PAPER
FIELD NOTES
Martine Syms, The Non-Hero (still), 2021, Single channel video. Courtesy of the artist and Bridget Donahue, NYC
FOR REAL? - field Notes
For Real, For Real at DAAD Gallery
The Racial Imaginary Institute
The Other Side of Now at Zeitz MOCAA
The Racial Imaginary Institute
The Other Side of Now at Zeitz MOCAA
The last time I saw Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s work was at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town in 2024 - an immersive solo exhibition of film and sculpture curated by Beata America titled The Other Side of Now.
This time, I’m in Berlin, attending the opening night of For Real, For Real, a group show of fifteen artists at DAAD Gallery. The space is neither big nor small - an elongated, wide corridor with a large glass front. It looks a bit unassuming, which makes sense for an exhibition space that is primarily “a residency program for international cultural practitioners that facilitates and supports creative processes”1, from which exhibitions are conceptualized and produced. I’ve seen the space change dramatically depending on the visiting artists and their material explorations, making it exciting to witness these spatial shifts. It’s crowded; people showed up for this one, despite the erratic April weather in May. The space is loud and joyful among the many video installations as I enter.
For Real, For Real brings together artists working to bring us closer to the particularities,
obsessions, peculiarities, playfulness, obscurity, wonderment of a single one doing life—being
alive, loving, seeing, making, breaking, collapsing, doing and doing
in the wild wilderness of
now.2
My companion complains that the room is too bright for video works, as Harmony Holiday’s Abide with Me3 faces the front window. And although the space is dimmed with window film, I think he’s right. There is a different feeling when diving into a completely dark room and being fully absorbed by a moving image. But that’s the thing with group exhibitions - they’re often shaped by curatorial concepts, spatial limitations, and the visual quality in favor of that ‘one more artistic position’ in order to fully explore the curatorial argument.
As I move deeper into the back of the space - divided by walls and narrower passageways - I hear, among the chatter, a gentle and distinctive rattling of beads. I must have stood there longer than it felt, apparently “looking confused,” as John Lucas, one of three curators from The Racial Imaginary Institute which is based in the U.S., tells me. “I was just lost in space for a second,” I reply, realizing he might not understand what I mean and pointing to the wayfinder in my hand. He responds kindly, with the confident warmth I’ve often experienced from U.S. Americans. It’s mesmerizing in a way.
“Lost in space” wasn’t really the right response, to be honest - but you know how it is: the more precise response always likes to arrive late. In truth, I was thrown into a chaotic ride of memories. The work I was staring at - Swirl by Nguyen, who is based in Ho Chi Minh City - reminded me of his exhibition in Cape Town. The material language is vastly different, but the poetic subtext feels like an extension of The Other Side of Now. And while my head tries frantically to piece together the reality of my physical body standing here, my mind travels back to that exhibition opening - how proud I was to see my friend curating such an incredible show. I remember the pictures I took of America’s speech in the foyer of the Zeitz Museum. How the artist and the director, Koyo Kouoh, looked at her. That grand, sliced-open architecture - a former wheat silo - exposing the inner structure of concrete and stone, where everyone appears tiny against that brutal and beautiful backdrop.
( ...) In time, there comes a longing to know more, a need to address the questions that
were never asked and, in turn, never answered. Is it possible to get to the other side
and find a different ending? Can we reroute and rewrite histories that are personal and
shared with the hope of one day arriving at a place of solace and closure?4
were never asked and, in turn, never answered. Is it possible to get to the other side
and find a different ending? Can we reroute and rewrite histories that are personal and
shared with the hope of one day arriving at a place of solace and closure?4
And from that collapse of time and space, I begin to recall what happened over the past few months, weeks, and days. It still blows my mind how we inhabit and experience spaces, how we connect with people and how we carry them with us. It’s nothing new - we know art to be this membrane that does exactly that. A made-form-time-capsule that holds multiples. And sometimes that capsule bursts open more violently than others. This is one such moment.
It’s not about wrapping a great artwork in a personal anecdote. It’s about recognizing that art can contextualize our lives on a meta level - that's what I value so deeply. A recognition and celebration of people and their impact. Cameroonian art curator Madame Koyo Kouoh (24 December 1967 – 10 May 2025) was a force in the arts and, importantly, unapologetically a builder of community - a conduit, an enabler. She has left a legacy that has impacted so many lives around the world. A massive loss in this infinite web that drives us: a physical connection broken, a great plan unrealized while carried in memory by so many. Like Swirl - the catalyst for this mental journey - a continuous movement, an image of a face that is there but never fully. Elusive, never still long enough to truly see it. Fleeting, changing, shifting - but not ending.
1 DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program
2 From the exhibition text of For Real, For Real
3 Harmony Holiday, Abide With Me, 2024, digital color video with sound, 37:31 minutes
4 From the exhibition text of The Other Side of Now
screenshots from from a video made of Swirl 2025 - bamboo,
enamel paint, metal wire, steel, electric motor.