"Imperfect Lovers: A Ritual for Johann Hammes", 2025, 9’ 17’ 4 k Video, Sound
In 1835, Afro-Brazilian Muslim abolitionist Manuel Calafate plotted the Malês revolt, the largest uprising led by enslaved people in Brazil. Though unsuccessful, many fled to Bahia’s forests to form self-governing communities known as maroon societies, palenques or quilombos. These groups which existed across Latin America often united Black, Indigenous, and at times poor white people in overcoming oppression. In “Imperfect Lovers: A Ritual for Johann Hammes” a metaphysical maroon group performs a ritual of a speculative invitation to a new member, Johann Hammes, the German metalworker and soldier who sabotaged the Third Reich. Filmed in the Murellenberg forest where Hammes was executed 80 years earlier, the performance draws on maroon concepts including camouflage, opacity, and circular time. By embodying the machete - a tool and symbol of maroonage - the performance connects distinct geographies and timelines of imperfect forms of solidarity that are still taking shape across our fragmented world.
Guest artists: Rebecca Pokua Korang, Alfonso Bueno Lima and Tere Stout
This work cycle was conceived in the context of the 2025
BPA// Berlin Program for Artists Exhibition at
KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Kunstraum Mitte, Berlin, Germany, ihn 2025.
