The Cosmologies of Objects - EXHIBITION @KfW Villa 102

03.07.2024 - 04.08.2024

Objects are archives — Memories and stories are stored in the object’s materiality and shape, in their traces of use and functions, in their sound and smell. How can we uncover this knowledge? The exhibition “The Cosmologies of Objects”, which opens on July 3 at KfW Villa 102 in Frankfurt, deals with this question and many more.

“Écoute plus souvent les choses que les êtres”—“Listen more to things than to people”

— From the poem “Souffle” (1948) by Birago Ismael Diop

The Cosmologies of Objects
3. July – 4. August 2024

Artists: Élise Fitte-Duval, Karwitha Kirimi & Adam Yawe
Curators: Mahret Ifeoma Kupka & Isabel Raabe
Curatorial assistance: Jeanne Mizero Nzakizabandi


@Villa 102 – KfW Stiftung
Bockenheimer Landstraße 102
60323 Frankfurt am Main

Opening Hours Exhibition: 04.07.-04.08.2024
Thu & Fri: 1 p.m. — 7 p.m.
Sat & Sun: 12 p.m. — 6 p.m.

Exhibition Opening on the 03. July at 6 p.m. please register via kfw-stiftung.de/en/events.

 

Objects are archives. Memories and stories are stored in the object’s materiality and shape, in their traces of use and functions, in their sound and smell. How can we retrieve this knowledge? In what contexts of meaning were and are they?  What cosmologies and knowledge systems are hidden within them? What can we learn from them? And how can we make them speak?

The exhibition The Cosmologies of Objects shows works by Élise Fitte-Duval, Karwitha Kirimi and Adam Yawe. The three artists are part of the residency programme running since 2021 by the artistic research project TALKING OBJECTS LAB. A project led by a Senegalese-Kenyan-German curatorial team interested in decolonial approaches to knowledge production. Fitte-Duval, Kirimi and Yawe deal with objects from the collection of the Musée Théodore Monod, Dakar and attempt to make the invisible visible and thus establish connections between the past and the present. Élise Fitte-Duval’s photographs, for example, reflect on the role of women in West African societies based on artefacts from the Manding Kingdom (now Mali). Adam Yawe's 3D animations build associative bridges between West African objects and Nairobi's urban culture. Finally, Karwitha Kirimi creates an expansive soundscape focussing on loss, grief and healing.

The three artists’ approach to specific objects from the Musée Théodore Monod collection testifies to polyperspectivity and a wealth of possible approaches and interpretations. Cosmologies of Objects unites a variety of aesthetics and shows ways in which objects can be made to speak in order to ultimately unravel what is archived by them.

 

TALKING OBJECTS is funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media/BKM, the KfW Stiftung, the Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe-Institut, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the local authority of Martinique. The TALKING OBJECTS THINK TANKS are developed and implemented in cooperation with the KfW Stiftung.

Le genie du Buffle © Élise Fitte-Duval
Exhibition Opening July 3. © De-Da Productions.
Series Allégorie pour une femme puissante,2023 by Élise Fitte-Duval. Image Credits: Installation view „Talking Objects. The Cosmologies of Objects” at KfW Stiftung, Villa 102, 2024, © KfW Stiftung, Photos: Jens Gerber
Exhibition Opening July 3. © De-Da Productions.
Mahindi Choma #1,2024, Kanga Video Collage with soundtrack by Adam Yawe. Image Credits: Installation view „Talking Objects. The Cosmologies of Objects” at KfW Stiftung, Villa 102, 2024, © KfW Stiftung, Photos: Jens Gerber
Exhibition Opening July 3. © De-Da Productions.
Exhibition Opening July 3. © De-Da Productions.
Muuga? Grief is a portal; bring your heart, i’ll bring the water, 2024, Sound & Video Installation by Karwitha Kirimi. Image Credits: Installation view „Talking Objects. The Cosmologies of Objects” at KfW Stiftung, Villa 102, 2024, © KfW Stiftung, Photos: Jens Gerber
Exhibition Opening July 3. © De-Da Productions.
Exhibition Opening July 3. © De-Da Productions.