Melanie Bonajo Night Soil / Economy of Love,
2015, still, HD video, 36 min
photo credit : AKINCi gallery and the artists
AKINCI is proud to
announce Melanie Bonajo's first solo show, Night Soil /
Economy of Love, with a lush and sensuous opening on
Saturday 12th of September 5 - 7 pm, followed by a
psychedelic concert by Bonajo's music duo Z▲Z▲Z◎Z◎
in OT301 8 pm.
This festive opening
will be accompanied by the presentation of Melanie Bonajo's
newest book, 'Matrix Botanica, numero 1 - Non-Human
Persons,' designed by Experimental Jetset and published by
Capricious Publishing, New York.
The enticing
title Night Soil / Economy of Love refers to Bonajo's
(1978, NL) newest film in her trilogy Night Soil.
Whereas the first part of the trilogy, Night Soil / Fake
Paradise (2014), explores the cultural affect of
hallucinogens and human connection to nature, Night Soil
/ Economy of Love (2015) portrays a Brooklyn-based
movement of female sex workers, regarding their work as a
way for women to reclaim power in a male-dominated pleasure
zone; their mission being to rearrange sexual conventions
and ideas about intimacy itself. Vivid imagery is
accompanied by a spoken score, revealing Bonajo's vision on
contemporary spirituality and expectations surrounding
gender roles by playful, sensual, and feminist-driven means.
In a world where a swipe to the right on a smartphone can
grant access to supermarket sex, where social media tend to
create an alternate form of loneliness, and where we are
increasingly disconnected from the physical world, Bonajo
questions the complex relationships that exist within and
without the natural world, challenging the traditional
notions that divide nature, people, and technology. She
looks to environmental activism and, in particular, how that
activism is leveraged illegally against global capitalism.
Besides the world premiere of Night
Soil / Economy of Love, Bonajo shows an overview of her
ever-growing series of photographs based on actions and
performance. Some mysteriously endearing, some refreshingly
provocative, these photographs depict human's attitude to
nature, environmental conditions and transformative power
structures. In her work, Bonajo examines the paradoxes
inherent to ideas of comfort with a strong sense for
community, equality, and body-politics. Through her videos,
performances, photographs and installations, she studies
subjects related to how technological advances and
commodity-based pleasures increase feelings of alienation,
removing a sense of belonging in an individual. Captivated
by concepts of the divine, Bonajo explores the spiritual
emptiness of her generation, examines peoples’ shifting
relationship with nature and tries to understand existential
questions by reflecting on our domestic situation, ideas
around classification, concepts of home, gender and
attitudes towards value.
Melanie Bonajo Dream Station Space, 2013, installtion and performance
photo credit : AKINCi gallery and the artists
Bonajo's
work has been exhibited and performed in international art
institutions, such as De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam;
Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw; the Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam; The Moscow Biennale; National Museum of Modern
and Contemporary Art, Seoul, and PPOW Gallery, New York. Her
films have been screened at festivals such as the
International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and
the Berlinale. In 2012 she initiated the collective Genital
International, which tackles subjects around feminism,
participation, equality, our Earth, ‘Politics beyond
Polarity’ and ‘Revolution through Relaxation.' Bonajo has
contributed to several art magazines, was creative editor of
Capricious Magazine, and curated various shows, such as the
QQC Performance Festival about pop music in visual arts at
the Paradiso, Amsterdam. She published several books,
including: Modern Life of the Soul, I Have a Room with
Everything, Spheres and Furniture Bondage. In 2013 she
released an album with her band Z▲Z▲Z◎Z◎
called Inua. Bonajo studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy
and completed residencies at a.o. ISCP in New York (2014)
and the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst in Amsterdam
(2009-10). She lives and works in Amsterdam and New York.
LIJNBAANSGRACHT 317 • NL–1017 WZ AMSTERDAM • T +31(0)20 6380480 • INFO@AKINCI.NL • WWW.AKINCI.NL
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