Words Don’t Go There at Kunstverein Braunschweig

Artists: Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Nina Emge, Lamin Fofana, Barbara Kapusta, Ndayé Kouagou, Tarek Lakhrissi, Julia Phillips

Exhibition title: Words Don’t Go There

Curated by: Benedikt Johannes Seerieder

Venue: Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

Date: July 1 – October 1, 2023

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

Note: Exhibition’s booklet is available here

How does language structure community? And what is left unsaid? The interdisciplinary exhibition project Words Don’t Go There presents spatial sound and text works as well as videos and performances that focus on poetry and language as a means of (world) inquiry. Each language forms its own order in which some ways of experiencing the world find no place. The artistic contributions reveal this limiting effect of language and reflect on its social, political and poetic consequences. Through sound and acoustics, sculptural practice, performance or silence, they intervene in the existing linguistic and architectural environment of Villa Salve Hopes. They enable marginalized voices to be heard, overwrite unambiguously inhabited spaces, open up new ways of accessing the world by breaking away from everyday understandings of language, uncovering unexpected horizons of possibility, and placing hitherto marginalized experiences and forms of expression at the center. The exhibition also consists of workshops, lectures, and performances that take up and expand upon the themes and concerns of the project in manifold ways.

Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Nir Altman, München, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Ndayé Kouagou, The world, 2023 (Detail), Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Nir Altman, München, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Ndayé Kouagou, Sorry not sorry, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Nir Altman, München, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Ndayé Kouagou, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Nir Altman, München, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Ndayé Kouagou, Really, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Nir Altman, München, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Ndayé Kouagou, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Nir Altman, München, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Ndayé Kouagou, A Key is a key and this is the one #2, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Nir Altman, München, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Ndayé Kouagou, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Nir Altman, München, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Ndayé Kouagou, A Key is a key and this is the one #2, 2023, (Detail), Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Nir Altman, München, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Tarek Lakhrissi, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Galerie Allen, Paris, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Tarek Lakhrissi, Come to Me, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Galerie Allen, Paris, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Tarek Lakhrissi, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Galerie Allen, Paris, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Tarek Lakhrissi, P3 (Charmed), 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Galerie Allen, Paris, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Tarek Lakhrissi, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Galerie Allen, Paris, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Nina Emge, If it’s a dream, then make it come true (Stück für zwei Streicher und drei Stimmen), 2022/2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Nina Emge, Mixtapes: feelings grief in the three of us, or: sometimes it just happens, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Lamin Fofana, Here Lies Universality, 2022, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023 Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Silent, 2016, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023 Courtesy: the artist, Galerie Marcelle Alix, Paris, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Microphone Piece (i want), 2022, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Galerie Marcelle Alix, Paris, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Barbara Kapusta, We Feel the Same. Don’t We?, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Pauline Boudry & Renate, Barbara Kapusta, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023 Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Barbara Kapusta, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Barbara Kapusta, We Feel the Same. Don’t We?, 2023 (Detail), Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023 Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Barbara Kapusta, Fragiles, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023 Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Julia Phillips, Barbara Kapusta, 2023, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023 Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark

Julia Phillips, Fingers, 2014, Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2023, Courtesy: the artist, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Photo: Stefan Stark