Contact Zones — Pamela Breda, Victoria Keddie, Sajan Mani

Opening for Contact Zones—Pamela Breda, Victoria Keddie, Sajan Mani at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. With this exhibition, the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) is collaborating with the museum for the second time. The initiative for this joint exhibition came from INHABIT, the Institute’s artist-in-residence program, which hosts two guest artists from different artistic disciplines each year for four months to pursue their work in dialogue and exchange with the researchers.

This exhibition for the third and fourth iteration of INHABIT presents the works of Pamela Breda, Victoria Keddie, and Sajan Mani created during their residencies, in the context of a scientific research institute.

The title Contact Zones alludes to the interaction between different cultures of knowledge and the challenge of not only fostering a conversation between the arts and natural sciences, but also creating a common language and opportunities for dialogue.

“While in cultural studies, the term ‘contact zone‘ describes a social space where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, in the context of this residency program it refers to the space of interaction between the artistic and scientific fields”, says Curator Eike Walkenhorst of the MPIEA.

Without conceptual constraints, each iteration of INHABIT is entirely defined by the respective guest artists themselves in terms of the questions posed and the media employed.

In her film, Pamela Breda sketches a future scenario in which advanced artificial intelligence blurs the boundaries between human and machine actors, and poetically introduces us to the challenges of human relationships and interactions with AI systems.

Victoria Keddie focuses on the ongoing transformation of spoken language, exploring the auditory and rhythmic nuances of phonetic expression in a multimedia and expansive installation.

Sajan Mani works along his biography of Dalit history and the colonial history of Kerala, creating an alternative narrative based on colonial collections that counters the muteness and oppression of his ancestors with a different visibility.

All the artists have worked in very different ways during their residencies. Their projects are an expression of different approaches to the scientific environment and, not least, shaped by encounters, dialogues, and cooperation.

The exhibition will be on view at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt am Main until July 28, 2024.
Further information can be found here.

Contact: Eike Walkenhorst