Blacknuss!
Technologies of Joy, Care and Intimacy (2022)
We Work In The Dark ( Obaro Ejimiwe & Luiza Prado)
Installation, sculptures, performances.
“Now we gathered here on the universe at this time
This particular time to listen to the 36 black notes of the piano
There's 36 black notes and 52 white notes
We don't mean to eliminate nothin
But we gonna just hear the black notes at this time if you don't mind
Blacknuss
B l a c k n u s s
Blacknuss
Black
(repeat)”
– Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Blacknuss!
This 300 square meter installation was conceived as a space for experiments in practices of Black joy, care, and intimacy during the Kampnagel Summer Festival of 2022. It is a home where some come as visitors, others as dwellers. It is, at once, a living and continuously changing archive; a homage to the sacred rituals that tend to relationships within Afrodiasporic communities. Blacknuss! is a processual work that explores artistic practices for reconstructing and transmitting Afrodiasporic knowledge and history at the intersection of performance, music and experimental online radio broadcasting, as well as reflections on in/visibility, and the public and domestic realms of Blackness. Every week during the festival, the installation became home to performances offering plural, multiple poetic conceptions and visions for possibility.
On August 12 2022, the performance-dinner “All Black Every-ting” examined the relationship between Black foodways, the transmission of diasporic knowledges, and intimate memory. In collaboration with guest chef Jamila Celuch, We Work In The Dark invited the Black residents of Hamburg for a performance dinner offering playful twists on culturally and aesthetically Black food, encouraging guests to explore the relationship between Black foodways, the transmission of diasporic knowledges, and intimate memory. During the dinner, the general public was allowed into the installation space, but not into the dinner area, where guests dined and conversed behind a curtain.
Performance-dinner: All Black Every-Ting
Chef: Jamila Celuch
Host: Obaro Ejimiwe
Performance: The Tools That Built This House
Composer/conductor: Obaro Ejimiwe
Performers: Formosah, Oumou Dembele, Wendy Pino
On August 19 2022, the opera-performance “The Tools that Built This House” explored themes of Black domesticity, material culture, and rhythm as memory. The performance took place three times over the evening in the ancestral garden space in the installation; I performed a spoken word piece, accompanied by three local musicians from the Black community in Hamburg.
Performance: Carefully, So Carefully
Composer/conductor: Obaro Ejimiwe
Performers: Fani, Formosah, Hélissa, Mariama Ceasay, Mady Toupka, Betty Paha
On August 26 2022, the performance “Carefully, So Carefully” closed the programme with a dive into Black hair care practices as expressions of radical, decolonising forms of joyful, loving intimacy. Through the tender interactions between braiders, singers, and performers, the piece delved into intimate memories of Black family life, the complex pathways of Afrodiasporic affects and the creative forces that allow for a continuous reinvention of Black life.