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Prelude
Sophia Al Maria, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Kapwani Kiwanga, P. Staff

Prelude brings together the work of four emerging artists: Sophia Al Maria (Tender Point Ruin), Kapwani Kiwanga (Flowers for Africa), P. Staff (Conjunctions) and Jakob Kudsk Steensen (Liminal Lands).

It questions new relationships with nature and the way in which ecological narratives and the destruction of the natural environment influence and shape our socio-political-cultural realities. It articulates three newly created projects (Conjunctions, Liminal Lands and Tender Point Ruin) alongside an inherently new work (Flowers for Africa).

With the latter, Kapwani Kiwanga challenges the conventions of the archive and extends the possibilities of documenting history.

Sophia Al Maria's Tender Point Ruin focuses on ancient Arabic poetry, collective history and an assemblage of exquisite cadaver moments.

Conjunctions by P. Staff explores the intensity, the relationship of two bodies in contact, celestial or planetary, human or cyborg, living or undead, reflecting on the transfer of energy through matter.

Liminal Lands by Jakob Kudsk Steensen immerses the viewer intimately in the landscape of the Camargue where he has created a dynamic composition that reminds us of the mysterious and complex world we live in and the countless processes that are constantly taking place around us.

Practical Information

From June 26, 2021 to January 10, 2022
La Mécanique Générale
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Credits
© Marc Domage
© Marc Domage

Inside Prelude exhibition

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Flowers for Africa, Kapwani Kiwanga
© Marc Domage

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Flowers for Africa, Kapwani Kiwanga
© Marc Domage

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Conjunctions, P. Staff
© Marc Domage

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Conjunctions, P. Staff
© Marc Domage

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Conjunctions, P. Staff
© Marc Domage

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Tender Point Ruin, Sophia Al Maria
© Marc Domage

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Liminal Lands, Jakob Kudsk Steensen
© Marc Domage

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Tender Point Ruin, Sophia Al Maria
© Marc Domage

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Kapwani Kiwanga

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Franco-Canadian artist Kapwani Kiwanga was born in 1978 in Hamilton, Canada, and is based in Paris. Kiwanga studied Anthropology and Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal and Art at l’école des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Kiwanga’s work traces the pervasive impact of power asymmetries by placing historic narratives in dialogue with contemporary realities, the archive, and tomorrow’s possibilities. Her work is research-driven, instigated by marginalised or forgotten histories, and articulated across a range of materials and mediums including sculpture, installation, photography, video, and performance.

Recent solo exhibitions include The Reach Gallery Museum, Abbotsfor, Canada (2020); Outdoor art commission, BC Hydro Dal Grauer Substation, Capture Photo Festival, Vancouver, Canada (2020);  Pasquart Kunsthaus Centre d’art, Biel/Bienne, Switzerland (2020); Le Crédac, Ivry-sur-Seine, France (2020); Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris, France (2020).

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Jakob Kudsk Steensen

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Jakob Kudsk Steensen was in residence at LUMA Arles from january to june 2020.

Born in 1987 in Copenhagen, Denmark, Jakob Kudsk Steensen is an artist who works on environmental narratives through 3D animations and immersive sound installations. He creates poetic interpretations of little-known natural phenomena by collaborating with field biologists, composers and writers. His projects are based on in-depth fieldwork. His collaborators include composer and musical director of the Philip Glass Ensemble Michael Riesman, ornithologist and author Douglas H. Pratt, architect Sir David Adjaye OBERA, BTS, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Natural History Museum in London. Kudsk Steensen's work has recently been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Serpentine Galleries in London, PinchukArtCentre, MATADERO in Madrid, Tranen Contemporary Art Center, Pylon-Hub, SXSW at BRIC in Brooklyn, the 5th Trondheim Biennial of Art and Technology, the Carnegie Museum, MAXXI in Rome, FRIEZE in London, and OK Corral, among other institutions and festivals. Kudsk Steensen was recently artist-in-residence at LUMA Arles, where he documented phenomena linked to algae and crystallisation in the Camargue delta.
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Sophia Al Maria

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Sophia Al-Maria’s work as a writer, filmmaker, and artist is oriented around the tense relationship between makers and society, with particular attention to the socioeconomic systems that dictate those conditions. Much of her art stems from personal experiences; she uses issues of gender and place as platforms for explorations of the climate of independent filmmaking, the relationship between public space and hegemonic systems such as advertising, and the various historical forces that have shaped locales such as Cairo and Dubai. The London-based artist, who was also a delegate of the artist collective GCC (a reference to the Gulf Cooperation Council), has also received attention for her work on “Gulf Futurism,” a concept describing what Al-Maria sees as the dystopian social and aesthetic tendencies that characterise the rapidly developing Persian Gulf region. The Qatari-American artist was born in 1983, and lives and works in London, UK. Recent solo exhibitions include “Beast Type Song”, Tate Britain, London, UK (2019); “Project Room #10, Sophia Al-Maria, Mirror Cookie”, Fondazione Pomodoro, Milan, Italy (2019); “Sophia Al-Maria: BCE”, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2019).
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P. Staff

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P. Staff (born 1987, UK) lives and works in Los Angeles and London. P. Staff studied at Goldsmiths College, London (2009), and was part of the Associate Artist Programme at LUX, London (2011). Through a varied interdisciplinary body of work, P. Staff interrogates notions of discipline, dissent, labour and queer identity. P. Staff has had solo exhibitions at Serpentine Galleries, London (2019); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2019); Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland (2019); LUMA Westbau, Zürich, Switzerland (2019); Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2017); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2016); Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK (2015); The Showroom Gallery, London, UK (2014); and Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles (2012).