Artist: Daniela Ortiz
Exhibition title: Nurtured by the defeat of the colonizers our seeds will raise
Venue: Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany
Date: November 13, 2021 – January 30, 2022
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Kölnischer Kunstverein
Note: THE CHILDREN ARE NOT OF THE WOLF by Daniela Ortiz is available here
In paintings, textile works, ceramics, children’s books, and installations, Daniela Ortiz develops anti-racist and anti-colonial narratives as counterpart to colonialisms that persist to this day. She confronts those players and power holders responsible for the institutional and structural racism that manifests itself, among other things, in the abusive and human rights-violating control of immigration and borders. The focus on craft media in the artistic practice of Daniela Ortiz stems from her increasing interest in shifting away from the aesthetics of Eurocentric conceptual art.
The presentation at Kölnischer Kunstverein is the first institutional solo exhibition of the artist in Germany and, under the title Nurtured by the defeat of the colonizers our seeds will raise, shows new, context-specific series of works together with existing works.
The Rebellion of the Roots (2020) depicts a series of situations in which tropical plants, that have been kidnapped from European botanical gardens and greenhouses, are being protected and nurtured by the spirits of racialized people who died in the hands of European racism. These plants find their own way to confront and make justice in regard to those politicians responsible for institutional and structural racism. Accompanying the exhibition and specific to this series of works the artist book The Rebellion of the Roots, 2021 has been published by Kölnischer Kunstverein.
ABC of Racist Europe (2017) consists of an alphabet that proposes an anti-racist narrative. The project unfolds in the form of a children’s book and an installation of individual images that evoke the letters usually found in the classrooms of children’s schools. It addresses the relationship of the current migration control system and its connection with coloniality and colonialisms, where several figures of anti-racist and anti-colonial resistance are mentioned.
The children are not of the Wolf (2021) is a puppet theater play contextualized in Italy that narrates the history of a child taken away from his mother by a female wolf. The animal represents the institutional authorities that impose the removal of custodies under racist, misogynist and classist laws. The story questions the imposed idea that children belong to the state and not to their communities finding the historical grounds of this interpretation in fascist and colonial Italy.
Samuel and Naseb, a resistance Story in Seven Pranks (2021) narrates the alliance story of two Namibian children that overcome eugenicists plans through seven pranks – based on the stories of Wilhelm Busch’s Max and Moritz – done to those scientists and colonial authorities that try to impose violence to the reproductive rights of global south communities.
Daniela Ortiz’ (*1985 in Cusco, lives in Urubamba, Perú) works have been shown internationally in solo exhibitions including La Virreina. Centre de la Imatge in Barcelona (2019), Las Ataranzas in Valencia, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art in Middlesbrough (both 2017), Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (2016), àngels barcelona in Barcelona (2014), as well as in group exhibitions at LUM – Lugar de la Memoria in Lima, KADIST art foundation in Paris, neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) in Berlin, Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna (all 2021), and Kunstverein Hamburg (2020).
