transmediale: Rendering Refusal

Exhibition

transmediale
Rendering Refusal
Exhibition

The exhibition Rendering Refusal of transmediale's year-long festival is taking place at Kunstraum Bethanien and silent green. Due to pandemic regulations, the exhibition was initially accessible exclusively via the digital visit programme Proxy Visits and on the basis of extensive documentation. From March 15, additional in person visits will be permitted.

For the Proxy Visits, visitors can connect via video call with an exhibition host at the venue and experience the works with them. In person visits as well as Proxy Visits can be booked for both venues on the transmediale website
 

Rendering Refusal

Refusal renders hope visible.
It demands that the conditions for hope emerge and flourish.
Wilfully signifying possibilities of deviation, refusal speaks to denied histories and subjectivities.

Hope resides in small spaces, in slivers and in cracks.
It is shaped – often under pressure – by desires and ambitions and can negotiate histories, cultures, political spheres, and planetary conditions. Acting as a resource that enables individuals and communities to persist, hope can offer visions of prosperity, security, and redemption to those who seek or need it.

Although appearing divergent, when brought together, hope and refusal can conspire. They can refute the logics of existing orders and function as critical lenses for sustaining collective values, approaches, and actions.

Offering partial renders of socio-political realities that misalign with the status quo, Rendering Refusal explores what can emerge from saying no. In an attempt to broaden perspectives on long-standing political conflicts and to shape futures from contradiction and difference, the works in the exhibition suggest responsibility for plurality and materialise what is often muted, erased, or made fugitive. Working with strategies of non-compliance and negation, the artists present small acts of domestic rebellion, create anti- monuments to myths, imagine failure as progress and manoeuvre between systems of governance. Presenting strategies, proposals and interventions, Rendering Refusal addresses moments of metamorphosis, intimacy, and vulnerability, seeking transformation, regeneration and change.

Artists at Betonhalle: Larry Achiampong, Eli Cortiñas, Jennifer Mehigan, Sung Tieu, and Natasha Tontey

Fotos: © Luca Girardini / theta.cool

The exhibition is supported by the European Union and launches the Artsformation Project.