4+3=1 SAVVY CONTEMPORARY, BERLIN

‘I am lord of life, this is my arrival. I go forth from the opening of the great door of the city. Osiris, your protections are for the ones in need. I embraced the sycamore…’
[Extract from Chapter 64B: the specialised knowledge the deceased claims to have/ An Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead/ The Papyrus of Sobekmose]
247x181cm, Screenprint collage on monotype print, hand stitched, embroidery, 2022

GROUP EXHIBITION

Curated by Kelly Krugman

July 23 – Sept 02, 2022

Savvy Contemporary

Reinickendorfer Straße 17

Berlin

THERE ARE STORIES TO BE FORGED FOR COMMON DENOMINATORS TO COME FORTH AND SOCIAL BALANCE TO BE RESTORED

How do we recompose a common in a society marked by separations? The project 4 +3 =1 seeks to enact common denominators that tell (hi)stories in order to engage with the possibilities of repairing and restoring societal balance(s).

Since time immemorial, Western ideologies have generated and narrated commons: those points when circles intersect into commonplaces. Yet, these commonhoods have been produced by systems of limitations, dualities, and exclusion, lacking relationality and equilibrium between humans, as well as humans and nature. Alternative commons have long existed,  African philosophies extend plural ecosystems of connection: As underlined by Marimba Ani, in Ancient Bantu philosophy “nature” was and still is understood as “ntu”, the “rhythm”, the “universal life force” that humans are a part of. 

Considering their inclusive ground, within this research and exhibition project, we seek knowledge from ancient non-Western philosophies and narratives, to better understand and enact the common denominators that can regulate our societies today. One of these trajectories we look into are the ancient Egyptian traditions of composing “beings” based on nature’s forces: in it, feminine forces are symbolised by the number 4. It carries the masculine, and the society in general. Masculine forces are symbolised by the lower number 3. The equation hence becomes: Four + Three = Community. FOURPLUSTHREEEQUALSONE.

Fundamentally, the project asks, “How can we integrate the performative multiplicities that the feminine, masculine, fluid, or non-conforming hold into our shared realities? In the core, it is about understanding that they can mutually carry and influence one another – within the subjective embodiments of their experiences, and their manifold existences in societies. How can ancestral philosophies in their embraces of coalescing and varied forces teach us ways of recalibrating community nourishment?”