Curated by Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez, Arts and Culture Program Manager at Cité International des Arts, the exhibition, When Solidarity Is Not a Metaphor, created by Alserkal Initiatives in partnership with Cité International des Arts and in collaboration with Lightbox, readies to take place at Arsenale Venice.
When Solidarity Is Not a Metaphor offers a counter-space to the reigning agendas of war, patriarchy, and colonialism and their toxic impacts on human and non-human ecosystems, while the artists Majd Abdel Hamid, Yana Bachynska, Rehaf Al Batniji, Paula Valero Comín, Saad Eltinay, D Harding, Adelita Husni-Bey, Nge Lay, Museum of Breath, Koushna Navabi, Shada Safadi, Dima Srouji and Jasbir Puar, challenge the understanding of ‘solidarity’ as merely an object of theorizing and discourse.
The exhibition is inspired by the title of the book Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor (2012), in which authors Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang analyze the material and factual violence of colonialism.
Program of the exhibition
Throughout the six-day exhibition and corresponding program, solidarity is articulated as compassionate porosity, a feminist, care-driven fluidity of moving across mindsets. Its most humble unit of expression is held in the word ‘with’—working, thinking, speaking, and simply being in a state of with-ness. Many of the featured artists in When Solidarity Is Not a Metaphor share the destiny of forced displacement and are doubly committed, both to igniting questions that address these displacements and to sustaining ethical practices of production. The exhibition is complemented by a diverse program starting at 3pm daily, with contributions by DAAR – Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care (Bani Khoshnoudi, Magdi Masaraa, Elena Sorokina), Maya Al Khaldi and Sarouna, R22 Tout-Monde, Zora Snake, Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman.
When Solidarity is Not a Metaphor will take place from 16 to 21 April 2024 at My Art Guides Venice Meeting Point, Arsenale, Venice.
