Practicing Freedom

Practicing Freedom is a transcultural research and artistic project which aims to harness ongoing conversations and initiatives within the overriding concepts of decoloniality and restitution. Working with cultural practitioners, researchers, museum professionals, and existing collaborative initiatives and research programmes, we envision Practicing Freedom to consist of workshops, residencies, panel discussions, lectures, podcasts, artistic interventions, and a final exhibition and publication which will tie together the numerous threads of the project. We are currently thinking of Practicing Freedom as Phase 1 of the Lives of Objects greater project.

About the project

Events
Poetic Intervention: The Afterlives of Objects
Artistic Directors

Events

Michelle Eistrup, All Suns Forever (work in progress)

March 28–29 2022, Workshop, London
(Be)Longing Workshop

Eight knots emerging from (Be)Longing, a two-day workshop held March 28–29 2022 and convened by Amal Alhaag and Selene Wendt, where artists, activists, writers, academics, curators, directors, and guardians of institutional collections presented their work engaging the possibilities and necessities for returning objects currently held in European and American museum collections. The respondents to each presentation were drawn from the same group.

A photo of Quinsy Gario (poet, artist and activist), Nanette Snoep, Amal Alhaag (curator), Selene Wendt (curator) and Wayne Modest

Fri 14 Oct 2022, Talk, Goethe-Institut Amsterdam
POETIC INTERVENTION – THE AFTERLIVES OF OBJECTS

The Goethe-Institut in Amsterdam hosted a conversation between Wayne Modest (Director of Content National Museum of World Culture) and Nanette Snoep (Director of the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum) with a poetic intervention by Quinsy Gario. It was the first public event that took place within the context of the Practicing Freedom project. The event was developed and hosted in collaboration with the Research Center for Material of Culture at the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen.

Tue 08 Nov - Thu 10 Nov 2022 Goethe-Institut Lagos
Symposium in Lagos

We were pleased to collaborate with the African Artists’ Foundation, Lagos to host a symposium that took place at AAF between 8-10 November 2022. Aspects of the programme were open to the public, including performances and lectures, as well as a workshop component conceived to democratize and connect the art community in Lagos in one dialogical space.

African wooden masks are offered for sale at a market. Picture selection of the SSA region on culture and language work.

Reflection Poem
The Righting of Disempowerment

Quinsy Gario is an activist in the movement against Zwarte Piet, as well as a performance artist. He was born in Curaçao and raised in St Maarten before moving to the Netherlands. Quinsy joined us for our event in London in March, where he read his poem.

Wayne Modest in conversation with Nanette Snoep

Poetic Intervention: The Afterlives of Objects

Here you can listen to the recording of the event in Amsterdam in case you weren't able to make it in person.

00:00 00:00

Image gallery from Lagos

Swipe through the gallery below to see those who joined the Symposium back in November 2022.

Olajide Ayeni
Performance by Jelili Atiku
Olajide Ayeni
Ndidi Dike Speaking
Olajide Ayeni
Performance by Bolatito Aderemi-Ibitola
Olajide Ayeni
Enotie Paul Ogbebor
Olajide Ayeni
Aude Christel leading discussion
Olajide Ayeni
Aude Christel Speaking
Olajide Ayeni
Olajide Ayeni
Performance by Jelili Atiku
Olajide Ayeni
Olajide Ayeni
Olajide Ayeni
Damilare Adeyemi
(L-R) Oyindamola Fakeye, Nadine Siegert, Ndidi Dike, Amal Alhaag, Tracian Meikle, Taiwo Aiyedogbon, Selene Wendt, Enotie Paul Ogbebor, Tito, Peter Okotor, Tolulope Ami-Williams, Seyi Adelekum, Aude Christel
Olajide Ayeni
Taiwo Aiyedogbon and Tolulope Ami-Williams

Artistic Directors

Practicing Freedom is a transcultural research and artistic project initiated by Goethe-Institut that is conceptualized and curated by the Artistic Directors Amal Alhaag and Selene Wendt.

© Amal Alhaag

Amal Alhaag is an Amsterdam-based curator, researcher and co-founder of several initiatives, including Metro54, a platform for experimental sonic, dialogic and visual culture and the Side Room: a room for eccentric practices and people together with artist Maria Guggenbichler (2013-2016). Alhaag develops ongoing experimental and collaborative research practice, public programs and projects on global spatial politics, archives, colonialism, counter-culture, oral histories and popular culture. Her projects and collaborations with people, initiatives and institutions invite, stage, question and play with ‘uncomfortable’ issues that riddle, rewrite, remix, share and compose narratives in impermanent settings.

Selene Wendt is an art historian, independent curator and writer based in Oslo. Her ongoing curatorial focus is on decoloniality and socially engaged art practices, with emphasis on interdisciplinary projects situated at the intersection between contemporary art, music, and literature. She has curated many international exhibitions through the years, writes regularly for publications and art journals such as NKA Journal of Contemporary African Art (Duke University Press), and has written and edited numerous books and exhibition catalogues. Currently, she is also the curator of Vanderbilt University’s Engine for Art, Democracy and Justice 2022-23 program entitled Artistic Activism and the Power of Collective Resistance.

For more detailed information about her work, please see her website: www.theglobalartproject.no