04/09/2024, 6:00 pm,

among trees, together. Talk with Maike Denker und nicolás paris

, Kunsthalle Münster

As an essential part of the exhibition Manigua open to the public, the accompanying programme offers a series of cooperative, unscripted, workshop-like encounters: exercises, workshops, experiments. paris has conceived the exhibition as a classroom, a place for the exchange of knowledge, where the positions of teacher and student are inconsistent and fluid. In this classroom without hierarchy, people learn together, from and with each other. Yet at all times the question remains in focus as to the state of co-existence and what knowledge the forest has to offer on this matter.

Together with the Münster artist Maike Denker, paris talks about nature as a model for exchange and empathy: paris' video work Protobosque forms the starting point before Maike Denker invites you to her studio 4.2 on the 4th floor of the Atelierhaus to give you an insight into her artistic work. In her work, she embarks on a voyage of discovery, exploring elementary patterns, shapes and colours, as well as repetitions found in biological diversity. Leaf shapes, seed heads, fruiting bodies of fungi and traces of insects feeding on leaves or woody plants are recurring elements in her graphic works, sculptural installations and multimedia objects. She collects, organises and categorises what she finds according to her own aesthetic criteria and uses it in her artistic process, acknowledging the co-authorship of nature in her work.

The common artistic theme of nature forms the starting point for a subsequent artist's talk in the exhibition, which will be moderated by Merle Radtke, Director of Kunsthalle Münster.

The event will be held in English.

Maike Denker (born 1982 in Münster) studied media art at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig from 2009 to 2016. From 2010 to 2012, she took part in residencies and projects at the Royal Collage of Art London, the École supérieure d'art Brest, the Kongelige Danske Kunstakedemi Copenhagen and the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She has been working in her studio at Atelierhaus Speicher II in Münster since 2020 and has been represented by the ato Kollektiv since 2022. Denker has exhibited at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, the Grassimuseum in Leipzig, the Center d'Art Contemporain in Brest and the Giorgi Leonidze Literature Museum in Tbilisi, among others. In her works, Maike Denker examines the complex interrelationships of our environment. Her artistic research practice is located in the field of tension between art, nature and science. A special feature of her observations of nature are unusual forms of interdisciplinarity between herself as an artist and other natural organisms.

nicolás paris (born in 1977, in Bogotá, Colombia) works primarily in collaborative, interdisciplinary projects closely linked to questions of pedagogical strategies. His artistic practice includes drawings, videos, workshops, installations, object art, text and happenings. The focus of his work is on the structure of classrooms and pedagogical concepts. Having worked as a teacher in rural Colombia for several years, paris sees art as a form of dialogue in which experiences can be shared. In 2017, he founded the Institute for Radical Learning (InPAR): a place to mobilize collaborative processes and facilitate the activation of study groups. He was invited for projects based in educational research at MACBA, Barcelona (2022–2023), Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid (2022), Cultural Network of Banco de la República and MAMU, Bogota (2020–2024), INHOTIM Education residency programme, Brumadinho (2012) and Museum as Hub residency/New Museum Triennial, New York (2012), among others. His works have been shown in numerous international solo and group exhibitions: Akademie der Künste der Welt, Cologne (2021), Times Museum, Guangzhou (2019), El Museo Del Barrio, New York (2019), GovettBrewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth (2019), La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2016), CaixaForum, Barcelona (2017), MAC/CCB, Lisbon (2015–2016), XII Havana Biennial (2015), Grazer Kunstverein (2014), CEAAC, Strasbourg (2014), Kadist Art Foundation, Paris (2013), CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson (2013), MUAC, Mexico City, (2012), II Triennial of New Museum, New York (2012), XXX São Paulo Biennale (2012), 54th Venice Biennale (2011), XI Biennial of Lyon (2011) and Museum of Modern Art of Medellin (2009/2016/2023), among others.