Grace Ndiritu
Home Cooking interview (and book launch!)
20:00

Grace Ndiritu:
“Dissent Without Modification”, 2021
With: Lisha Sterling, Victoria Sambunaris, Laura Emsley, Nina Bacos, Monster Chetwynd, Kathrin Böhm, Nancy Popp
Design: Wkshps, Prem Krishnamurthy & Judith Gärtner
Editor: Scott Elliott
Publisher: Bergen Kunsthall
Language: English

Read more here: https://dissentwithoutmodification.com

“Dissent Without Modification” is a research book composed of interviews with radical and progressive artists and thinkers. Some are well-known, some are not. They are African, European, and American women working as painters, photographers, performers, hackers, activists and educators, among other roles, who started their education and careers in the 1990s. The book illuminates that decade in a new way, and regards it as a pivotal point in the lineage of today’s grass-roots politics and cultural ferment. The book recalls the Seattle Riots against the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement; the recent televisual phenomenon “Catfish” recalling MTV’s “Real World” and the spread of the Occupy movement and the birth of Black Lives Matter through the recent Ferguson and Missouri uprisings. Dissent Without Modification offers first-hand perspectives on the 1990s as the decade “when shit went bad and which we never recovered from,” — to quote Hank Moody, the cantankerous main character of Californication, cult TV show. At last in Dissent Without Modification, Grace Ndiritu takes readers on a circular, revealing expedition into the recent past, sharing its impact with a new generation of readers.

Grace Ndiritu is a British-Kenyan artist whose artworks are concerned with the transformation of our contemporary world. Ndiritu has been featured in TIME magazine, Phaidon’s The 21st Century Art Book, Art Monthly, Apollo Magazine’s “40 under 40” list and Elephant magazine.. Her work is housed in museum collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the British Council, the Modern Art Museum (Warsaw). Her writing has been published in her debut non-fiction book Dissent Without Modification (2021) Bergen Kunsthall, Norway; Whitechapel Gallery’s Documents of Contemporary Art anthology series; The Paris Review; Le Journal Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers; Animal Shelter Journal, Semiotext(e) & MIT Press; Metropolis M and The Oxford University Press.

This event with is part of the Speculative Histories program, which investigates historical and contemporary practices of feminist organising, intersectional anti-racist and queer perspectives, suggesting alternatives for institutional practices based on a re-shifted lens on the past. Throughout autumn and winter, we present talks, screenings, texts and performances with interdisciplinary connections to dance, literature and fashion.

Part of Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. Re-Imagine Europe is initiated by Sonic Acts (NL) and coordinated by Paradiso (NL) in collaboration with Elevate Festival (AT), Lighthouse (UK), INA GRM (FR), Kontejner (HR), Landmark / Bergen Kunsthall (NO), A4 (SK), Disruption Network Lab (DE) and Ràdio Web MACBA (ES)

An interview with artist Grace Ndiritu about the art of the interview form on the occasion of her new book “Dissent Without Modifications (Interview of Interviews)” published by Bergen Kunsthall and available from 15 January in our bookshop!

Watch the interview at 8pm on Instagram: ____homecooking____