patricia kaersenhout at Kunstverein Braunschweig

Artist: patricia kaersenhout

Exhibition title: Into The Deep Loving Darkness

Curated by: Musoke Nalwoga

Venue: Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

Date: June 22 – October 6, 2024

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Kunstverein Braunschweig

I intended both to tell an impossible story and to amplify the impossibility of its telling. ––– Saidiya Hartman, 2008

Into The Deep Loving Darkness is patricia kaersenhout’s first solo show in Germany. The exhibition pulls at multiple threads through kaersenhout’s more than two decades long artistic practice to create a total installation that mines the violences of the archive and redresses them through emotionally evocative encounters.kaersenhout has dedicated her life’s work to tending to the history of enslaved people of color across the diaspora. Through a decolonial lens, kaersenhout posits that history is here with us, in the present.
Into The Deep Loving Darkness takes seriously the question of revisiting the historical scene of subjection without replicating their violence. kaersenhout, a celebrated artist, emerges as a seasoned nurse dressing historical wounds. Through transformative audience engaging re-enactments, kaersenhout offers interdisciplinary strategies for healing the past.

GUEST ROOM
For each exhibition, artists are invited to make use of the space that was originally a guest room in the Villa Salve Hospes as a commentary on the main presentation. At patricia kaersenhout’s invitation, we are delighted to welcome the artist BOUBA DOLA, who maneuvers between multiple mediums, from digital collage to film direction, and whose bold, vibrant, and unique style combines African and futuristic aesthetics.

Curator: Musoke Nalwoga
Exhibition team: Monja Remmers, LinusJantzen
Guest Artists: Justin F. Kennedy, Thomas Kilpper, Fazle Shairmahomed, Joy Mariama Smith