Solitude alumni at the 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art

The Akademie Schloss Solitude is delighted that three former Solitude fellows, Memory Biwa, Sarnath Banerjee, and Zoncy Heavenly, are participating in the 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art.

The Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art takes place every two years at varying locations in Berlin. Since its first edition in 1998, the Berlin Biennale has been committed to creating a space of freedom with experimental exhibition and event programs for renowned curators, presenting bold artistic and political positions beyond the interests of the art market. The Berlin Biennale explores international artistic developments of the present day that make the unseen and unfamiliar tangible. Each edition brings together artists, theorists, and interested audiences from different areas of society, opening up a dialogue with the inhabitants of the city.

Historian and curator Memory Biwa explores the complex legacy of colonialism in Namibia – the site of the first genocide of the 20th century – with a particular focus on transnational processes of remembrance and reparation. Reflecting on this history and the violence tied to its suppression, Biwa recalls the figs her grandmother once cultivated. During the era of apartheid and land dispossession, fig trees stood as quiet symbols of autonomy, offering shelter and nourishment while reinforcing a deep connection to the land. Beneath the framework of a traditional Nama house, Biwa invites participants to a series of reading circles dedicated to the legacy of activist Yvette Abrahams. These gatherings follow an artist-led procession to contested memorial sites at Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin. In 2021, Memory Biwa was the curator of the two-part workshop series Hidden Pasts, Shared Futures organized by Akademie Schloss Solitude as part of the Namibia Initiative of the State of Baden-Württemberg.

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Hailed as the foremost Indian comic book writer since his graphic novel Corridor (2004), Calcutta-raised, Berlin-based Sarnath Banerjee has evolved into a globetrotting visual critic with post-colonial wit in the eerily imperialist order of a neo-liberal third millennium.
Putting his words into practice, Banerjee has devised a vast multimedia installation for the 13th Berlin Biennale. The work combines drawing and audio, on the structures of typical newspaper stands found in India’s public spaces. Entitled Critical Imagination Deficit, it is a testament to Banerjee’s diagnosis of a fleeting era of intellectual dominance—a crisis in Euro-American hegemonic power structures, the symptoms of which he may have keenly observed from his German home. Sarnath Banerjee was a 2006/2007 literature fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude.

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When fires burn in war zones after bombing, soot particles scatter the sunlight in such a way that the sky turns unnatural shades of yellow and orange. It will not turn pink or purple under these conditions. This color spectrum only occurs naturally—at sunrise or sunset. By painting the sky pink and purple in Lady Farmers’ Magenta Sky, Zoncy Heavenly creates an alternative narrative, one where it is not war, but one’s own imagination that determines an environment’s atmosphere.
During the 13th Berlin Biennale, the artist will also contribute to the art mediation program. For Zoncy Heavenly, art and its activation through audience engagement is more than a way to deal with the war coverage from Myanmar. It’s also an opportunity to acquire and share knowledge about how trauma can be healed through alternative narratives. Zoncy Heavenly was a 2019 design fellow of Akademie Schloss Solitude.