Never Take Life Seriously, Nobody Gets Out Alive Anyway
In Chemnitz, Salina and Ahmett are continuing a series of playful and performative works that they began in Jakarta in 2010. Following an intuitive sense for interesting observations on the relationship between people and their environment, they initiate – often long-term – processes, to which they usually invite other people. While the volcanic area under today‘s Chemnitz is extinct, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, especially in Java, have a dangerous, potentially life-threatening nature. Now that the first effects of the climate crisis are beginning to be recognised in Europe, entire cities in Indonesia are already being relocated and islands are being cleared, threatening to be flooded by rising sea levels, while mountains of waste, mainly from the global North, are piling up. In all of this, Salina and Ahmett focus on a shared human experience: the first human cry, when a baby takes its first breath outside the amniotic fluid. Referring to this climatic shock that we all carry within us, the sounds of endangered monkey species and speechless calls that people use to communicate with each other over long distances, the artists developed a performance together with Chemnitz residents that plays with echoes in the urban space. Despite all the humour that characterises the performance and its video documentation, like all of Salinas and Ahmett‘s works, there is always a tragic and essential aspect of life on this planet hidden behind it.
Performance on: 22nd, 25th and 29th of June, 5pm at Jakobikirchplatz (alley between Jakobichurch and old city hall)
The video documentation will be presented in the foyer of the Museum Gunzenhauser from July on.