SEDIMENTS. After Memory

Victor Fotso Nyie, Muna Mussie, Las Nietas de Nonó, Christian Offman

Constant mobility and rapid change in relationships, identities, global affairs and daily life are now an unmistakable part  of our lives. Reality seems unable to keep any course for long.  Dramatic change is always imminent, training us on the provisional rather than the permanent. Over two decades ago,  Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman used the term ‘liquid modernity’ to describe our restless times. Bauman rejected the idea  that the postmodern period had arrived, arguing instead that  modernity was intact and that, in its contemporary or ‘liquid’  manifestation, change was the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty.

To be alive today, two decades later, is to go with the flow or  risk drowning. Yet, beneath the liquid’s surface, things linger  in the countercurrent, while others are refined by sedimentation on their descent to the bottom. As the currents change  and steadily proceed, sediments remain, bearing witness to  the turbulence above them. SEDIMENTS. After Memory interrogates this granular witness, probing four hallmarks of liquid  modernity; thwarted revolutions, postcolonial subjectivities,  empty consumerism and precarious citizenship.

Testing Jean-Baptiste A. Karr’s platitude (“the more things  change, the more they stay the same ') against our hypermodern realities, this exhibition agitates the solo/group exhibition  distinction, approaching the works in the show as thematic  chapters or episodes of a whole. The exhibition offers multiple perspectives that link Cameroon, Eritrea, Italy, Puerto Rico  and Rwanda in the studious exploration of pertinent socio-political and aesthetic issues. SEDIMENTS. After Memory is an  investigation filtered through the distinct artistic practices of  Victor Fotso Nyie (Suspended identities), Muna Mussie (ጎዳና  ቦሎኛ | اینولوب عراش | Bologna St. 173 (Riverberi Roma), Las  Nietas de Nonó (Foodtopia: después de todo territorio), and  Christian Offman (Barocco). In yet another turbulent phase  of modern history that brings fundamental change in the hy permodern (dis)order of the world we are encouraged to ask,  what will remain? 

PARTNERS & SPONSORS

SPAZIO GRIOT's artistic programme SEDIMENTS. After Memory is promoted by Roma Culture and Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, and organized in collaboration with Azienda Speciale Palaexpo; it takes place at Pavilions 9a and 9b of Mattatoio museum in Rome, with GUCCI as main sponsor, with the support of Museo delle Civiltà, and in collaboration with the American Academy in Rome, the British School at Rome, the British Council, and Orbita | Spellbound as technical sponsor.

SEDIMENTS. After Memory consists of an exhibition and a public program that includes performances, listening sessions, talks, workshops and a stand-up comedy show.

Victor Fotso Nyie

(Cameroon, 1990) is a multidisciplinary artist, he lives and works in Faenza. After earning the Higher Technician Diploma for the design and prototyping of ceramics at the Tonito Emiliani Higher Techni- cal Institute in Faenza, he graduated from the Ravenna Academy of Fine Arts in 2017 and went on to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna for sculpture. The core of his artistic research is the condition of the contemporary African man, alienated and wounded by an unfinished past of enslavement and exploitation. His solo exhibitions include: Quella terra tra le mani, Galleria comunale d’Arte di Faenza (2022), Radici aeree, Le Scuole, Pieve di Cento (2022), Memoriae, Off Gallery, Bologna (2022), Resilienza, Museo MAGA, Gallarate (2021), Museo Carlo Zauli, Faenza (2021), Rimembranza, Palazzo Turchi di Bagno, Ferrara (2021). Group shows  include: Mémoire à l’italienne, IIC, Paris (2022), 12 artist of tomorrow, Mucciaccia, Rome (2022), Filons géologique, Palazzo d’Accursio, Bologna (2022), Black History Month Florence (2021), Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale, San Marino (2021), MediTERRAneo (2020), Biennale d’Arte don Franco Patruno, Pieve di Cento (2019), To be going, P420, Bologna (2019). In 2022 he takes part in Una Boccata d’Arte. 20 artisti 20 borghi 20 regioni, supported by Fondazione Elpis, in collaboration with Galleria Continua.

Muna Mussie

(Eritrea, 1978, lives and works in Bologna) began her artistic career in 1998, as actress/performer with Teatrino Clan- destino until 2001. In 2002, she attends Corso Europeo di alta formazione per l’attore, direct- ed by Cesare Ronconi of the Teatro Voldoca and she continued the collaboration as an ac- tress until 2010. From 2001 to 2005 she was an active part in the research collective Open, where after the performance opentolikemu- namussie (2005) she began to investigate her own ways of being on stage. Muna Mussie’s work investigates the performing arts and the scenic languages through gesture, visual and words, to give shape to the tension that arises between different expressive poles. Recent performances and installations in- clude: PERSONA (2022), Bientôt l’été (2021), PF DJ (2021), Oblio (2021), Curva Cieca (2021), Curva (2019), Oasi (2018), Milite Igno- to (2015). Other exhibitions include: Bologna St. 173, Archives sites, Milano (2021), Punteg- giatura (2018). Her work has been presented in several oc- casions at: Art Fall/PAC Ferrara, Xing/Raum e Live Arts Week Bologna, Fondazione Sandret- to Re Rebaudengo, Museo Marino Marini Fi- renze, Workspace Brussels, Kaaitheater Brux- elles, MAMbo Bologna, Santarcangelo Festival, Viafarini Milano, Museion Bolzano, Biennale Atlas of Transitions, Manifesta 2020 Marsiglia, Archive Books Milano, SAVVY contemporary Berlin, Short Theatre Roma, Oplà/Artefiera Bo- logna, Biennale Democrazia Torino.

Las Nietas de Nonò

The afro-diasporic siblings mulowayi and mapenzi are Las Nietas de Nonó. In their creative process, they evoke ancestral memory through personal archives. Their practice incorporates performance, found objects, organic materials, ecology, fiction, video and installation. In 2016, they created Ilustraciones de la Mecánica, a multimedia installation that was also commissioned by the 10th Berlin Biennial (2018) and by the 79th Whitney Biennial (2019). They have received the United States Artist Award (2018), The Art of Change from the Ford Foundation (2017), and the Global Arts Fund from the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice (2017 and 2020). La Nietas de Nonó are the recipients of the 2022 Rome Prize in Visual Art at the American Academy in Rome. Their art has been shown in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, England, Germany, Haiti, Italy, Norway, Puerto Rico, Scotland, the United States. In 2019, they co-founded Parceleras Afrocaribeñas, an organisation run by Black womxn, where spaces for environmental and racial justice are created in the face of industrial de- velopments that threaten their barrio of San Antón, in Carolina, Puerto Rico. Las Nietas de Nonó are currently based in Italy, as the recipients of the Rome Prize Fellowship in Visual Arts at the American Academy in Rome. They are also preparing for their solo exhibition in New York City.

Christian Offman

(Rwanda, 1993) lives and works between Munich and Bologna. He moved to Italy in 1999, growing up between Rwanda and Italy: the sum of these two cultural and geographical poles is reflected in Offman’s aesthetics and artistic practice. The focal points of his research are identity, memory and historical repression, elements which guide the contradictions and ideological defects that define postcolonial contemporaneity. Offman’s artistic practice is the result of different layers of research, in which history, sociology and tradition are questioned. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Bolo- gna, the Kunstakademie Münster Hochschule für Bildende Kunste and the Akademie der Bil- denden Künste München. He participated in YGBI Research Residency in Florence. He took part in several exhibitions, including Prima il trucco (2018), Rudgang (2019), and Früher war alles besser (2019). In 2021, he was selected for the Agitu Ideo Gudeta Fellowship and participated in TUCUL, Temporary Monuments to Agitu Ideo Gudeta the two-person exhibition with Francis Offman, curated by Centrale Fies and Le Garage Lab.