Olivia Hyunsin Kim, Jones Seitz, Thiago Rosa, Johanna Ryynänen: Solids that Drip, Streets that Dance 

In my hand, I squeeze the cream-coloured liquid. It solidifies, becoming firm, almost powdery. I release my grip and the substance turns liquid again. I watch with awe at how this material responds to pressure, moving between firm and melting. I listen to the people around me experiencing similar feelings of wonder and delight. Gathered in a circle, seated on the floor, the situation is not unlike playtime at a kita and we are all handling a most profound metaphor in the form of tapioca starch powder. 

In January 2024, Olivia Hyunsin Kim and Jones Seitz shared their research on rest and community-care in the framework of their R.E.D residency at Tanzfabrik. The artists began by reminding us that this was not a showing, but a sharing. After inviting us to slow down, explore the space, pour ourselves some tea and simply arrive – nothing proceeded to happen. A briefly awkward moment passed, while the audience managed to shift gear. We slowly transformed ourselves from “audience” into people simply together in a room; some drifted over to the large pile of melting foam in the corner, mysteriously marking the passing of time. Others poured tea or flipped through the various books scattered about the space. I myself became absorbed in the changing images and film projected on the wall, displaying visuals of dripping liquid or offering cryptic directives such as “Find a blind spot, take a walk”. In the middle of the room about twenty empty bowls lay spread out on a plastic sheet, with one large bowl containing white powder and a few jugs of water. 

After some time of everyone just… being?, Olivia stepped forward and explained that the white powder was tapioca starch powder. With a dash of water, the consistency of starch powder changes into liquid that, upon squeezing, changes itself to appear and feel solid. She invited us to get messy as we gathered around in little groups, sharing and distributing bowls, dipping in our hands. Getting lost in this quicksilver material, more time unfolded. Olivia and Jones read out short pieces of texts about their research into structural conditions around community health. Their reading framed not only their work but also the material we were handling, which moved like a tangible thesis, proposing ideas around multi-bodied-ness and transformation within containers. Experiencing and contemplating what changing pressure does to form and content, my body opened to understand more deeply how both institutions and community have impacts on the state of my own contents. 

Later during the artist talk I realized that another reason why this sharing touched me so deeply was simply because the practice was the theory. Their sharing was not a discussion of ideas concerning community-care, but an actualisation of the practice. In emptying and opening the space by inviting slowness, providing options and gathering us around a material substance that was itself a teacher, the artists demonstrated the living closeness of their work. I felt the satisfying jolt of how effective artistic knowledge production actually is, the power of knowledge rooted in practice.  

A week later, I was able to witness another practice at work, although more filtered through the lens of dance and performance, as Thiago Rosa and Johanna Ryynänen shared their work-in-progress “Urban Foragers (WT)”. I entered Studio 4 once more and was happy to slip into the familiar position of audience member this time, taking in the darkened room and image of the ubiquitous Google Maps projected on to the floor. The seating was laid out in a rectangular shape surrounding the projection, echoing the right-angled architecture of a neighbourhood block. Observing the details of the map more closely, I saw it was indeed displaying the neighbourhood that we were in.  

Urban sounds of traffic and busy streets began to drift into the space as Johanna and Thiago slowly walked in unison across us at a meditative pace. Both dressed in simple pants and puffed denim jackets plastered with various familiar brands and labels (Adidas, McDonalds, Lidl etc.), the hyper-specific quality of their unhurried walking brought into sharp contrast the sounds of a big city. Their walking slowly evolved into a duet guided by the eyes. Standing close to each other, feet now planted in the ground, their bodies maintained the swaying resonance of a walking motion. The established rhythm went up into their faces and eyes, their expanding gaze reaching out and beyond, but never directly at each other despite their physical closeness.  

In the process of watching this eye-dance evolve, my attention was naturally brought to my own gaze, reaching across the space and searching for some meaning, while they slowly removed their branded jackets. Their dance however resisted a recognizable label and instead appeared to grow in size as they built up the speed and scope of their movements. Street sounds merged into ambient noises, as walking morphed into running, their arms stretching out alongside their eyes. Each in their own dance, but still connected, they slowed back into the familiar walking motif, eventually arriving at stillness, while a voice from someone on a busy street began to reflect on the overwhelming sensorial input one encounters every day. 

During their time in residency the artists worked with expanded ideas of urban foraging, asking themselves if immaterial substances too can be gathered, collected and put to use. This work-in-progress felt like a display of their immaterial findings; a performative exhibition of the sensations gathered during their two-weeks of research, walking the streets of Wedding. With unseen imprints of the city’s pulse shaping their movements, it dawned on me that their duet was rather a trio with the ambiguous but undoubtedly real entity of Wedding’s street-life as the third dancer. Framed by the theatre, which allows for a particular perspective and temporality, I understood after the sharing, as I walked back out into the icy cold embrace of Badstraße, that I have once again caught abstracted glimpse of the dancer we call ‘Berlin’.