January - February 2022 — Visual Arts

In January-February 2022 Swiss artist Uriel Orlow is returning to Dakar, Senegal to pick up his research and production of a new work at the Musée d’art africain Théodore Monod, which will be exhibited in May 2022, during the Dakar Biennale, as part of an exhibition curated by Malick Ndiaye and Emmanuelle Cherel exploring the permanent collection of this museum. The research continues the work started a few years ago (within the framework of Soil Affinities and for the Lubumbashi Biennial) and considers plants as witnesses as well as actors of history, dynamic agents at the junction between humans and nature. Their knowledge forces us to revisit our knowledge. In Senegal, the fieldwork will lead Uriel Orlow to engage with the archives of the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire of the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, to the traditional hospital of the commune of Keur Massar, to the botanical park of Hann, and to CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa), during this research trip.

The creation of new works will be based on the content generated during the research phase. Following the material collected in Senegal during the meetings and workshops, Uriel will produce works for both inside the museum and the gardens.

BIOGRAPHY

Uriel Orlow’s practice is research-based, process-oriented and multi-disciplinary including film, photography, drawing and sound. He is known for single screen film works, lecture performances and modular, multi-media installations that focus on specific locations and micro-histories and bring different image-regimes and narrative modes into correspondence. His work is concerned with residues of colonialism, spatial manifestations of memory, blind spots of representation and plants as political actors.

Uriel’s work has been presented in many international survey shows including 54th Venice Biennale (2011), Manifesta 9 and 12, Genk/Palermo (2012, 2018), Riboca 2 – Riga Biennial (2020), Taipei Biennial (2020), Lubumbashi Biennial (2019), 13th Sharjah Biennial 13 (2017), 7th Moscow Biennial (2017), EVA Biennial (2016, 2014), 8th Mercosul Biennial, Brazil (2011), Aichi Triennale (2013); and Bergen Assembly (2013) amongst others. Solo exhibitions in 2020 include Kunsthalle Mainz, La Loge Brussels and State of Concept Athens. His work and films have been shown widely in museums, galleries and institutions around the world.