MEET ME BY THE FIRE
an exhibition by Rehema Chachage and Huda Takriti
at STUDIO WALLS, Löhrgasse 9
OPENING EVENING:
6 OCTOBER, 6 PM
EXHIBITION:
7 - 10 OCTOBER
viewing upon the request
contact: justina@questionmeandanswer.com
1.
It began with a call,
For us to come together,
To think together,
and to work together,
Towards a joint exhibition,
A conversation in space.
2.
Our meeting in space,
Became a meeting with fire…
A meeting around fire.
The fire became a natural thread for both our practices,
A thread we were eager to explore.
3.
To meet by the fire is to…
Join into an intergenerational circle of togetherness.
To join into processes of endless collaboration…
… of endless improvisation.
To meet by the fire is to…
… not only meet at a space…
… from where to understand…
… but also, to carry knowledges…
… to carry histories…
… to communion with expanded identities…
… which extend across lineages…
… to ancestors and ancestresses…
… who have gathered in similar fires…
… in geographies which are…
… much more familiar to us to navigate…
… and, in tongues which are…
… much more comfortable for us to converse in.
To meet by the fire is to join in the never-ending dance and negotiation with its flame!
Come, meet us here
Meet us by the fire!
After all…
we inherit what the fires left.
Rehema Chachage
b.1987, Dar es Salaam
Rehema Chachage is a visual artist whose practice can be viewed as a performative archive which untraditionally collects stories, rituals and other oral traditions in different media (performance, photography, video, text as well as physical installations); which traces hi/stories directly tied to (and connecting with) her matrilineage; and, which utilizes methodologies which are both embodied and instinctual, employing written texts, oral and aural stories, melodies, and relics from several re-enacted/performed rituals as source of research.
She has a BA in Fine Art (2009) from Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town; and an MA in Contemporary Art Theory (2018) from Goldsmiths, University of London. Currently, she is doing her PhD in practice with the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna with her research focusing on the archive and its methodologies, specifically observing ways of doing the archive differently through one’s practice as an artist.
www.rehemachachage.com
Huda Takriti
b.1990, Damascus
Huda Takriti is a trans-disciplinary artist currently based in Vienna. In her artistic practice, she explores the relationship between history, politics, memories and counter memories and the construction of our own subjectivities. She uses different media to work with these issues, such as video, film, installation, painting, and performative situations. In most of her works, she attempts to generate questions about how we relate to others, how we tell personal stories in the frame of the collective history and how we deal with our patrimony and traditions.
Takriti has participated in many international group exhibitions and festivals, including exhibitions (selection) at Universitätsgalerie im Heiligenkreuzerhof (Austria), Kunsthalle Wien (Austria), Afro Asiatisches Institut (Austria), [.Box] Video Art Project Space (Italy), STIFF Student International Film Festival (Croatia). She received her Master Degree from the TransArts department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna - Die Angewandte in 2020 and the Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2020 for her recent video installation “of cities and private living rooms”.
www.hudatakriti.com