Thursday, December 5, 2019

. . . and to think you had me believing that all this time . . .

Presented by I’ve seen your face before, Alice Yard, and #ayardexchange

Monday 9 December 2019, 6 to 9 pm, 27 Pembroke St, Port of Spain


I’ve seen your face before collaborates with Christopher Cozier, Alice Yard, and #ayardexchange in a programme of screenings of selected videos and films from the 10th Berlin Biennale (BB10), We don’t need another hero.

I’ve seen your face before is a trans-disciplinary platform inspired by complex encounters with entangled histories that have led to the creation of spaces for learning with rather than about that which has been historically interrupted or not yet possible in the present. The platform is open to collective strategies, discourses, and practices that pave ways for debates (within and) beyond art and its institutions.

I’ve seen your face before was founded in 2018 by Gabi Ngcobo (South Africa) and Thiago de Paula Souza (Brazil), as a space to reflect on recent encounters with entangled histories in the Global South. The platform was inspired by research travels to six Caribbean islands conducted by Ngcobo and de Paula Souza in 2017, in preparation for the 10th Berlin Biennale (2018). These travels were made possible through funds set aside for research by the curator of the Berlin Biennale, which in turn made it possible for the curatorial team to rethink the conditions of exchange that have been mapped out through relationships that are informed by colonial mechanisms that still operate in the present.

This approach to curatorial research funds has led to a number of conversations and collaborations, some of which became visible as part of the BB10. I’ve seen your face before proposes a space for continuity, one that is aware of the limits of the “biennale” framework. It is also a space to face critically the positions we inhabit in order to rehearse possibilities for the reorganisation of economies of access.

The project opens up paths for re-encounters that may hopefully lead to more engagements between regions that for a long time have not been in constant conversation due to the lack of possibilities of exchange — most of them blocked by the absence of financial support and political will to articulate a broader horizon of contact.

The event I’ve seen your face before: . . . and to think you had me believing that all this time . . . is a continuing conversation that was initiated with Christopher Cozier towards his contribution to the public programme of BB10. This time, the selected videos and films are in conversation with the context of Port of Spain, where Cozier works and lives.

With works by:

Tony Cokes
Basir Mahmood
Cinthia Marcelle
Sondra Perry
Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa

This platform is funded through “Echoes of the South Atlantic,” an initiative by the Goethe Institute — São Paulo that supports artistic projects interested in researching the potential of the exchanges in the Global South and its relations with Europe. Additional support has been provided by the Caribbean Art Initiative (CAI).

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