MOTORMOND | Public Program

lecture

I feel like my ancestors have left me 1000 voice notes to decipher

25 April 2024 - 19.00

Join us for a lecture/artist talk with artist Samboleap Tol .Tol’s artworks are heavily inspired by indigenist animist offering practices from Cambodia and the wider Southeast Asian region. Ancestral veneration practices became important to her as a way to directly connect with her ancestors, whom she feels estranged from due to postcolonial displacement and brutality.In this lecture, Tol will delve deeper into the religious, historical, and political contexts of these offering practices, lightly touching upon (Indic) temple and inscription culture, and musing on their syncretism.She will bring two manuscripts, obtained via Western auctions: a Khmer smot book (death poetry which is sung) and a Pustaha, a Batak document for magic spells, to speak more in depth about the link between indigenous practices and vernacular manuscripts.Tol says: “I consider these vernacular manuscripts as sitting at the intersections of religion, ancestral veneration, and artistic expression. It's incredible how these manuscripts can give us a window into our ancestors' worlds: a moment where they seem to be pondering life.”

reading

Uses of the Erotic: Embodiment, Movement & Philosophies of Liberation

11 April 2024 - 19.00

Drawing on the Audre Lorde's timeless essay ‘Uses of the Erotic’ Alexine invites you to delve into the erotic with her. Western knowledge systems, tools of the imperialist and capitalist regime of the West, dissociate us from our bodies which means that we have lost touch with the truths that lie deeply within the body, within the erotic. In this hour of part lecture and part movement meditation, Alexine invites us to go back to our bodies and tune in to their language through movement practices. Through rhythms of the tambú dance from her native Curacao, Alexine shares her journey of connecting to the erotic, as a way of knowing herself and the world around her, and as a way of dreaming up different realities. This gathering is an invitation to all movers, dreamers of otherwises and those wanting to explore embodied practices of liberation.

Cacao Ceremony

Cacao Ceremony by Zinzi de Brouwer

4 April 2024 - 19.00

Cacao ceremonies are ritual-based moments where the cacao is served to come to a meditative and heart-opening state. Cacao ceremonies have a rich history in the Indigenous landscapes of Central and South America. Zinziworks with ceremonial cacao from various countries, and most recently started to develop her own cacao from Congo. This cacao is persevered and fermented in its purest form in order to keep all its nutritional value and be used for ceremonial purposes. For the ceremony, the cacao is served in high dosages. The ceremony is facilitated with a group meditation, breathwork, ethereal sounds and inner journeying. Zinzi facilitates this practice under a decolonial lens, serving as a healing tool to dismantle the master's house (Audre Lorde), and find empowerment within to fully express an equity-based and non-binary creation into the world. When you heal yourself, you heal your community. Cacao is a way to break ancestral trauma, especially for black and brown bodies, and turn grief, sadness and anger into gold. Zinzi brings forth African spiritual elements, which she grew up with in Mozambique and her teachings as a Shaman to create a magical evening deepening into the mystery of the self.

discursive visual lecture

Storytelling as Narrative Reclamation by Basia Diagne and Felix de Jong

28 March 2024 - 19.00

Storytelling as Narrative Reclamation of Healing Heritages: Disrupting Colonial Visuality of Healing Ontologies — is a critical diving into of archival ethnographic records of indigenous healing rituals and practices, in which Basia examines the role of the camera and image-making as a colonial apparatus of subjugation and narrative erasure. Drawing from Tina M. Campt’s method of activating the archive by “listening to images”, she invites the audience to depart from this historical narrative, and participate instead in a practice of listening & hearing what has been left unsaid.Following this, Basia will present her work with Sago Journal discussing narrative reclamation through counter-archiving audiovisual heritages of healing from around the world, and sharing healer stories from Sago Journal. A sonic mix of ambient, tranceful & healing sounds will follow over drinks to close the evening, curated by Basia + dear friend & collaborator Felix de Jong.

tea party

Boston Tea Party, Nutrition for Carers

21 March 2024 - 19.30

Boston Tea Party, Nutrition for Carers: Casting Spells into Oyster Shells is a manifestation of artist and researcher Eshwari Ramsali’s dream. “My dream is often of a big long table with members of my community seated facing one another as far as the eye can see. There is an endless stream of magical drink flowing through a fountain like a river across the whole table that I can see everyone dipping their cups into and drinking from eagerly. When I close my eyes, there is so much laughter I can’t wait to join in. I open my eyes again and everywhere around me is abundance - fruit, cake, drink, purpose and rest. Everyone at my big long table looks fabulous and adorned, singing and dancing, spilling and sipping”Eshwari’s dream will be made manifest. [Boston carries significance because it is referencing to the historical protest in 1773, as well as it being an ode to the women healers of the Salem witch trials that happened in Boston in 1692 to 1693, and because the shaker that Eshwari uses on a daily basis to make concoctions that momentarily soothe and heal, is called the Boston shaker.]Eshwari’s artistic practice seeks to nurture the complexity of silliness and its capacity to hold the enormity of grief and anger. They are dreaming about this dream of a Boston tea party as they are sitting with the (post-) irony of being in this world today. Eshwari believes that we need communion more than anything in the practice of liberation. This programme manifests as part of our current exhibition. A STATE OF GRACE: of Witches, of Seance, of Voodoo, of Speaking in Tongues and Othered instances of Diasporic TRANS-porta(l)tion.A STATE OF GRACE is generously supported by the Gemeente Amsterdam West.Graphic design: @ypsil_lon

reading group

Pedagogies of the Sacred

7 March 2024 - 19.00

Mainly creating work within a queer intersectional framework, Devika Chotoe uses performance art and language as entry points into understanding how hegemonic technologies of power shape bodies, times, spaces and their interrelationality. Striving to translate the unexpressed desires of predecessors, ancient rhythms and queer futurities into prefigurative politics and a poetics of change.This session is an invitation to join a collective reading and discussion of the text Pedagogies of the Sacred: Making the Invisible Tangible, from the book Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory and the Sacred written by M. Jacqui Alexander. After the reading, we will enter a group conversation about the different ways we relate to spirituality*: what does this notion mean to you, how do you access ancestral knowledge and practices that have been erased or rendered invisible though migration, colonization, or other types of oppression? How does spirituality relate to artmaking and/or the work of social justice?*Whatever this might mean to you or with whatever term you want to replace it, knowing that this notion has different connotations in different contexts.This programme is meant to last about an hour. There will be snacks and music afterwards.This programme manifests as part of our current exhibition. A STATE OF GRACE: of Witches, of Seance, of Voodoo, of Speaking in Tongues and Othered instances of Diasporic TRANS-porta(l)tion. A State of Grace is generously supported by the Gemeente Amsterdam West.

sonic intervention

Spirit of Dissent

22 February 2024 - 19.00

On Thursday the 22nd of February at 19.00h, other Indias and Rah Naqvi guides you through the sonic intervention Spirit of dissent. This sonic intervention is informed by a very long history of dissent, by elders and peers who have founded the basis for our resistance. These sustained practices of continuance, of resilience, amidst adversity, born from, and despite systemic oppression, have created alternative pathways to liberation. Pathways, that reject and urge a dismantling of the current Brahminical structures of governance and the imposition of its future. Drawing from spiritual ideologies that restore notions of love and belonging outside of religious norms, rooted in the anti-caste movement, informed by ancestral sorrow and knowledge, these practices fundamentally challenge the current hegemony of the Saffron state. The intervention highlights the sonic practices of The Casteless Collective, Reshma of Kashmir, Sheetal Sathe, Rekha Bharti, and others.other india is a Netherlands-based socio-political and cultural collective in the making for movements, experiences and voices that are generous to the cause of collective liberation in/of the Indian subcontinent* and its people.

performance

Pariah by Plantation

15 February 2024 - 19.00

Pariah is an installation by Ayomide Tejuoso, also known as Plantation, which centers on the hyper exploration of text across photography, video, installation, and performance. It explores the notion of text as \"I see phenomena; I am phenomena\", the tumbling of letters and sentences in search of the weight of existence. The \"text\" they introduce are sequences of scattered poems, essays, and sentences, stories of \"pariahs\" as they tumble across europe. They are black women searching for their rage, screaming in mountains, and praying in alcoves.Hyper modulated in photography, fashion, video, and installation; this text is a symposium of black feminine expression and meditation. A peek into the ways of our being,and the quietness of condemnation, doom, and contemporary carnage.Please RSVP here.

Exhibition Opening

A STATE OF GRACE; of Witches, of Seance, of Voodoo, of Speaking in Tongues and Othered instances of Diasporic TRANS-portation

25 January 2024 - 19.00

RSVP: HEREThe opening of the new exhibition A State of Grace? is celebrated with a procession from WG Kunst (Marius van Bouwdijk Bastiaansestraat 28) at 19.00h. The procession ends at 19.30h at MOTORMOND's exhibition space (Kinkerstraat 96). Here Musoke Nalwoga, curator and founder of MOTORMOND, opens the exhibition with a speech. Feel welcome to enjoy to watch the procession an visit the exhibition space while enjoying food and drinks.

Screening

City of God

19 January 2024 - 19.00

In collaboration with Bar Bario, Motormond has put together a screening program with films that we feel attempt at the magical impossibility of collective healing. Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund’s 2003 City of God will be the third film we will be showing. SYNOPSIS: Two boys are brought up in a sadistic neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro. Later, they adopt diverse professional paths, with one of them becoming a photographer and the other boy becoming a drug dealer.What: Screening City of GodWhen: 19th Jan (19:00 to 21:00)Where: Bar Bario (Bilderdijkstraat 186)How: rsvp via info@motormond.nl

Screening

This is not a Burial, This is a Resurrection

12 January 2024 - 19.00

In collaboration with Bar Bario, Motormond has put together a screening program with films that we feel attempt at the magical impossibility of collective healing. Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s This is not a Burial, This is a Resurrection is the second film we will be showing. SYNOPSIS: When the people of her village are forced to relocate in order to facilitate the construction of a dam, an 80-year-old woman prepares the villagers for protestWhat: Screening This is not a Burial, This is a Resurrection.When: 12th Jan (19:00 to 21:00)Where: Bar Bario (Bilderdijkstraat 186)How: rsvp via info@motormond.nl to

Screening

Neptune Frost

5 January 2024 - 19.00

Firstly we will screen Anisia Uzeyman and Saul Williams’ 2021 science fiction romantic musical film NEPTUNE FROST. SYNOPSIS: A group of escaped coltan miners forms an anti-colonialist computer hacker collective in the hilltops of Burundi. They soon attempt a takeover of the authoritarian regime that's exploiting the region's natural resources -- and its people.What: Screening NEPTUNE FROST. When: 5th Jan (19:00 to 21:00)Where: Bar Bario (Bilderdijkstraat 186)How: rsvp via info@motormond.nl

Radio Program

Radio Tempo Não Pára

5 January 2024 - 13.00

They will also dive into their individual practices as poet and curator and how these have come to contribute to the way MOTORMOND is taking share.

Reading

Pelumi Adejumo

24 December 2023

Letters from the forsakenTo Logan To Dandy To Precious To Chimira Where beauty lies within the ruins, how does one move as a guest in their own skin, in their own country? Language, faithful companion, can be both loyal and wayward. Examining the introverts; hidden wishes, amidst the vibrant chaos of Lagos.

Artist Talk

Past A Surpassing Disaster

2 December 2023 - 19.00

Baltimore native Devin Allen is a self-taught artist who gained national attention when his photograph of the Baltimore Uprising was published on the cover of Time magazine in May 2015, making him only the third amateur photographer to have his work featured in the publication. Following the untimely deaths of George Floyd, Tony McDade, and Breonna Taylor, his photograph from a Black Trans Lives Matter protest was published on the cover of Time magazine in June 2020. Come meet the artist and also celebrate with us as we close this amazing exhibition.

Listening session

Navigating Drexciya; A Sonic Transmission

23 November 2023 - 19.00

We extend an invitation for you to immerse yourself in an auditory expedition, as we transmit sonic waves calling for a departure from the enduring shadows that surround us. Through the seamless fusion of personal and historical threads, our aim is to sculpt a manifestation of aesthetic time travel - an odyssey where time follows a non-linear cycle and where the body of water becomes an imaginative site, its movement a way of thought. By revisitating and redirecting the past, we reshape our comprehension of the present, allowing for a myriad of possibilities to erupt and sparking the creation of speculative futures.

Artist Talks

Brave Beauties in Communion

30 September 2023 - 19.00

A larger conversation will follow where fellow artists ARPITA AKHANDA and Amol Patil will be in discussion with Daniel and DeLovie around the consequences of fostering an artistic practice between the global north and the global south. Brave Beauties in Communion is generously supported by the Prince Claus Funds

Artist Talks

Artists Talks

23 September 2023 - 19.00

ProgramA 20-minute artist talk by Keren Lasme A 20-minute artist talk by Stephen Tayo A 30-minute panel discussion (Sumi Anjuman, Keren and Tayo)Lead Questions Panel: At a time when queer people and queer culture are presented as “western phenomena” of being, how important is it for queer black photographers to portray themselves? What is the importance of connecting and differentiating queer identities across space?

Open Portrait shooting session

Shooting Session

20 August 2023 - 19.00

To keep the mood bubbling! @arantxaoosterwolde will play a gospel music inspired DJ set (*nothing to do with any God — just some gorgeous tunes for gorgeous people )

Screening

TO INTERRUPT, TO PUNCTUATE

5 May 2023 - 19.00

For us this is a great opportunity to experiment with a novel format, and for you, we hope, an interesting and entertaining evening. We will sit and engage with the various meanings and knowledges that will emerge from the interruptions. The interruptions will be sonic, performative and poetic. We have invited Kenza Mala Badi, Rah Naqvi, and Sunni Lamin Barrow —three multidisciplinary artists whose practices engage with themes of gender fluidity, community building, and neo-colonialism. These are themes that return in Neptune Frost.

Book Presentation

Circa 7991

23 April 2023 - 19.00

Circa 7991 Book Presentation—Not all speed is movement — Toni Cade BambaraThe circa 7991 collective came together this January to make a book that investigates what it takes to build a queer and black institution. Contributors include Independent curator Musoke Nalwoga, poet Lebo Diverse Mashifane, writer Munganyende, researcher Siv Greyson and sangoma healer Christie van Zyl.The Circa 7991 publication and the Circa 7991 collective were fostered through a residency at the Muholi Art Institute in Cape Town.We have invited Kenze Badi, the founding director of an Amazigh-Queer-Diaspora organisation based in Amsterdam. Kenza’s work sits in the realm of direct action; she is an important pillar within the protest scene in Amsterdam. Jean Paul Paula, Creative Director, Stylist, Photographer and film Director. JeanPaul’s activism shines through in his work where he focuses on intersectionality, gender-sexuality and family.We will all be in conversation, bringing you a fugitive, freaky and queered way of building institutions that is affirmative of the black and queer intersection!

Year Program Presentation

2023 Program Presentation

10 April 2023 - 12.00

Last year the lovely people of Sandberg Institute funded a research proposal that would give definition to the type of institution that we would become. Together with other independent platforms that are affiliated with Sandberg Institute and Rietveld Academy we will present our 2023 year program. This invitation is facilitated by Sandberg Institute and hosted by Stichting Perdu

Lecture

Identity As Protest

21 October 2021 - 16.00

Frida Kahlo seems to have lived her entire life in defiance of normalcy. In this lecture, Musoke Nawolga wants to show how the younger generation of Amstelveen, Amsterdam and the The Netherlands at large by their own means is doing the same. Pushing boundaries in terms of what it means to be gendered, what it means to be free and finally, what it means to stand for a cause.

Screening

Female Film Friday

27 August 2021 - 20.00

This Friday (August 27), we are screening ‘This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection’ (2019) directed by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese at 20.00.Tickets are available in the bio!Synopsis:In a small village in Lesotho, the 80-year-old widow Mantoa hears about the death of her son during a mining incident. Mantoa prepares for her end by making funeral arrangements, but at that moment, the closed-knit community is required to move to an urban area due to construction. Mantoa’s enthusiam for life is renewed.