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Absorption

© Heinrich Holtgreve

14.8. – 25.9.21

Address

ehemaliges Allbauhaus
Pferdemarkt 5-7
45127 Essen

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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

Open Artsit
Portrait of artist Asad Raza, who creates interdisciplinary works between art, science, and philosophy, wearing glasses and an olive-green jacket in an urban setting.

© 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.

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Hamminkeln

The Grand Snail Tour will be accompanied by literary, photographic and illustrative artists, who will collect impressions and reflections from the same city at the same time as the Trailer is there and put them into visual or literary form. The result is a paratext on the three-year tour, a travel chronicle in the form of a kaleidoscope of stories, connections and snapshots in the 53 cities of the region, revealing the simultaneities and non-simultaneities of the Grand Snail Tour.

Hamminkeln by Erdem Teper

so müssen wohl die bäume über die menschen denken, 
der mensch ist ewig damit beschäftigt 
versteht, dass alles und jeder irgendwo
eins ist 
versteht, dass alles –  liebt und lacht und lebt in frieden existiert; stoa
versteht, dass es ist – ebenbild 
wenn mensch findet sich selbst 
vor uralten baumrinden 
ein wesen schaut das andere an, 
am ende haben beide einander
und somit sich selbst erkannt 
beide aus gerüst, beide aus haut 
nur dass der baum im wald sich zutraut
zurecht, dass er den menschen überlebt; 
während die zeit bereits 
das leichentuch des menschen webt 
und der baum schaut den menschen an, 
beide aus haut, rinde und knochen 
nur hat der neue mensch 
seine beziehung zur natur unterbrochen

Artist

Open Artsit

©priscilliagrubo

Erdem Teper

Erdem Teper writes about everything that makes Erdem feel. Themes in his poetry are often taken from philosophical and religious contexts.

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