narrowcast house

radio studio / listening space / public program

documenta14
Kassel, Germany, 2016 – 2017

In 2016, I was invited to join the aneducation team of documenta14 as an artist. Being formally employed in the informal position of an artist in the context of public education provoked a series of questions and learning trajectories regarding the role and function, positionality and possibilities of an artist in the context of knowledge transfer and documenta. Responding to this invitation through practice resonated strongly with the curriculum of documenta14’s complex organism, which was dynamically evolving between Kassel and Athens. Navigating the often juxtaposed and overlapping agencies and workloads of the artist and team member over the course of a year allowed for the conception and manifestation of the two multidisciplinary art projects: Narrowcast House in Kassel and A-Lethia in Athens.

My first visit to “documenta-Stadt Kassel” took place in 2003 to attend a German language course while I was still in a refugee programme. Curious about the meaning of the hyphen in “documenta-city”, Narrowcast House became a way to practically investigate the multiplex relationship between the city and the event. Some of the questions that drove the project were: Does documenta happen with the city or to the city? How do the city and the event listen to, contribute to and benefit from each other? How can artists who live and develop their practice in Kassel present their work at documenta?

Located in a disused storefront in Kassel’s Nordstadt, Narrowcast House projected itself into the future as an infrastructural connection and ongoing transmission between Kassel and documenta. Developed in close partnership with local art and cultural initiatives, as well as aneducation’s project House of Commons, Narrowcast House channeled an interactive program of daily “narrowcasts” in the form of listening sessions, performances, presentations on air, screenings, mini-exhibitions, installations, and school workshops.

Thank you for the invitation and the support: Sepake Angiama. Special thanks to the documenta14 team, the documenta14 choir and the aneducation team, especially to Clare Butcher, Arnisa Zeqo, Elli Paxinou, Alkisti Efthymiou, Byron Kalomamas, Josephine Jong-nan Lee, Ifigenia Papadatou, Juliane Gallo, Amelie Jakubek, Sabiha Keyif, Aiko Okamoto, Jeanne Delval, Claudia Maria Doulou, Yu Yen Lin-Woywod, Andara Shastika, Alexandra Tsipni-Kolaza, Lauri White.

Further links:
Narrowcast House documenta14
Narrocast House Events documenta14