Speaking In Someone Else's Language, MOM Art Space, Hamburg, Sep 2023.
A solo exhibition of installations, collages and objects. Curated by Manya Gramsch.
Speaking in someone else's language means stepping out of one's comfort zone, adapting, keeping one's mind in motion, restructuring one's thought patterns and embracing the unknown. A complex process that is closely interwoven with questions about voluntary and involuntary migration, the right to return, individual and collective history, as well as the definition of home and "being at home".
In her work, British artist Idit Elia Nathan explores the conditions of these very processes, questioning how revealing the relationships of past and present can break repetitive behaviour and enable new, alternative visions of an emerging future. The playful approach is of particular importance. In Nathan's works, artworks and viewers interactively enter into dialogue with each other. The playful approach creates an immediate and personal relationship to the themes negotiated, the exhibition space becomes a place of encounter and exchange.
The starting point for this exhibition is the artist's own family history. Nathan retraces the life of her great-grandmother, Hanna Wolff, who was born in Hamburg and forced to flee in the 1930s, and uses it to negotiate the historical conditions of the past as well as the resulting present. In the works shown, very personal questions about home, migration and a subjective image of history are brought together with philosophical or postcolonial themes so that they attain universal validity on a cultural and political level. At the same time, the exhibition offers a range of associations and individual points of contact that encourage people to reflect on their own perspectives and show possibilities for alternative dialogues. The exhibition thus brings to mind that past, present and future are always interconnected and invites us to set our own visions of the future in motion and to restructure existing thought patterns.
Curatorial text by Manya Gramsch.
For texts about specific works - expand individual photos.