What you will be able to listen to is PARASITES, a new contribution to caner teker´s sound anarchive, begun in 2020, which has been produced for Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf. This work is based on the publication of the same name that includes texts by Lou Drago, Erkan Affan, Tunay, and Olympia Bukkakis (published in August 2020 with the generous support of Black Joy for Dirty Debüt in Berlin). Most of the texts are being read by these allies themselves, some by others, and are about finding solidarity in darkness together, how to archive in the dark, and on how to survive institutions. From February 4, 2021, 6 pm the publication PARASITES as well as the new produced sound work will be provided on the Kunstverein´s website. PARASITES is part of teker's ongoing research into the possibilities of polyphonic documentation of performative works beyond photography and video. While this year´s Jahresgabe for the Kunstverein, anarchiving KIRKPINAR (2020), is about developing alternative forms of documentation for a specific work, PARASITES is about archiving in the dark in general.

Text Contributions
I Lou Drago: Female Copulatory Vocalisation (in conversation with Camilla, Heather, Zoe, Pedro, Fred, Samir and Nici)
II Erkan Affan: How can I know to archive and find solidarity in the dark if I do not understand first what darkness is? (performed by Najwa Ahmed)
III Tunay: Gay Maze and the dark fire. An intimate night at a Berlin Sex Club
IV Olympia Bukkakis: Shadow architecture and Queer Refuge

The sound play is curated by S Ruston and caner teker

caner teker (born 1994 in Duisburg) lives in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Düsseldorf, graduated in 2019 as master student at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under John Morgan, and subsequently studied at SNDO – School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam. The premiere of the play K_IRKPINAR_ (in collaboration with SOPHIENSÆLE Berlin) at the 29th Tanztage Berlin, was followed by invitations to DISAPPEARING BERLIN and Radikal Jung in Munich. Further guest performances followed at the Favoriten Festival in Dortmund and Theater Neumarkt in Zurich (both 2020). caner teker´s performances have been presented at Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach (2017), Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, and tanzhaus nrw in Düsseldorf (2019). Last year, caner teker received a fellowship from the Nobert Janssen Stiftung, Munich, the Förderpreis für Bildende Künste from the city of Düsseldorf, and was a Guest Fellow at the PACT Zollverein, Essen. In 2020, they produced a Jahresgabe for Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf in the form of a limited edition poster anarchiving KIRKPINAR.

PE VIII: PARASITES is the eighth edition of the Elbow Room series originally initiated by Eva Birkenstock in 2019. Elbow Room has been conceived as a performative continuation of the former “Schaufenster” exhibitions (display window), which the Kunstverein used to offer young artists their first exhibition opportunities. E_lbow Room_ opens temporary, physically variable intermediary spaces at regular intervals in order to try out and renegotiate various staging formats. The stairs in the entryway, the Kunstverein’s foyer with its bar and panorama window, parts of the exhibition space, Salon des Amateurs, even our website and the neighboring urban environment will thus be transformed into sites of physical education.

Since the first lockdown and the temporary closure of Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, the Elbow Room program has been taking place exclusively online. The virtual version started with the three Instagram live performances PE V: NYC Makeup and Wakeup #1–3 by New York based artist David Mramor in March and April 2020; follwed by the online reading sessions PE VI: YGRG 166–168 by Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė. In July, the Kunstverein produced the three-part video essay PE VII: Weak Links of a Strong Chain by Nicholas Grafia and Mikołaj Sobczak for the Kunstverein´s Instagram channel. Artists such as Luki von der Gracht or the class of Kunstakademie professor Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster have been invited for further contributions for the Elbow Room series. Updates on further activities, future participants, and dates will be provided on our website in due course.

Elbow Room is supported by
Gingko Foundation