Más Arte Más Acción -MAMA- in documenta fifteen

• From June 18th to September 25th, documenta fifteen will be held under the concept of lumbung, the term for a community grain store in Indonesian, under which MAMA has been invited as part of the inter-lokal Lumbung network to collaborate during and beyond documenta fifteen.

• The participation in documenta fifteen is an opportunity to bring into dialogue artistic processes of Colombia and beyond that work at the edge of mainstream art scenes, in pursuit of mutual inspiration, sharing resources, and broadening the bonds of solidarity and collaboration.

• The programme for the 100 days in Kassel, organised in collaboration with its ecosystem, includes talks, listening walks, installations, open readings, cooking and sharing around music, among other activities.

For documenta fifteen Más Arte Más Acción (MAMA) reflects on climate change and deforestation by connecting the rainforests and their peoples in Colombia with the forests of Germany.  Many European forests have become unbalanced due to monoculture planting and climate change, resulting in an overpopulation of bark beetles (Scolytinae) that eat away at the trees, leaving behind enigmatic trails carved into the trunks. 

These winding trails evoke the relationships with the grassroots organisations, artists and cultural initiatives with which MAMA has developed an ecosystem.  In this ecosystem, different ways of life, artistic practices and relationships with the territory are entangled.  Here, indigenous, Afros and peoples of different cultures challenge the prevailing paradigm of individuality. 

Combining the Colombian and Lumbung contexts for documenta fifteen represents an exceptional gathering in which differences can generate a collective feeling and thinking—a living experience that brings together different worlds. 

The programme takes place in and around the MAMA Doc Space, including the Werner, Atelier Van Lieshout’s mobile platform that navigates uncharted territory to find new ways to live with nature and each other. Positioned between the Orangerie and the River Fulda, it will host a documentation centre and events throughout documenta fifteen. An installation of tree trunks from forests around Kassel affected by beetles, will be placed in a glasshouse at Aue Park with soundscapes that will narrate the Colombian territory. Stalls made from those trees, set out around the park, will offer visitors spaces to reflect.

The journey to documenta fifteen and after

The invitation from ruangrupa to be part of the lumbung at documenta fifteen came at a time of an inner organisational transition. MAMA’s journey to imagine its next chapter will deepen after documenta fifteen. Taking a pause from its active programme, its members will take their own space to reflect—a ‘time strike’ to allow them to question their own practice. 

MAMA will focus on how to continue the work that deals with a paradigm shift in funding practices and how to bring other interested institutions into this conversation. Also, on its role in the Pacific Coast territories and in the general Colombian context of conflict, peace process, political movements and power relations crossed by structural racism, gender violence and marginalisation. 

How to make artistic practices more sustainable and how to share resources? How to continue with the idea of coexistence? AVL and others are joining efforts to find ways to make the participation in documenta fifteen more resourceful.

100 days in Kassel

During the 100 days in Kassel, a diversity of experiences and knowledge of the broader ecosystem  weaved through MAMA’s platform will be present, in relation to other inspiring processes from its global networks, such as Arts Collaboratory. The notion of a Space to Reflect will travel to Kassel, opening spaces to consider a wide range of subjects that have enriched artistic practices in relation to its interests. 

These include climate justice and environmental rights; memory and the peace process; alternative non-capitalist ways of living in biodiverse territories; Afro-film narratives; extractivisms, among others. Installations, workshops, performances, exhibitions, open readings, talks and debates will take place during the 100 days, as a way of weaving the lumbung into the social fabric of Kassel.

The programme will be activated in three phases:

Dialogues with nature

The first stage will start in mid-June with a week-long series of discussions about the concept of a Space to Reflect. This includes a conversation with Atelier Van Lieshout about the origins of the Chocó Base and the idea to collaborate once again on the MAMA Doc Space in Kassel.  

For the New Rural Agenda, a conference organised by Interlokal Lumbung member Jatiwangi Art Factory, MAMA will include sections of tree trunks killed by bark beetles. The conference will be witnessed by members of MAMA’s ecosystem from Coquí, Chocó.

In the Aue Park, as part of Possible Dialogues, there will be a walk and a conversation involving people from seemingly remote and unrelated places.  Here we will come together to discuss different perspectives of care in relation to nature and how this plays out in diverse contexts.

For Planet Abundance, a conversation and participatory workshop, COCO collective from Colombia and artists from Feminist Exchange Network, Scotland and other countries will imagine an alternative world in which the current power elites have left planet earth.

For a week in July  MAMA will join forces with the Prince Claus Fund through their mobile academy to support Seed Fund awardees explore new perspectives and develop their practice in documenta fifteen.

Chocó’s Territories, Resistance, Memory and the Final Report of the Colombian Truth Commission

In the second period, from the end of June to mid-July, MAMA’s ecosystem will lead  guided readings, music exchanges and conversations about resistance relating to collective land rights and the importance of music and culture for the region’s Afro communities.  While cooking together there will be an exchange of experiences about the visions of wellbeing in Nuquí’s biodiverse and interethnic context.

A week of performance labs in public spaces around Kassel will reflect on the processes of truth and memory in Colombia, Germany and beyond. The Testimonial chapter of Colombia’s Truth Report will be read together with people involved in its  publication, including Alejandro Castillejo and Leyner Palacios, Truth Commissioners. In collaboration with the German-Colombian Peace Institut –CAPAZ– the second phase will explore the relations between Colombia and Germany in the framework of the Colombian Peace Process. One of the Commissioners will guide participants during a listening session to the whispers at the bark beetles installation. 

Challenging our perceptions of memory in relation to both conflict and time there will be film screenings, talks and events with cultural leaders.  The biocultural rights of the Atrato River will frame some of these events. 

Book Launch, Film Screening and Summer School: Extractivism and its discontents, cultural artistic counter-movements

In September MAMA, the University of Kassel, Documenta Institute, CELA, CAPAZ and DAAD have organised a summer school with experts and participants from around the world to approach the topic of extractivism and its relation to artistic movements. Three forums will be open to the public. 

The memories of the most recent chapter of MAMA’s programme will be presented at a book launch. The Afro-film making process made by Nuquí and Buenaventura collectives will finish with a film screening of Postcards from the Future will take place at the Gloria Theatre in Kassel.

These are the artists, organisations and critical friends that will be participating in the programme or that have been collaborating in different ways

Ailie Rutherford, Feminist Exchange Network, Glasgow, Scotland / Alejandra Rojas, Más Arte Más Acción, Choachí, Colombia / Alejandro Castillejo, Comisión de la Verdad, Bogotá, Colombia / Alison Turnbull, United Kingdom / Ana Garzón, Ibagué, Colombia / Andrés Torres, Bogotá, Colombia / Andrés Veléz, Bogotá, Colombia  / Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Bangkok, Thailand /  Ariane Andereggen, Las atratxs research group, Basel, Switzerland / Arianne Kamsteeg, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam, Netherlands / Carmenza Rojas Potes, Fundación Mareia, Más Arte Más Acción, Remote Evocations, Chocó, Colombia /  Carolina Rincón, Colectivo de Comunicaciones En Puja, Nuquí, Colombia / Claudia Howald, Remote Evocations, Mendrisio, Switzerland, / David Paredes, Colectivo Puerto Creativo, Buenaventura, Colombia / David Suárez, Bogotá, Colombia / Diego Aretz, Por la frontiere, Bogotá, Colombia / Elizabeth Gallón, Remote Evocations, Berlin, Germany / Elkin Calderón, Berlin, Germany / Enrique González, Trago Selva, Cumbaví, Nuquí, Colombia / Ericka Flórez, Cali, Colombia / Erna Von Der Walde, Londres, Inglaterra / Fausto Moreno, Coquí, Colombia / Fernando Arias, Más Arte Más Acción, Bogotá, Colombia / Gregorio Gómez, Colectivo COCO, Bogotá, Colombia / Hortencio Palacios, Colectivo de Comunicaciones En Puja, Nuquí, Colombia /  Jhon Esteban Lasso, Corporación de Músicas tradicionales Tambacum del Golfo de Tribugá, Nuquí, Colombia /  Joep Van Lieshout, Atelier Van Lieshout, Rotterdam, Netherlands / Jonathan Colin, Más Arte Más Acción, Bogotá, Colombia / José Fernando Serrano, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia / Karina Angulo, Colectivo de Comunicaciones En Puja, Nuquí, Colombia / Kathrin Wildner, Lxs atratxs research Group, Berlin, Germany / Knowbotiq, Yvonne Wilheim, Christian Huebler, Remote evocations, Switzeland / Kurt Hollander, New York, Usa / Leonel Vásquez, Bogotá, Colombia /  Leyner Palacios, Comisión de la Verdad, Bojayá, Colombia / Liliana Gómez, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany / Lina Bryyi Moreno, Corporación de Músicas tradicionales Tambacum del Golfo de Tribugá, Nuquí, Colombia / Lorena Diez, Nodo Alemania, Comisión de la Verdad, Berlin, Germany / Magdalena Wallpot, Grindwal Kolllectiv, Berlin, Germany / Manuel David Riascos, La Furgoneta, Buenaventura, Colombia / María Andrade, Colectivo COCO, Bogotá, Colombia / Miguel Navas, Bogotá, Colombia / Natalia Arias, Bogotá, Colombia / Osneyder Valoy, Colectivo COCO, Coquí, Colombia/ Paola Pérez, Más Arte Más Acción, Bogotá, Colombia / Paula Andrea Orozco, Fundación Mareia, Remote Evocations, Quibdó, Colombia /  Pilar Mendoza, Nodo Alemania, Comisión de la Verdad, Frankfurt, Germany / Rossana Alarcón, Más Arte Más Acción, Bogotá, Colombia / Sandra Vega, Jóvenes Creadores del Chocó, Quibdó, Colombia / Sina Ribak, Arts Collaboratory, Berlin, Germany / Stefan Peters, CAPAZ – Instituto Colombo-Alemán para la Paz, Germany / Tahuanty Jacanamijoy, Bogotá, Colombia / Ted Gaier, Lxs atratxs research group,  Hamburg, Germany / Teresa Feldmann, Feminist Exchange Network, Keila, Estonia / Velia Vidal, Bahía Solano, Colombia / Walker & Bromwich, Glasgow, Scotland / Yaisa Mariam Quintana, Yemayá Producciones, Buenaventura, Colombia / Yei Moreno, Remote Evocations, Quibdó, Colombia

Check out the programme here:

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