House of Kal
Three-month-long exhibition that acts as a polyphonic community architecture, continuously activated by radio broadcasts, music, films, performances, and workshops. At its center, a makeshift kiosk invites visitors to meet, chat, and rest. The kiosk serves drinks, snacks, and publications and holds offerings to the House by different members of the kal community, such as readings, sound, and personal archives. Around it, five artistic and activist positions unfold queer and post-/migrant practices of collectivity, resistance, and imperfect solidarity.
Co-curated by Aziz Sohail, Aziza Ahmed, Promona Sengupta and The Many Headed Hydra. Artistic positions by Vicky Shahjehan, Zahabia Khozeima, Spaceship Beben, Women in Exile and The Many Headed Hydra. Supported and hosted by nGbK Berlin, 2023.
The exhibition space functions as a খুঁটি (khum̐ṭi; commonly khNuti), a device commonly used in the Bengal delta to tie down boats and cattle. Figuratively, খুঁটি also refers to an anchor for hopes, wishes, and dreams. Around it, post-/migrant alliances emerge between South Asia and Europe, opening up spaces of anti-fascist and anti-racist possibility across different bodies of water – from the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea to the North Atlantic and the Spree River.
Vicky Shahjehan gathers stories of women and queer people from the Slave Island/Kompanna Veediya neighborhood in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and members of queer, migrant, and refugee communities in Berlin. Rituals and storytelling inspire a mural that tells marginalized female and queer histories in a social and ecological space threatened by racialized and patriarchal oppression in the shape of neoliberal urban development, militarization, displacement, and poverty.
In Finnafjörður, Iceland, the German state-owned company Bremenports, together with the Icelandic government, is planning to build a deep-sea port that is projected to become profitable as a major shipping hub for Arctic extraction and geopolitical dominance due to ice-melt spurred by global warming. Based on this and another new port construction in Gwadar, Pakistan, the installation Harbour Failures by the collective The Many Headed Hydra connects extractive economies, Indigenous ecosystems, and anti-colonial mythologies.
The activist group Women* in Exile campaigns for the rights of refugee women* in Germany. Together with the House of Kal team, they are documenting three manifestations of their anti-racist and anti-fascist work. In 2014, the Refugee Women* Tour on Rafts traveled for seven weeks on self-built rafts across various German rivers, connecting with women* in refugee and deportation centers. In 2018, Women* in Exile, together with others, supported a demonstration against the right-wing AfD party in Berlin from a raft on the Spree River. And in 2022, they baptized a new ship of the sea rescue organization Sea Watch, which is active in the Mediterranean Sea.
Using the example of a working-class neighborhood in her hometown of Karachi, Pakistani artist Zahabia Khozema explores the collapse of urban infrastructure from a queer-feminist perspective. Personal experiences of the artist and her friends from the Gujjar Nullah neighborhood, which is threatened by austerity, hetero-patriarchal state violence, demolition, and flooding, illustrate the effects of the housing crisis on working class communities.
During the exhibition period, a joint radio program by Radio Kal and Radio We Are Born Free + Onelove Radio with Spaceship Beben will be broadcast every Friday and Sunday. Radio Kal is a fleeting sonic space, for artistic experimentation and gathering community across space and time. Radio We Are Born Free + Onelove Radio are independent radio formats created through the German refugee resistance movement. Spaceship Beben is a FLINTAQ+ led deeep space exploration vehicle producing supersonic ship dispatches for the universe. Their collaborative program addresses the alienating experience of migration and the right to movement, using sound to fugitively move through border regimes.
With contributions by Aziza Ahmad, Bino Byansi Byakuleka, Promona Sengupta, Radio Kal & Radio Wearebornfree! with Spaceship Beben (Adriana Disman, Jorinde Schulz, Sumona Dhakal), The Many Headed Hydra collective (Aziz Sohail, Bryndís Björnsdottír, Emma Wolf-Haugh, Suza Husse & Ayesha Chaudhry & Ayesha Alizeh, Khalida Hussain, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Ni6369 Shell samples, Paloma Ayala, Pia Arke, Sabeen Omar, Vasi Samudra Devi, Veenadari Lakshika, Zahra Malkani), Vicky Shahjehan, Venuri Perera, Women in Exile & House of Kal and Zahabia Khozema.
Housewarming offerings by Sakina Aliakbar, Alizeh Ayesha, Hema Shironi Joseph, Chathuri Nissansala, Aio Frei, Yvonne Wilhelm (knowbotiq), Vera Ryser, Sabeen Omar, Veenadari Lakshika, Sehan Khanna, Sophia-Layla Afsar, Ayesha Chaudhry, Tehreem Mela, Vasi Samudra Devi, Lucas Odahara, Franck-Lee Alli-Tis and Arshia Fatima Haq
Radio, performance and film contributions by Bino Byansi Byakuleka, Rongili Biswas, Jorinde Schulz, Sumona Dhakal, Adriana Disman, Rohini Devasher, Anandita Bajpai, Sarnt Utamachote and Venuri Perera.