Breadcrumbs
Absorption
© Heinrich Holtgreve
Address
ehemaliges Allbauhaus
Pferdemarkt 5-7
45127 Essen
Earth, the underestimated material from which our world grows, penetrates into the furthest corners of a historic building in Essen's city centre. With Absorption, Urbane Künste Ruhr is showing an installation by US artist Asad Raza of great sensual and poetic power, which takes up the entire ground floor of the listed former Allbau building on Pferdemarkt.
Earth is created as a mixture of sand, clay and compost. Organic and inorganic matter is added to this base in the run-up to and during the exhibition, which is processed and composted to create new earth - called ‘Neosoil’ by Raza. A team of ‘cultivators’ will also be on site throughout the duration of the exhibition, constantly filtering, breaking down, analysing and remixing the soil under scientific supervision. The components collected in the region, such as sewage sludge, waste paper or hair, enrich the soil, which is given away as fertile soil to visitors, allotment associations and social organisations during the exhibition period.
At the invitation of Asad Raza, artists Maria Renee Morales Garcia and Agatha Gothe-Snape will add sculptural and performative moments of tension to the process alongside the sound work Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain by Tony Conrad. Earlier versions of Absorption were shown at the Kaldor Public Art Project (Sydney, 2019) and the Gropius Bau (Berlin, 2020).
Artist
© Daniel Sadrowski
Asad Raza
In his work artist Asad Raza often explores dialogic exchange and rejects disciplinary boundaries. Raza conceives of art as a metabolic, active experience combining human, non-human beings.