“Erasure is a visual depiction of the modernist erasure of graffiti. It is authored by X, the artist, and I merely the conceptual constructor of what X had innocently, non-artistically performed.” – Eldon Garnet
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The first image of this project was taken in a small Ladenkino in Berlin. The last picture was taken in front of a white garage in France. All the other pictures were taken somewhere else on the planet. Fascinated about ways of seeing, imagination and grip I started working on my first publication Can I see?. Inspired by the absence of truth and hierarchy, knowing all off the context will be my very own preconceived context, the images offer no specific explanation but give rise to the question of what it is you are looking at, and why. Spaces become autonomous spaces, their meaning can only be grasped in its evocative power. I exhibited Can I see? as an installation during the group exhibition HERE WE ARE WE HERE in December 2021.
By abandoning the storyline and isolating images of places and things, devoid of context, I can see. Can I see the ordinary – doors, chambers, windows – the spaces in-between the inside and the outside, as access to and as suggestion of something new?
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Daily Weeding depicts Kuba Ryniewicz’s everyday life in Newcastle. The British photographer of Polish origins gives us a glimpse into a number of intimate and public moments spent with his husband and closest friends, set against the familiar backdrop of his home and surrounding fields, sharing them with both poetry and humor. His photos are enhanced by a moving work of literary fiction written by playwright and novelist Yelena Moskovich and a postscript written by James Tait Black Memorial Prize winner Olivia Laing.
Kuba Ryniewicz is a freelance photographer, researcher, and collector based in the North East – England, whose work focuses on the relation between art and nature in diverse historic and sociocultural settings. His work challenges traditional portraiture and travel photography, narrating unheard stories in the context of landscape, history, fashion and culture. Most of Ryniewicz’s work is community-based.
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This series documents one of the oldest historical spots in Bucharest essential for the Romanian cultural patrimony and history: Coșbuc Flower-Market on Calea Rahovei Street. I am focusing specifically on male flower sellers as their macho look contrasts with the sensitive craft of floristry. Even though they are showing off a blustering bravado, becoming friends with them I discovered under this manly harness, emotions resonating with the bouquets sold. This documentary highlights the complexity of human kind and the redundancy of gender norms.
Even though the project started as an inquiry of masculinity from a feminine perspective, the fact that all the flower sellers are of Roma ethnicity should not be overlooked. Media and newspapers spread the fear about Roma people. This project is done as a pursuit of trying to overcome and question these stereotypes too.
First encounter with the flower sellers men in the market was marked by catcalling comments, a thing that is not Roma specific. Instead of passing by quickly ignoring and validating this overly masculine behavior, I used my camera as a dialogue mechanism, I wanted to take a portrait trough my feminine perspective. On the one hand to reclaim my power regarding gender differences and on the other, to question this fear that must be coming from a substrate of racism and thus it’s an excuse for inequalities between the Roma minority and Romanian majority of people.
I believe that fear produces more fear and a vicious circle is created. What if all that manly bravado comes from a layer of insecurity? Norms imposed by society where power is always praised. What if the jokes and loudly fooling around of Roma men I encountered are a product of the fear they have of white people? An ancestral fear as a result of centuries of rights deprivation, a topic that is too little discussed or acknowledged but covered up by inversed guilt trough fear spreading media.
Besides being a documentary about toxic masculinity and male mental health that encourages soft emotions associated with feminine behavior not to be repressed by men, recently this landmark place owned by Roma people in Bucharest has been evacuated by the police due to political interests taking advantage of the pandemic time when people’s attention was distracted. I associate this banning of the market’s authenticity with the social pressure of conforming to stereotypes and not being oneself.
Limited edition of 25 copies.
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”I don’t know whether it’s because I’m a Pisces or because my parents first met at a pool, but I’ve always loved swimming. At some point, I started training for swim meets and took third place in my age-group at the Hamburg Championships. Then I began playing water polo, surprisingly became the German youth champion in 1994 and ended up playing in the national league for six years.
I began collecting pool photos only after all this—sort of as a way to remember the place where I had spent so much time and which for me embodied as much pleasure as it did discipline and exhaustion. My collection of film stills, found images and personal photographs contains a similar ambivalence: it pays homage to the symbol of summer and recreation while at the same time capturing the melancholy of empty pools and public swimming places.“ —Anna-Lena Wenzel
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72 frames from Gianfranco Baruchello Filming Marcel Duchamp (1964). A short portrait of Duchamp smoking a cigar.
2019
Flipbook
Edition of 200
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MISTAKE or Miracle? is a collaborative project between artist Jana Nowack and writer Dayna Grosz. The images and lyrics explore something of the beyond – beyond the concrete, beyond the material, beyond thought and beyond this planet. While the spark of this work was ignited off the blank canvas of a snow-filled Scandinavian landscape, it very slowly and very quietly matured into, well, what can we say? something very mysterious within the void of an infinite nothingness. To be honest, we stopped trying to make sense of it all as soon as we realized we were migrating through the fragility of this very uncertain century. The rest, as always, is up for interpretation.
Dayna Grosz is a writer whose work has been published and shortlisted in the Büro BDP Writing Prize 2020. Her writing also appears in The Angel City Review and Another Chicago Magazine, with additional work forthcoming in A) GLIMPSE) OF). She lives in Berlin, Germany, where she hosts the experimental poetry show CRYPTOMNESIA on Cashmere Radio.
Jana Nowack is a Berlin based artist who studied photography at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig and communication design and photography at the University of Arts in Bremen, Germany. Her work encompasses photography and video installations and was part of exhibitions at KN-Space for Art in Context in Berlin, the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, at Halle 14, Spinnerei in Leipzig, Spring Break Art Show in Los Angeles/US and C.G.Boerner in New York/US.
Photographs: Jana Nowack
Poems: Dayna Grosz
Edition: 150
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A few years after the “digital turn”. the change from analog to digital production and storage of images. asks the Fotomuseum Winterthur in the exhibition Status – 24 documents from today about the current status. the status and value of the photographic document and the documentary. The term “status” used to have a positive connotation and marked a self-confident display of one’s own stand. one’s own state of mind. so today we sometimes almost anxiously ask about the “state of affairs”; knowing. that this is often uncertain. precarious and mostly in flux. This driving uncertainty is also widespread in the field of photography. The rapid distribution and availability of images and videos in the print media. on the Internet. on social platforms like Facebook. Google. Twitter or Flickr. have led to new forms of communication with documentary images. Often we do not know the authors of the pictures. don’t know anything about the ways. who left a picture behind. until it gets to us. How can these photographic documents be understood? how does the scheme of seeing work. Understanding. Discard or save in today’s multimedia environment? don’t know anything about the ways. who left a picture behind. until it gets to us. How can these photographic documents be understood? how does the scheme of seeing work. Understanding. Discard or save in today’s multimedia environment? don’t know anything about the ways. who left a picture behind. until it gets to us. How can these photographic documents be understood? how does the scheme of seeing work. Understanding. Discard or save in today’s multimedia environment?
Featuring: Sammy Baloji, Jules Spinatsch, Trevor Paglen, Willem Popelier, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Walead Beshty, Lukas Einsele, Alfredo Jaar, Ursula Biemann, Dmitry Astakhov, Fernando Brito, Erica Overmeer, Jonas Unger, Lidwien Van de Ven, Lara Almarcegui, Fiona Tan, Unknown Taliban, Moyra Davey, Jérôme Leuba, Gosha Rubchinskiy, Eisenring & Julier, Philip Ursprung, Rory Bester, Alain Servais, Martha Rosler, Juri Steiner, Christoph Ribbat, Meredith Haaf, Elisabeth Bronfen, Philipp Sarasin, Michael Wetzel, Thomas Macho, Reinhard Braun, Andrey Parshikov, Alfonso Morales Carillo, Mirelle Thijsen, Moritz Leunenberger, Heribert Prantl, Bettina Lockemann, Kai Van Hasselt, Kim Barker, Adrian Rifkin, Lukas Bärfuss, Nadine Barth, Reto Thuering.
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A collective effort from a vital scene in Kampala, KIKOMMANDO takes its name from Ugandan street food of flat bread and beans. As a ‘food of soldiers’ offering maximum energy for minimum funds, the eponymous mixtape, video series and book project is an equally nourishing and ambitious proposition. It all began in the East African summer of 2018, during a two-month residency at the Nyege Nyege label and collective’s villa, in collaboration with their sublabel Hakuna Kulala. Producer and PAN artist Simone Trabucchi (aka STILL) opened the door to his temporary studio in the city and a crucial cross-cultural collaboration was born.
“The intention was to record as much as possible,” Trabucchi says about KIKOMMANDO’s musical showcase of eight Kampala-based artists, coming from the spectrum of musical influences, crossing trap, drill, cut ups, kuduro, electro, smooth jams—the list goes on. In creating a sonic space to support the expression of its featured singers, poets and emcees, the mixtape ties countless styles and flows into a single snapshot of a particular part of the Kampala music scene, at a particular point in time. The invective of rapper and street legend Blaq Bandana’s “Nkwaata” is laid over a spare and brooding ambient. Kampala Unit trumpet player and first-time singer, Florence, rolls a thick melodic texture through the organic clicks, knocks and atmospherics of “Bae Tasanze”. Jahcity’s unique lyricism combines a personal take on traditional music and soulful-reggae with a jerky, wobbly collection of drops and donks.
Meanwhile, Ecko Bazz applies his grimey vocals and rhythmic, introspective words to lead single ‘Ntabala (Rolex Riddim) at a particularly pertinent moment of self-reflection. “I was trying to listen to the voice inside myself and wanted to achieve a higher level of understanding of things, life,” he says about the themes that he felt inspired to explore with Trabucchi at the recording desk. The accompanying video, shot on a rooftop in the Kampala neighborhood of Ggaba, is one of a series of slick and high-definition films complementing each one of the KIKOMMANDO tracks. These also include contributions from Ugandan emcee and key Hakuna Kulala member Biga Yut, don dada of the GabaGaza gang Swordman Kitala (with Omutaba on percussion) and South Sudanese poet and singer Winnie Lado.
Also accompanying a ‘visual mixtape’ of moving images for each song on KIKOMMANDO is a recording diary of sorts, where Trabucchi compiles a vibrant collection of pictures, colours and textures reflecting the its heterogeneous sonic palette into a book. Together this multifaceted, interdisciplinary project showcases, what Lamin Fofana’s liner notes describe as, “amazing originality, complexity”, while “embracing dissonance”.
Trabucchi’s personal take on a kind of ‘digital dancehall’ defined the sound of his ground-breaking rumination on Italy’s colonial history on debut STILL album, I, in 2017. KIKOMMANDO is a different proposition entirely, where he finds new ways to complement the personality and skills of its contributors sprung from a constant stream of visitors arriving at the Nyege Nyege Villa’s makeshift studio. “It was a dialogue,” stresses Trabucchi, who has always preferred collaboration as a means to escape branded and stereotypical identities, while creating something new. “I created the musical platform to make the singers confident, and challenged them at the same time. Working together accelerates ideas and reveals that nothing is your invention alone. That’s why KIKOMMANDO is a mixtape to me, and not an album.”
Includes a set of stickers & mixtape download code.
The mixtape is mastered by Rashad Becker, featuring artwork by NMR. Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11 & 12 mixed by Ville Haimala. Tracks 5, 6 & 8 mixed by Lorenzo Dal Ri.
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#01 Berlin
Photographed by Yuki Aizawa & Hiroyoshi Tomite
Written by Hiroyoshi Tomite
Designed by Kenta Tanaka
Translated by Asako Tomotani
Edition of 100, numbered
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