JPP (*1997 in Geneva/CH) and Alexandra Sheherazade Salem (*1996 in La Gruyère/CH) are graduates of HEAD—Genève Grasp’s programme in Positive Arts and winners of the New HEADS prize for younger artists awarded by the college. They share an inventive curiosity in questions associated to id and language. Not not like Margnetti’s course of for “Serenata” exhibition, JPP and Alexandra Sheherazade Salem handle their household historical past and ask how their dad and mom’ migration experiences have formed their very own world view.

JPP attracts her artist’s pseudonym from the french j’en peux plus (engl. I can’t take it anymore). This sense, talked about satirically however shared by a complete technology, is visualised within the work Cri du cœur vers l’Absolu I, engl. A cry from the center in direction of the Absolute I. For the Albanian artist, who grew up in a sporty surroundings, Adilettes usually symbolize the second of rest after sports activities actions. Within the flooring piece, the cosy footwear transforms into an immobilising restraint, rendering transferring ahead inconceivable. Nonetheless, the heavy slides additionally allude to the significance of standing one’s floor within the wake of elevated violence, hate speech and wars JPP seeks her standpoint within the Muslim religion, which she has been linked to since her early childhood via her mom. Within the information that religion justifies modern wars and present techniques of oppression, JPP seeks to reconnect faith to one thing real. She turns to her mom’s childlike handwriting to hint the primary sura of the Quran on the wall. To her, the wonky letters and scribbled handwriting additionally stand for dialogue, understanding, and transmission.

Sorrow mobility is a range from the written works of Alexandra Sheherazade Salem. Writing is the purpose of departure to most of her work, as she underscores in her textual content From the place I write / I write about. Journal entries, recipes, and information headlines combine because the artist of Iranian heritage seeks orientation, explores hybridity and paperwork defining moments. The Persian jāt khāli recurs regularly, a figurative expression for You might be lacking. The saying turns into the anchor level of a video work by which Salem re-enacts a dialog together with her father over a sport of backgammon. As pictures from her final go to to Iran in 2019 are superimposed with the video photographs, the plastic sheets repeat the aesthetics of a number of layers within the exhibition house. On the backgammon board, as in actual life, the interaction of alternative and probability, will and luck, decides the ultimate final result. By this allegory, Alexandra Sheherazade Salem delicately explores the life story of her father, and thus, in some methods, her personal.

at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen
till Might 12, 2024