Documenta Experience

BAT ink (Bridging Art and Text incubator), Alice Yard at Documenta 15 resident artist Michelle Eistrup, Kassel Germany.

In a field traditionally considered scientific, and facing up to climate change, a paradigm shift has emerged known as the “geo-ecological turn” – an ethical/spiritual coupling of the geo-ecological and decolonial paradigms. Here Eistrup motivates for artists, anthropologists, scientific researchers and representatives of indigenous peoples and others to collaborate with the following vision: On the brink of disaster, possible future scenarios must be created out of rediscovered, life-giving, and sustainable cultural and spiritual practices, in an exchange between original “deep knowledge”, scientific and artistic approaches. 

Her method is to establish “a safe community of open exchange”. Here, thinkers from several generations meet with a creative, spiritual, or scientific starting point who have already shown the ability to reach beyond their practice and think cross-functionally. The ability to give something of oneself releases energy that engages participants and the audience. 

Eistrup’s work at Documenta developed a framework for engagement based on a simple, powerful and unifying Bakongo Cosmology practice, introduced by Brazilian Capoeria Master Cobra Mansa, which supported a multidisciplinary approach that reached deep into the past to find possible paths into the future. This was expressed in one form by the union of the ancient and evolving Angolan- Brazilian art form, modern dance and spiritual practice.