Strange Attractors

Artist Publication & Reading Room

Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, 2018

Image © Timo Ohler

Strange Attractors reading room in KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Image © Timo Ohler

Strange Attractors, showing herbarium pages from Rosa Luxemburg’s journals. Image © Tina Wessel

Strange Attractors, showing a work contributed by Mildred Thompson. Image © Tina Wessel

Image © Tina Wessel

Book Launch on June 12, 2018. With (L to R) Isaiah Lopaz, Mame-Diarra Niang, Temitayo Ogunbiyi, Beau Hyung Rhee, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Nomaduma Rosa Masilela, Jeanette Gogoll. KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Image © Tina Wessel

Book Launch on June 12, 2018. with (L to R) Beau Hyung Rhee, Nontsikelelo Mutiti, Nomaduma Rosa Masilela, Jeanette Gogoll. KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Image © Tina Wessel

Audience members. Book Launch on June 12, 2018. KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Image © Tina Wessel

Book Launch on June 12, 2018. KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Image © Tina Wessel

Audience members. Book Launch on June 12, 2018. KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Image © Tina Wessel

Book Launch on June 12, 2018. KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Image © Tina Wessel

Forget-me-not seedlings for planting. Book Launch on June 12, 2018. KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Image © Tina Wessel

Collective planting in KW courtyard. Book Launch on June 12, 2018. KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Image © Tina Wessel

Collective planting in KW Courtyard. Book Launch on June 12, 2018. KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Image © Tina Wessel

Image © Nomaduma Rosa Masilela

Reading room wallpaper designed by Ebba Fransén Waldhör. Image © Ebba Fransén Waldhör

Image © Ebba Fransén Waldhör

Floor 3 1/2, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany

Strange Attractors was a curatorial publication project which united artist contributions and archival material. It was an exercise in uncertainty and a search for analogue strategies of opacity. The projects within Strange Attractors engaged with notions of cosmology, relationality, and scale; they reflected how our unstable personal cosmologies and ever-evolving epistemologies are the result of the tenuous ties that bind our relations. Strange Attractors (both a publication and a room) was a reach for connection and an acknowledgement of the discreet gestures that go unnoticed but nevertheless have strangely indiscreet reverberations.

The reading room was located on floor 3 1/2 in KW. The wallpaper of the reading room was designed with Ebba Fransén Waldhör, with images of Rosa Luxemburg’s herbarium courtesy of KARL DIETZ VERLAG BERLIN/Herbarium Rosa Luxemburg.

The book launch took place on June 12, 2018 as part of the 10th Berlin Biennale public program I’m not who you think I’m not, and included conversation with and music by some of the publication contributors (pictured). It was followed by a prosecco toast and a collective planting of Forget-me-nots (Rosa Luxemburg’s favorite flower) in the KW courtyard.

Strange Attractors. Berlin: Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art / KUNST-WERKE BERLIN e.V., 2018.

With contributions by: Adrijana and Kristina Gvozdenović; Audre Lorde; Beau H. Rhee with Christophe Kihm and Dr. Myungchull Rhee; Devin Kenny; Isaiah Lopaz; Joelle Mercedes; Mame-Diarra Niang; Mattie Brice, Robin Yang and Jen Aprahamian; Mildred Thompson; Octavia Butler; Patrice Renee Washington; Rosa Luxemburg; and Temitayo Ogunbiyi.

The publication was designed by Nontsikelelo Mutiti and it’s poster cover was designed by Zofia Klajs.

The project is indebted to Gabi Ngcobo, Jeanette Gogoll, and Yvette Mutumba.

(Project website with further information on Berlin Biennale website).