Nation, Narration, Narcosis, Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum for Contemporary Art, Berlin
"Nation, Narration, Narcosis: Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories" at Hamburger Bahnhof is dedicated to the relationship between art and political protests, historical trauma, and societal narratives from the 19th century to now. The works on display explore the effects of nation-building, colonialism or the Anthropocene on societies, their narratives, as well as the ecology of our planet. Departing from Beuys’s concept of social sculpture, the exhibition confronts the notion of nation contained in the name "Nationalgalerie" with alternative concepts of connectivity, solidarity, and individuality.
The exhibition brings artworks and documents from the collection of the Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin into dialogue with loans from Chiang Mai (Thailand), Jakarta (Indonesia), and Singapore, among others. Shown are works from over 50 artists like Amanda Heng, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Arahmaiani, Ho Tzu Nyen, Käthe Kollwitz, Kawita Vatanajyankur, Marina Abramović, Melati Suryodarmo, Tita Salina, Willem de Rooij and others.
"Nation, Narration, Narcosis" contrasts a homogeneous understanding of nationhood, which presumes a singular narrative that gives meaning to a community, with a polyphony of (hi)stories, counter-stories, and absent stories that seek new narratives. The title of the exhibition cites the letter "N" from the artist Ho Tzu Nyen's ongoing project "The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia" (since 2012) which addresses the numerous cultural currents of multi-layered identities, nations, and histories in the Southeast Asian region and, beyond that, the reality-changing and reality-displacing power of narratives.
The exhibition is generously funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation as part of the program “Museum Global” and is curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers with Grace Samboh, Gridthiya Gaweewong and June Yap. The assistant curator of the exhibition is Charlotte Knaup, with Rosalia Namsai Engchuan as Goethe-Institut Fellow.
The exhibition brings artworks and documents from the collection of the Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin into dialogue with loans from Chiang Mai (Thailand), Jakarta (Indonesia), and Singapore, among others. Shown are works from over 50 artists like Amanda Heng, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Arahmaiani, Ho Tzu Nyen, Käthe Kollwitz, Kawita Vatanajyankur, Marina Abramović, Melati Suryodarmo, Tita Salina, Willem de Rooij and others.
"Nation, Narration, Narcosis" contrasts a homogeneous understanding of nationhood, which presumes a singular narrative that gives meaning to a community, with a polyphony of (hi)stories, counter-stories, and absent stories that seek new narratives. The title of the exhibition cites the letter "N" from the artist Ho Tzu Nyen's ongoing project "The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia" (since 2012) which addresses the numerous cultural currents of multi-layered identities, nations, and histories in the Southeast Asian region and, beyond that, the reality-changing and reality-displacing power of narratives.
The exhibition is generously funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation as part of the program “Museum Global” and is curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers with Grace Samboh, Gridthiya Gaweewong and June Yap. The assistant curator of the exhibition is Charlotte Knaup, with Rosalia Namsai Engchuan as Goethe-Institut Fellow.
