The Institutional Infrastructure: Static Support or Collapsing Scaffolding?

»The structures we’re dealing with are indeed changeable even if they appear solid. The question is, how to rebuild and change the structures without it collapsing. But maybe the collapse is unavoidable?«

My first encounter with the work of Anike Joyce Sadiq was at Galerie im Turm in Berlin in 2021. For the exhibition Liebe und Erschöfung (Love and Exhaustion), she made a series of sculptures called Embracements in collaboration with dancer/choreographer Laurie Young. With blue carpets underneath, and wood bars combined with soft cushions, the sculptures evoked spaces for exercise. The exhibition talked about the present-day relationship between work, love, bodies, and exhaustion. As with the work of Anike and Laurie, the works were meant to learning to stay with the exhaustion, to embrace it and hold the position of the exhausted body. In videos on the wall, one could see Anike posing, resting, lying, or hanging on the sculptures as a kind of explanatory tutorial on how to use the objects. It somewhat reminded me of the One Minute Sculptures (1997–ongoing) by Austrian artist Erwin Wurm, in which the body’s unnatural position creates a certain discomfort, while at the same time the body also becomes part of the work of art. This oneness, of the body turning into an object, I could also sense in these sculptures in the exhibition, the body remained visible without being there. Whereas Wurm is mainly concerned with the body as the sculptural, Anike’s practice is centered on the relationship between the bodies and the infrastructures of the institution and what perspective the different bodies take, in which the social dynamics also emerge.

With titles such as Unfamiliar Folds and Who’s got my back?, or Disrupting public flow, the sculptures reflect on the role of the body in relation to the social and political. The body often returns in Sadiq’s work as an instrument to tell stories about racism, labor, or institutional structures, sometimes playfully, sometimes poetically and often politically. This political aspect is also visible in her current exhibition Mit Glück hat es nichts zu tun at Künstlerhaus Stuttgart. We discussed how this work came into being, and the role art can play in creating a platform for debate. What started as a conversation about her work slowly turned into a conversation about the essence of Sadiq’s practice, her work with others.

Anike Joyce Sadiq: The idea of the exhibition Mit Glück hat es nichts zu tun started a few years back in 2013 when I was invited by the then-director Misal Adnan Yildiz to do something with and about the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart. I investigated the Künstlerhaus’s archives and history, and the most interesting thing I found was that Künstlerhaus is an association based on memberships, and how their power can change the statutes of the institution. It’s a democratic structure in the sense that every member has one equal vote; any member can bring topics to vote and their agreement is needed to change the statutes. The board in fact acts as the representation of the members.
For this initial invitation I developed a kind of utopian membership; a performative act, gesture or instrument for the Künstlerhaus to acknowledge all non-members who somehow stand in relation with it. The title of the work was 1000 new members for the Künstlerhaus, consisting of 1,000 stickers for Künstlerhaus Stuttgart that they could hand out to non-official members. You could sign up on a website that counted all the utopian members – referring to a nonplace where membership is not defined by who is paying the fee, but on who is contributing to the place in different ways.

On the basis of this earlier work, I decided to join ongoing discussions by some of the current Künstlerhaus Stuttgart members last year. As the director of the board had stepped down after sixteen years, there were new elections, and the members felt that this was an opportunity to rethink what and for whom the Künstlerhaus is. They began discussions, formed working groups and named themselves Fourth Organ. The Fourth Organ, unlike the membership, the board and the advisory board, is not a legal body of the institution; it is more like a platform or space for exchange and criticism. I was invited to one of their Zoom meetings, and after that I kept following what was happening. Out of this self-organizing process, some of their group were voted into crucial positions within the institution. They are now holding most of the positions in the board and the advisory board. I guess that’s very rare in the history of Kunstvereine that such a shift in power positions is not only possible, but acted upon.

»I can understand that it is difficult for art institutions to get involved in politics, but they are already part of a political system and so much implicated in them.«

Parallel to these discussions, the current artistic director Eric Golo Stone invited me to elaborate on my work with the concept of membership and to incorporate it into a new exhibition. At the same time, I was already involved as and with an active group of artist members at Villa Romana. The Villa Romana is another German art institution in Florence, Italy, founded from and for artists, also as an association. I was a fellow there in 2015 and became a member shortly after, when a  financial restructuring, new elections of board members, and a change in the directorship (against the former director’s will) took place. The group of artist members were highly concerned about the future of the Villa Romana and the established program there. I felt that everything was somewhat connected – the Fourth Organ, Eric Golo Stone’s invitation, as well as the attempt of the artist-members to be recognized by the Villa Romana – and brought it together in the exhibition. The story of what happened in Villa Romana is unfolded in a conversation between me and Andrea Scrima, which was published with the title Against the erasure of dissent as part of the Künstlerhaus exhibition. We tried to be very careful how to address and talk about these institutional structures – which are closely tied to financial and political power and our experience as artists and members. We even consulted legal advice. One of the crucial moments was our assumption that the board recruited new members from their personal and professional environment to prevent artist members to be elected into the board and advisory board. It really touches on the question of who is in control of institutions and which personal and political agendas play into it. For me this is also an attempt to understand these agendas, since we only notice them when people are canceled and contracts are not renewed, while moments of censorship or self-censorship by institutions and artists themselves often remain invisible. There is so much fear and opportunism involved that it’s really hard to talk about it in a specific, not general way.

Sarie Nijboer: Today is also a time when institutions are increasingly opening up to conversations about their institutional habits and structures. I perceive that your work is about making visible the platform of these conversations, while at the same time offering critique.

Anike Joyce Sadiq: My advantage was that I knew many people involved in what was happening at the Künstlerhaus from years ago during my studies. So it wasn’t that I came in for a moment,  engaged, and then left. I used to be a member, left, came back, and became a member again. There is a long relationship with the place. I think personal relationships are useful for asking questions in the space. I did get a lot of trust, but of course there were also expectations, maybe disappointment, but definitely a place where experimentation was possible for me.

Sarie Nijboer: The exhibition is still in progress. It started with an opening performance with sound by Judith Hamann and then it continues and develops with meetings of the Fourth Organ. I am curious to learn more about how the exhibition came into being and how it is further developing.

Anike Joyce Sadiq: It was a difficult process for me, what I called my advantage as a local also makes it sensitive and challenging to deal with. I started with the idea of giving the Fourth Organ a physical space for their monthly meetings, which are open to members and non-members. Künstlerhaus doesn’t really have a space for communities to meet and the Fourth Organ came out of this, as a platform to provide exchange and offer a first entry to the Künstlerhaus – to understand how the house works and what projects can be developed, to network. This is very much related to the founding idea of the place – a space for and from artists.

Another element I added to the exhibition originated from an image I had in my mind of the last Villa Romana annual general membership meeting held at the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin. It took place in the auditorium with cinema seating where the board sat in front of the screen and the audience sat on different levels. I thought this was a very strong image of what is wrong with the hierarchy between the board and the members. This kind of cinema space is a very passive space. I took this image of the seats and turned it around. In one of the first emails I sent to the curatorial team of the Künstlerhaus, I talked about the ruins of this chair structure. This is where the scaffolding of Mit Glück hat es nichts zu tun originated; the passive audience can see everything that is happening in front: the entrance door and the people who are entering the space. Everything else happens behind the public’s back – backstage, within the structures where the exhibition unfolds – and that became the space dedicated to the Fourth Organ.

Sarie Nijboer: I felt this the moment I entered the exhibition space when the performance was already over. There was an audience that was left sitting there after the performance and I had the feeling that I was being observed upon entrance.

Anike Joyce Sadiq: I also touched on this moment in the text of the publication Against the erasure of dissent, namely that during the membership assembly of the Villa Romana it was said that I was lucky to have made it in, as it was a strict door to get through. I wanted to emphasize this with the entry into the exhibition space. This question of who is allowed »in« and who stays on the margins is a recurring topic in my work. This is rooted in my experience as a »internal foreigner« in Germany. I say this without resentment. It’s a constant challenge to stay (un-) comfortable in this in-between space and reject the desire of a clear belonging.

Sarie Nijboer: I admire that you are so involved in this, providing this care and being part of groups and discussions offering help, whereas often this is even overlapping with your artistic practice and becomes visible in your work.

Anike Joyce Sadiq: I want to mention that I don’t see it as only my work. At the exhibition for sure it is my name – that I often feel uncomfortable to have it placed on a poster – but my work is coming out of so many conversations. I am involved with people that do so much work, but at the end having my name on it means taking responsibility for the work that is shown. For example, in the case of the publication in the exhibition, in the worst case, I will be indicted, maybe the institution, too. These are my decisions, but the whole process and how the work comes into being involves a lot of people and conversations – alive or from the past. But of cause, also I’m acting within an art field which highly relies on individual success and personal CV’s. There are already a lot of artists in collaborations who challenge this understanding of an art practice as a personal career. That also means we have to rethink the whole economy around artists and art.

Eric really took care that everyone involved gets paid. That’s something I appreciate, since this is part of what we as artists must take care of, not to exploit each other but support. In the heat and euphoria of the process, you sometimes just want to get lost in the work and follow your ideas.

Sarie Nijboer: I like that you mention that. The start of this conversation has been mostly about your work with others, and I can see that your work has a lot to do with making visible the process and conversations that are not always visible to the outside world.

Anike Joyce Sadiq: The engagement of the Nigerian students from Ukraine is about the same level of structures on a more existential level. The question is always what you bring to the art context and how you talk about these things without exploiting them. Providing care is also about what your resources are and to what extent you are equipped to help people. How can this help be sustainable, and how much breath do you have to continue this struggle? The group of people who came together to help these students is really committed to helping them in the long term, partly in their work but also in their free time. Organizations like the Asylpfarramt, Arrival Aid, AfroKids and the personal commitment from people like Nana Boahene. The legal situation for these refugees from third-country states is devastating. So is not only about providing care, but also about trying to understand what’s going on. This is why I liked that the Call of Action Group was trying to address the issue on a political level in the open letter. Art institutions should be able to think differently and come up with creative solutions.

Sarie Nijboer: It requires a transformation of the role of the institution. As much as an institution is about offering a structure to artists to help, so much goes into other processes like administration and organization and to offer care is not always manageable.

Anike Joyce Sadiq: When we were trying to offer space to the students, at the same time there were fellows who had similar experiences with racism, language barriers, legal statuses, getting to a doctor’s appointment. A lot of questions we were trying to solve with the refugees had an interconnection with the experiences some of the fellows also had. It is a chance to address both things at the same time, it should be a potential for the institution to use and start a conversation on how to provide help, improve and offer tools. For me being an artist defines also how I interact with the society I’m part of.

Sarie Nijboer: Do you feel that your work and the work that you do – the conversations you engage with – has an effect on or a progress in making a change?

Anike Joyce Sadiq: As much it is about conversations and thinking about the structures of care, it is also important to offer spaces for conflicts instead of silencing or avoiding them. In the end this is what it comes down to: How do we deal with conflicts and differences? Not in a superficial and artificial way but in an honest way, where it’s painful… for everyone.

For the discussions we have had with the Solitude, the Fourth Organ or the Call to Action Group, I find it is important that we leave a trace. The conversation with Andrea Scrima on the Villa Romana came from this need to archive what has happened. I really believe that the traces that emerge from these struggles must be left behind in order to make accessible what has happened before, and continue building from there.