by Layla Zami*
Berlin’s best beats have always pulsed beneath, besides, beyond. Back in 1994, after I arrived in Berlin with my freshly expatriate Black-Jewish family from Paris, my commute to school would include a transfer via Potsdamer Platz, which was truly a sandlot with silent scars of World War II. My way to class at Französisches Gymnasium where we learned about the historical Marshall plan required walking on marshy land across the eerily empty city center. Today, many “Bombenlücke”(1) have been filled with buildings, yet I still carry the memory of the void with me each time I pass through the buzzing streets spilling with Starbucks and Sony energy. Although I was still a bit young to fully experience the city’s subcultures, I did get a glimpse into some of its artistic territories of freedom, such as the Tacheles community. The 1990s were times when the Love Parade, initiated by DJ Dr. Motte and interdisciplinary artist Danielle de Picciotto, would sprawl over town amidst the crumbling Wall. I never attended the parade, and little did I know that 30 years later, I would become part of a collective exhibition with Danielle and other artists who shaped the cityscape with their work, thanks to artist and curator extraordinaire Oxana Chi.
Shortly after moving back again from Paris to Berlin – this time as an adult, and alone – I met Oxana at a performance evening on September 20, 2009 at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, located near Spichernstr. For the closing event to the Berlin International Literature Festival, and upon invitation by the association AfricAvenir International e.V., the dance company Mémoires Vives had been invited to perform the piece À Nos Morts. It tells the tale of the many individuals from the Global South who fought for France in World War I without ever receiving any kind of acknowledgement nor compensation, called „tirailleurs“. The blend of hip hop dance, storytelling and multimedia projection was compelling. I immediately noticed Oxana in the audience with her charismatic presence and dancing demeanor. She invited me to attend her own performance program, Through Gardens, a choreographic tribute to the forgotten biography and legacy of Chinese-Jewish-Latvian dancer-choreographer Tatjana Barbakoff. In the years that followed, I had the chance to collaborate with Oxana, first as a photographer/videographer documenting her work, and our award-winning movie Dancing Through Gardens can be found at the NYU library. Today I am blessed to be with her on stage, accompanying her choreography with my contributions in the form of live-music, spoken words, and theater, touring across the globe.
Oxana Chi is a German interdisciplinary artist, curator, pedagogue and trendsetter who has been creating films, installations, dance productions, writing and interdisciplinary events for three decades. As a Black queer woman of Eastern Nigerian and Eastern European descent, it was not always easy to access funding and fame, and yet she achieved international recognition and is listed in New York’s A to Z of People Who Power the Dance World. Her body of work is discussed in several university syllabi and publications such as Black Lives Under Nazism, and led her to be invited to inspire young students at New York University, where she mentored choreographers in the Dance Department in 2022.
This year, Chi proudly celebrates 33+ years of being an awesome artist with a multidimensional project called STAYING VISIBLE! Black Queer Women Archives Matter. Conceived in 2022 and funded by the Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld among others, the project began in May 2024 with an exhibition at the women’s center Begine e.V. in Schöneberg, followed by video-installations and performances at the factory-wide Uferstudios in Wedding in July. This fall, the third and last installment happens at the intimate Galerie Gondwana in Schöneberg. Under the header “Temple”, Chi curated an exhibition featuring eleven artists who were part of her professional pathway during her Berlin years (with the exception of Kerry Downey, a former educator at MoMA now on faculty at RISD and a friend from the Brooklyn years). 11 is a magical number connected to spiritual awakening.
Among the artists are Danielle de Picciotto, a prolific visual artist, costume-maker and musician, as well as Betty Stürmer, a visual artist and “DJ everybody” initiator, and Lena Braun known for her innovative curations. These were the people with whom Oxana partied…and co-shaped the avant-garde art that made Berlin attractive to all in the 1990s and early 2000s. Other exhibiting artists include Domenico Zindato, a Mexico-based painter whose art brut drawings were acquired by the Milwaukee Art Museum and the American Folk Art Museum in New York, and prominent East German painter Torsten Schlüter, whose career spans Weimar, Hiddensee and Goa. My contributions to the exhibition are: a dance rehearsal photograph of Oxana, and my charcoal-ink sketches for the drawing that became the logo of our association for transcultural art and civic education, li:chi e.V. founded in 2010.
Mellifluous moods, mystic drawings, and musical memories blend in the astutely curated show. Housed on the clay walls of the elegant gallery space, the exhibition introduces an innovative concept, in which each artist is featured with one historical work connected to Oxana Chi’s personal archive, and a contemporary production. Although I have known Oxana for 15+ years, I was struck by all the layers that I got to discover through her self-curated archival retrospective. Focusing friendship in the show also felt special and resonated with my current non-fiction reading of MISS CHLOE, brilliantly birthed by A.J. Verdelle, about her literary friendship with Toni Morrison.
Life is all about uncovery. When you first encounter a person, a history, a concept, you think you know something or have discovered something. But life and artistic work require that you draw back the duvet, you draw back the drapes, you let the shade roll up and rattle. Nothing is as it seems. Every surface is shallow. The artist’s work starts underneath, or behind, or before you begin uncovery. Art demands natural light and a sightline. Art is made from the days we all live, stripped back to their shimmering, original promise. First, the artist makes it plain, and then she makes it pretty. (2)
l. to r.: Ziwei (NYU Berlin), a student from Bard Berlin, Oxana Chi and Layla Zami
Study abroad is all about uncovery too. Students encounter the city and its history, and beneath all, uncover layers of their own self along the way. Indeed, Berlin is much more plain than it is pretty, and the truth is, it may take time to discover its beauty. Incoming students in the New York University Berlin program are already out and about, and it was a delight to welcome some of them at the exhibition opening on September 6, 2024. As part of the evening, Oxana Chi screened a Super 8 film. Coco Mopiheici is about the ongoing transformation and resilience of a female character characterized by the color red, who moves across space and time. It premiered in 1997 one year before the iconic movie Lola rennt. The audience appreciated the use of an old Super 8 device to project the movie, setting the stage for a 1990s flair. The relation to texture, color, and pace felt more intense and intimate than in the visual regime we have grown accustomed to in the 21st century. The exhibition will close with a collective concert on September 22, 2024 held in cooperation with the Berlin Month of Contemporary Music. Here again, Oxana gathers constellations of collaborators, curating sonic impressions of old and newer friendships who will share vocal and wind instrumental music. At a time when the Whitney Museum unveils a unique Alvin Ailey retrospective, Berliners can take a ride to Berlin-Schöneberg to become familiar with an Afro-German perspective on archives, and attempt to do what Tina Campt would call “refocusing our attention on […] black subjects in their persistent striving for futurity.” (3)
STAYING VISIBLE! Vol. 3 TEMPLE
A Project by and with Oxana Chi
Exhibition
The dancing muse and the arts
Galerie Gondwana
Merseburgerstr. 14
Berlin-Schöneberg
Hours: Wed – Fr, 2-6pm and Sat 1-5pm
Guided tour available upon request
oxanachidance(a)gmail.com
Closing Event
Concert
Sunday, September 22
7:00 – 8:30 pm
Free / Give what you can
More info in English
https://www.field-notes.berlin/en/kalender/windinstrumente-ein-konzert-zum-durchatmen
Endnotes
(1) German word referring to the gaps between buildings in cities bombed during WWII.
(2) A.J. Verdelle. MISS CHLOE. A Memoir of a Literary Friendship with Toni Morrison. New York: Harper Collins, 2023. p. 32
(3) Campt. Listening to Images. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017. p. 11
*LAYLA ZAMI is a new lecturer at NYU Berlin, where she co-teaches the Experiential Learning seminar with Dr. Gabriella Etmektsoglou. Zami is also a postdoctoral researcher at Freie Universität Berlin, with research, teaching, and curating responsibilities at the Collaborative Research Center Intervening Arts. She was a faculty member at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and in Berlin, where she taught courses in the fields of the humanities, art history, writing, and art education. Her monograph Contemporary PerforMemory (2020) received the Honorable Mention in the Oscar G. Brockett Book Prize (2023). As an interdisciplinary artist, Layla Zami performs and presents internationally with Oxana Chi Dance & Art.