Fleuves: Paul Maheke - Performance and In-Conversation

About

Assembly Point presents 'Fleuves', a performance and in-conversation that stands as a culmination of Paul Maheke's current show 'What Flows Through and Across'. 

The evening will premiere a live performance by Maheke followed by an in-conversation with Isabella Maidment, Assistant Curator, Performance at Tate Modern.

The performcance by Maheke is conceived in response to the soundtrack produced by Sophie Mallett, and forms part of his exploration into 'Hydrofeminsim'

Register for free tickets here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fleuves-paul-maheke-performance-and-in-conversation-tickets-31779970748

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Press Release: 

Assembly Point is delighted to present a solo project by French artist Paul Maheke, titled ‘What Flows Through and Across’, the second of three exhibitions that form his ongoing international project: ‘Becoming a Body of Water or How to Unlearn Resistance as Opposition’.

Feeding off of one another, each iteration of ‘Becoming a Body of Water…’ features choreographed dance pieces alongside the presentation of film-based and sculptural works. By looking at the exhibition space as a multimodal situation to experiment with new interactions between dance and moving images, it aims to challenge presentation formats while reconsidering the role a show holds in the rendition of an artwork.

Open rehearsals and choreographed performances will be staged at several points during the exhibition, occupying the central part of the gallery floor. These performances will be conceived by Maheke during the exhibition in response to the soundtrack produced by artist Sophie Mallett.

Maheke’s ongoing project takes its roots in Hydrofeminism*, considering water as a subjective/affective matter. Choreographing our relations to each other, the shows will explore notions such as fluidity and formlessness through the use of dance - as both a strategy of resistance and a thinking process that is in flux and allows indetermination.

Also drawing on research into the memory of water and its molecular responsiveness to emotions* as well as how trauma is passed on from one generation to another through DNA*, the show speculates about embodied histories by researching physical memory through movement. It grounds itself in an artistic exploration of queer blackness within which dance and music-making have become coping mechanisms and the queer black body operates —similarly to its main constituent: water— as an archive using its fluids as pathways to knowledge and information. 

‘Becoming a Body of Water or How to Unlearn Resistance as Opposition’ commenced in Berlin (‘In Me Everything is Already Flowing’ at Center, 15 Dec 2016 — 12 Feb 2017) before progressing to London (‘What Flows Through and Across’ at Assembly Point, 18 Jan — 25 Feb 2017) and Paris (‘Acqua Alta’, Sultana Gallery, April — May 2017). A series of related performance works will continue to proceed alongside the shows, staged at Union Pacific (Aug 2016), The Showroom (Nov 2016) and Tate Modern (Mar 2017).

* See Astrida Neimanis: ‘Hydrofeminism: Or, On Becoming a Body of Water.’

* See Masaru Emoto and Professor Luc Montagnier- also winner of the Nobel Prize for his discovery of HIV

* See Dr. Rachel Yehuda: ‘How Trauma and Resilience Cross Generations’

http://assemblypoint.xyz