artist from Trinidad and Tobago does not leave her inspiration of the Carnivals unnoticed. With the suit she wears and the sculptural white mask she becomes part of the installation in which she moves, makes charcoal figures, hits glass vials, sticks with sticks against sticks, while making experimental noises. Eventually she cuts loose from her installation and then keeps a procession out.

Echoes of Shamanism exudes a certain optimism, something that is not unimportant at the time of ubiquitous gloom about the developments in the Anthropocene. Not everyone seems to be ready to make love with nature, but in a kind of trance they leave the Amstelpark.

Echoes of Shamanism , organized by PAE (Performance Art Event), Zone2Source, 14 - 16 September 2018, with Irina Birger, Jasper Griepink, Kleoni Manoussakis, Dimple B Shah, A k u z u r u and Fons Elders.

Nadeche Remst
Metropolis M 2018

IS WAS AM ARE WERE

...........an impossible pronouncement that chronicles the ways of this existence
BE THAT AS IT MAY KEEP ON THE LIGHT ROAD AND MAKE NO MORE OF IT
than it should.......be aware of the centredness of the sacred inner the most
         powerful the most powerful the most powerful the most powerful
             a new reckoning of what it means to BE BE BE BE BE BE BE BE ..........................................



© A k u z u r u 2019



TRANCE-MUTATION SongMine  -Amsterdam 2018
' Echoes of Shamanism '  performance Exhibition
      curated by PAE- Amsterdam NL 2018 




Foto MADS 2018




Foto Konstantin Guz 2018


White Shadows in S P A C E congreGATE .
   She is Coming . . . . . . . . . . .
Foto A k u z u r u 2018





TranceMuTation. SongMINE- Holland 2018 A k u z u r u
Foto Konstantin Guz




TRANCEmuTation SongMine 2018 A k u z u r u
foto Konstantin Guz

B R E A - T H Tone- S


D S
SSSSSS MMMMMAAAMA,    OK,MMMS.  FKEEKEKEMSMDNDNDNCNCKCK. DMDDMDM C,C
C D FNVM JIFIFDMDMD


Do I I I I I I I I I is s s s s sssonnnceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee


D  I S. S O N    A N C E
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IS   HARMONY





© A k u z u r u 2019



XXULTULAVE >>Winds Of WANDerment


 XXULTULAVE   - Munich Germany   © A k u z u r u 2017   
- Beyond Ritual 2017





                                              
XXULTULAVE- Light Circle in Stillness Silence and Solace -performance at the Villa Waldberta 2017
Foto Marina Martini Misterioso 2017




Foto © A k u z u r u 2017



XXULTULAVE- Wands afloat amidst the snows at Lake Strasbourg, München Germany 2017


Foto © A k u z u r u 2017


 XXULTULAVE  - To Be Empty - performance at the Museum Buchheim, München Germany
© A k u z u r u 2017



                   Foto Marina Martini Misterioso 2017



Foto A k u z u r u 2017




© A k u z u r u 2017


XXULTULAVE: The Studio at the Kulturhaus Villa Waldberta

Foto A k u z u r u 2017


XXULTULAVE- Bending Stone into Air - performance at Forests of Multhal Germany 2017


Foto Marina Martini Misterioso 2017







WANDing moments in S P A C E : OPUS CHRYSALIS

Opus Chrysalis- The Knowing Part 2: INNER SANCTUM 2016 
Foto courtesy Bone Festival 2016 


           Opus Chrysalis
Bone Festival for Performance Art Switzerland 2016
                © A k u z u r u 2016


Opus Chrysalis - The Blacksmith:Digging Klein Scheidegg to find Afrika so as to bury my Essence in her Womb 2016
Foto Elisa Pereira  c 2016




Foto A k u z u r u  c 2016


Foto A k u z u r u 2016


Opus Chrysalis: Skins in Dust >>> It is Better to be a Douen
Foto Elisa Pereira 2016

A k u-KonceptZ

                   

                             


Steps to Nowhere SOMEWHERE

 Steps to Nowhere SOMEWHERE.  © A k u z u r u 2016




 ,
Dust to Dust. - A k u z u r u 2016