‘Otobong Nkanga and and Anthropology of Remediation’ by Clementine Deliss

In this talk, Clémentine Deliss will discuss Otobong Nkanga’s engagement as an artist with the complexity and performativity of ethnographic collections. The discussion follows the invitation of artist Otobong Nkanga by Beirut Art Center for her first solo exhibition in Lebanon, Landversation Beirut. This exhibition deals with the contradictory ways in which we inhabit the earth and are dependent on it and the dichotomy of how those two ways of dealing with it two connect. By availing ourselves of and profiting from this planet’s abundant fertility we haphazardly contribute to its exhaustion, thereby creating huge imbalances that undermine its ability to continue. In response to this destruction we constantly look for palliatives, measures to repair and negate the very damage we have forced upon it. This exhibition seeks to provide a space to sit for a moment and reflect, a space to consider the various possibilities surrounding this ever-complex relationship and perhaps, most important of all, a space for discourse.

Biography
Clémentine Deliss is a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study in Berlin and Curator of the Dilijan Arts Observatory in Armenia. She studied contemporary art and anthropology in Vienna, Paris and London and holds a PhD from the University of London. Between 2010-2015, she was the director of the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt. Between 2002-2009 she directed the international research lab “Future Academy” with student cells in the UK, Senegal, India, Greece, Japan, the US and Australia. She was the publisher of the itinerant artists’ and writers’ organ “Metronome” (1996-2007) that was presented at documenta X and documenta 12. She has held guest professorships at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, and was Reader in Fine Art at the Edinburgh College of Art. She has been a consultant for the European Union and is a member of Theatrum Mundi, the urban lab directed by Richard Sennett. She is on the board of the Scientific Council of the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. She lives in Berlin.