KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
15 Feb 2018
Still from Bronx Gothic, 2017, by Andrew Rossi, showing Okwui Okpokwasili performing Bronx Gothic on stage, © Andrew Rossi
The third event of the 10th Berlin Biennale’s public program I’m not who you think I’m not presents Bronx Gothic, the 2017 documentary by Andrew Rossi featuring writer and performer Okwui Okpokwasili. The 91-minute screening is followed by a discussion with Okwui Okpokwasili and Nomaduma Rosa Masilela (member of the 10th Berlin Biennale’s curatorial team).
The starting point of the film is Okwui Okpokwasili’s one-woman show Bronx Gothic, a coming-of-age story about two girls in the Bronx of the 1980s. Following Okpokwasili as the show tours the US and culminates in a final performance in the Bronx, Rossi’s film examines the artist’s background and creative process, discussing the complex social issues and personal trauma embodied in her work. Providing an intimate space for audiences to become entangled with her in an embodied narrative shaped around desire and race, Okpokwasili’s performances feature a multidisciplinary practice of movement, sound, and text, all of which find their way into the film. Scenes from the show Bronx Gothic are accompanied by insights to the artist’s personal life and working practice, childhood and coming-of-age memories as well as talkbacks with her audience on her tour.
I’m not who you think I’m not, the public program of the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, disavows assumed beingness and know-hows, perspectives that are often based on existing, constructed social frameworks and their associated speculations about particular subjectivities. Throughout the buildup to the 10th Berlin Biennale until its conclusion in September 2018, the public program creates situations evading these points of view and, at the same time, proposes a refreshed grammar for facing the present.
Thursday, 15.2.2018, 7 pm
I’m not who you think I’m not #3: Bronx Gothic
Screening and discussion, in English
KW Institute for Contemporary Art,
Studio (front building, 1st floor)
Auguststraße 69
10117 Berlin
Free admission, limited capacity (please rsvp at rsvp@berlinbiennale.de)
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The parallel event I’m Not Who You Think I’m Not #4: Chebomuren is taking place in Nairobi. The public performance by the School of Anxiety takes place on Thursday, 15th February 2018, 10am at Uhuru Park, Freedom Corner (corner of Kenyatta Avenue and Uhuru Highway)
