forest/for rest/faux rest...
\\\\dub dub dub
Sep 21, 2024 - Oct 27, 2024
“spaces for rest... outdoor spaces/ routes-lawns-playgroundsRest also as in working from a place of non active thinking/the subconscious....but faux- rest, false rest as there is alertness during rest...amidst the spontaneity, real time road processions / compositions or painting with and within the elements.” — Em’kal Eyongakpa & Marcel van den Berg
forest/for rest/faux rest...\\\\dub dub dub, a collaborative research project explores the material culture of war economies and the impact of global wars on our society. In a time when the effects of wars in Southern Cameroon, Gaza, Sudan, and Congo are felt daily, Em’kal Eyongakpa and Marcel van den Berg engage with the role of art in processing war and violence through camo/sound sculptures, paintings, and ceramic works.
Presented by Metro54, forest/for rest/faux rest...\\\\dub dub dub delves into how artists negotiate the growing uncertainty and fragmentation of knowledge and life in our world. As Babylon reveals its ugly face across the globe—wrongoing tragedies in Southern Cameroon, Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Ukraine, and the entanglements of the US and EU—the artists aim to reclaim and repurpose camouflage, its stories, and aesthetics from the imperial war project, flipping the script, fading in and out.
In these trying times, it feels more relevant than ever to present works based on military-used gear, investigating the history and use of camouflage. Camouflage, originally conceived by artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, draws its essence from nature, an abstraction born in the forest. Now, we seek to deconstruct and transform these "Camo" and post-genocide hybrid tools, reconnecting them to the forest where their attributes truly derive.
The collaborative installation brings together paintings, ceramic works, culinary practices, custom pulsating platforms, light score, multichannel videos and sound sculptures inspired by the material culture of wartime economies and the recent events in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and Congo.
“Different strokes for different folks. Dub version.”
Drawing from dub in its myriad meanings, sound takes the shape of material, cosmic, (non-)being. Here, acoustics and sonic sounds intertwine with a vibrant visual language, where polyphonies and polyrhythms converge. The resulting works resonate in intuitive rhythms, creating dialogues that respond to the spaces they inhabit. Analogue and digital mystics step into the forest—light filters through, casting itself onto the paintings, sculptures, and videos.
This collaborative work stands on the shoulders of artistic predecessors and even ancestors, who, despite immense struggles, elevated themselves through creative expression. The visual and acoustic structures resonate with rhythm, rooted in the forest—Fo(R)est—a place for rest.
Please join us for the opening of the show on September 21st!
Time: 6pm - 9pm
Location: Westerdoksdijk 597
Entrance: Free
Please send an rsvp email to rsvp@metro54.nl if you would like to join.