NEW EELAM
White Box Exhibition
07 | 09 - 01 | 12 | 2017
The right and the entitlement to belong somewhere is tied worldwide to citizenship and national sovereignty. But can the societal structures in times of global societal change and mass movement be thought about beyond national borders? What kind of contribution can new technologies and art make?
NEW EELAM, a long-term art work by the British artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas, promotes the vision of a flexible post-national life and aims to find answers to these questions through living co-operatively beyond a permanent residence and territorially bounded citizenship. NEW EELAM is introduced using seductive promotional films and images of spacious, highly desirable aesthetisized living environments. In co-operation with curator Annika Kuhlmann and an interdisciplinary team, Thomas works on the advancement of NEW EELAM and on the real world implementation of a global flat-rate subscription service, in which subscribers or citizens will gain continuous access to a portfolio of attractive homes “in some of the world’s most charismatic neighbourhoods,” as promised by the promotional video. The subscription will allow for what is described as “liquid citizenship“.
The starting point for Thomas’ work is Eelam, once the homeland of the Tamil people in the north-east of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan civil war is one of the darkest chapters in the history of globalization. The moves towards autonomy by the neo-Marxist Tamil state, begun during the late 1970s, were brutally quelled in 2009. Eelam, from where the artist’s family originates, ceased to exist. So how could a new Eelam be imagined? Is an “Ealam for all“ conceivable? Detached from territorial claims, as a global network beyond borders and nations? Or is the flat-rate subscription model proposed suited only for the young global elites?
In the “White Box”, the exhibition and project space of the ZU artsprogram, NEW EELAM was presented in a cool-elegant, modular experience suite in a room equipped with furniture from the Berlin designer NEW TENDENCY. The installation included a science fiction documentary outlining the historical and political context of NEW EELAM, formulating the aspiration that NEW EELAM could be the basis for a new economic model, one which subversively reinterprets the mechanisms of capitalism. In this environment, works from Thomas’ project “When Platitudes Become Form“ were also shown.
As a multifunctional environment the exhibition provided an open space for performances, workshops, public discussion events as well as experimental teaching formats and informal round tables, where pressing current issues such as migration, urban development, globalization and forms of future living together were discussed.
Christopher Kulendran Thomas` works deal with the processes of global circulation and distribution, processes in which art is also involved. This also involves the entanglement of his own artistic practice with the advancement of global capitalism. His work has been shown in numerous international exhibitions including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2018), Spike Island, Bristol (2018). Tensta konsthall, Stockholm (2017), the Shenzhen Biennale (2017), the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2017), the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016), the 9th Berlin Biennale (2016), the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2016), the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2015),Tate Liverpool (2013). Thomas lives and works in London and Berlin.
Annika Kuhlmann works as a curator in a number of long-term collaborations and tackles different societal processes in her work. As artistic director of NEW EELAM she took part in the 9th Berlin Biennale, the 11th Gwangju Biennale as well as exhibitions at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin and Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm. Along with the curator Anna Frost she established the curatorial project “planes. sx” at the Bas Fisher Invitational, Miami (2015). As an artist and founder of “Brace Brace” she was also present at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, at Auto Italia (UK), with KM Temporär (DE) and DIS (US). Kehlmann works and lives in London and Berlin.
Opening hours
Thursdays to Tuesdays, 14:00 - 17.00h and by arrangement
With many thanks to our collaborators and partners: the Chamber of Architects Baden-Württemberg (Architektenkammer Baden-Württemberg, Kammergruppe Bodensee), to Michael Bihler from Bihler Möbelkonzepte and to the foundation Fränkel-Stiftung.
Contact
- Ulrike Shepherd | Curator of Visual Art & Coordinator of the artsprogram | ulrike. shepherd@ zu. de
- Prof. Dr. Karen van den Berg | Academic Head of the artsprogram | karen. vandenberg@ zu. de