Concept: Manuela Illera
Graphic design: John Haag
Masks design: Juana Sierra
Performers: Janisha Jones & BarbieQ
Photos: Priscillia Grubo
Production design: Cosmica Bandida (Manuela Illera & David Blitz)
EPISTEMIC RESISTANCES AND DECOLONIAL METHODS OF THE COSMIC RACE
SENTIMENTAL DISOBEDIENCE presents a multi-faceted selection of 4 methods of decolonization, 4 pieces that engage critically with the power dynamics and cultural hierarchies that have been imposed by colonial systems. The global structure of power that emerged during the colonial era continues to shape contemporary science, culture, and politics. Colonialism, Modernity and Capitalism are the same entity.
The setting of the Historische Aula in the Academy of Fine Arts of Munich, with its huge tapestries featuring classic Raphael paintings, only serves to reinforce the idea that colonialism has had a profound and lasting impact on how knowledge, art, and the perception of beauty is produced, disseminated, and valued. Their stagnant and literally impossible-to-move museum condition makes them imposing monuments of white western knowledge and beauty cannons.
The concept of AestheSis, developed by Walter Mignolo and Rolando Vázquez, refers to the process of creating and enacting alternative modes of knowledge, culture, and power that challenge and transcend the boundaries imposed by colonialism and other systems of oppression. This process involves the creation of new aesthetic practices that resist and subvert dominant narratives offering other visions of what is possible.
SENTIMENTAL DISOBEDIENCE aims to create an epistemic friction against the dominant presence of Raphael’s tapestries through the 4 works that conform the exhibition: “Animal Ventus” - a short film about the inner explorations of an 8-year-old migrant child; “Las Picas” - a sound installation inspired by the Picó Sound system culture in Colombian Northern Coast; “La Retornora” - a music festival and social encounter happening in Bogotá, financed by the city of Munich; and “Cosmica Bandida” a transdisciplinary performative practice.
Decoloniality is critic but is not only a critique, it is about justice, healing and liberation.