TBA21–Academy offers two new commissions by South African-born Dineo Seshee Bopape and Portuguese-born Diana Policarpo for the 2022 exhibition method in Venice. TBA21–Academy’s software at Ocean Room proposes a processual reading through of nature’s constructions and cycles in relation to art and culture to reclaim area for speculative considering about our ecological long term. In the second 12 months of the exhibition cycle The Soul Growing Ocean at Ocean House, curated by Chus Martínez, Diana Policarpo and Dineo Seshee Bopape give presence to the Ocean and the tales it retains.
The Soul Growing Ocean #3: Dineo Seshee Bopape

Ocean! What if no alter is your determined mission?
“Sometimes, performs have no tangible origin, and however their material emerges and gets to be genuine extended before they stand in front of you. Back then it was a magic afternoon, in the Solomon Islands, in which a compact team of close friends was swimming, actively playing, filming on the shore. (…) Rain started out to pour down. In an instant, the rain and the Ocean merged. With our heads underwater, we could see the drops sinking into the Ocean and the Ocean reaching out to the skies. The salty h2o physique muffled the songs evoked by the raindrops falling. We could barely continue to keep our eyes open up: drops, salt, tears, joy… This could have been a aspiration.” —Chus Martínez
Dineo Seshee Bopape’s work begins with a journey to the Solomon Islands, and from there she moves on to plantations on the Mississippi, to Jamaica, and then again home to South Africa. Bopape’s tactic merges magical inquiry, historical curiosity, classic knowledge, a sense of/for illusions, imagination and hope in get to generate an operation on the publish-put up-colonial agency in dialogue with the Ocean (becoming).
The imaginary hand that peacefully touched the Ocean in that minute may or may well not belong to an existing system, or to the spirits that appear as abstract kinds in your digital gadgets. This newly generated work proposes a tight embrace. Legitimate, we want to investigation, issue, solution, address, sustain the needs of the Ocean. But 1st, we may start by envisioning a daily life in which the Ocean is intrinsic. Dreams, tunes, spirits, imaginaries are carried by drinking water.
The Soul Expanding Ocean #4: Diana Policarpo

Ciguatera
How do rocks know about history? How do species connect about time? For her recently commissioned get the job done at Ocean Room, Diana Policarpo is producing a multimedia set up, employing movie and audio to boost a sure feeling of existence though capturing her possess research procedure. Using her position of departure from a investigation journey to the Portuguese administered Ilhas Selvagens (Savage Islands) in the North Atlantic Ocean, Policarpo results in a scenario analyze of mapping colonial histories through monitoring pure biodiversity.
“Diana Policarpo engages in a very private analyze of a Portuguese archipelago—the Ilhas Selvagens. Tiny as they are, these islands hold a symbolic and also an ecological significance. What may appear little and distant to humans is not so for algae, birds, fishes, and rocks that discuss of the geological formation of a continent, and the currents that figure out both of those the system of the seasons and the survival of a lot of species. Diana Policarpo decided to bring the discussion with these islands to Ocean Place. As if to say: We might have interaction in a dialogue with all the territories that humans want to just take from others—human and nonhuman. A dialogue about the Western colonial approaches of addressing genesis, the origin of beings, functions, and items, as a way of getting rights over them.
The animated science of art is an arduous process that weaves jointly numerous diverse artistic languages, in get to erase the chance of an ‘opposite.’ There are no opposites in nature, no opposite intercourse, no opposite of the actual. To surpass this dualism we want new beliefs, new actions of considered able of halting further more hurt and wars to occur. We are placing an intention here for you to recognize and enjoy an immersion, one particular made to remedy the limitations of individuals in retraining our habits—to mix the abilities we have discovered in unpredictable, fertile, optimistic strategies.” —Chus Martínez

Community plan at Ocean Area all through the opening 7 days of the Venice Biennale
Wednesday, April 20, 11am: Animated Science, Inside Activism and the Ocean, a discussion concerning curator Chus Martínez and artists Dineo Seshee Bopape and Diana Policarpo.
Wednesday, April 20, 6:30pm: Wu Tsang’s MOBY DICK or, The Whale.

Jointly with Hartwig Artwork Foundation, we proudly existing the Italian premiere of Wu Tsang’s aspect-duration silent movie at Teatro Goldoni. Ticketed party with confined ability.
Saturday, April 23, 7pm: aabaakwad. a evening of poetry and efficiency.

With Timimie Märak, Janet Rogers, Mosab Al Nomairy, and Royston Kulleah artist Rana Bishara and general performance artists New Purple Get in collaboration with Krista Belle Stewart.
Tuesday, April 19–Saturday, May well 1, 9pm: Social Sacrifice by studio Drift. Aorist, a following-era cultural institution offers studio DRIFT staging their first-ever indoor aerial drone overall performance titled Social Sacrifice.
The Soul Expanding Ocean #3: Dineo Seshee Bopape is commissioned and manufactured by TBA21–Academy, partly as the result of a TBA21–Academy Residency at Alligator Head Basis, Jamaica, in 2021. The work lerato laka le a phela le a phela le a phela / my like is alive, is alive, is alive, 2022, has been co-developed with Pirelli HangarBicocca. The function Ditšheofatšo / timeless monuments, 2022 has been co-produced with Aorist. With the assist of Henraux Foundation.
The Soul Expanding Ocean #4: Diana Policarpo: Ciguatera is co-produced by TBA21–Academy and Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, in collaboration with Instituto Gulbenkian Ciência. Supported by Camões — Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua, I. P. and Embassy of Portugal in Italy.
MOBY DICK or, The Whale is created by Schauspielhaus Zurich in collaboration with Zürcher Kammerorchester (ZKO). TBA21–Academy is co-commissioning this operate with LUMA Foundation, Superblue, Hartwig Art Foundation, The Shed, DE SINGEL and The Whitney Museum of American Art.
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