“lumbung calling” on Generosity
July 3, 2021
The seven-part conversation series “lumbung calling” launches documenta fifteen’s Public Program, activated under the title “Meydan.” Each edition of the series is dedicated to one of the lumbung values: Local Anchor, Humor, Independence, Generosity, Transparency, Sufficiency, and Regeneration. The format dives deeper into the background of the artistic concept for documenta fifteen and illuminates the idea of lumbung from many different angles. Through conversations with a variety of guests, “lumbung calling” will explore the rich meaning of lumbung across multiple disciplines, points of view, and contexts within an artistic framing. The invited protagonists have faced major challenges and initiated breakthroughs on various scales and include academics, cultural activists, independent researchers, organic farmers, and festival organizers, among others.
Fourth edition of “lumbung calling: Generosity”
The fourth “lumbung calling” on July 3, 2021, focuses on the lumbung value of Generosity. Spanning material and emotional realms, generosity, or the willingness to give, is vital in any ecosystem-building processes. It also poses a firm challenge against competition, rivalry, and rarity—capitalist values that define contemporary life. In lumbung, generosity in imagining possibilities based on networking and collaboration abounds. It recognizes that knowledge is diverse, that it cannot be owned or claimed. Time and attention are inexhaustible resources in lumbung and thus should be generously shared in building more integrated ecosystems.
In this edition, artist Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh and social innovator and founder of Festival sur le Niger Mamou Daffé discuss how giving is difficult to gauge. Eid-Sabbagh addresses how making archives accessible can be a powerful act of philanthropy and information dissemination on the one hand, but it may also lead to many unexpected challenges on the other. Daffé discusses how important sharing is to Fondation Festival sur le Niger, which is responsible for one of the most important cultural event in West Africa, the Festival sur le Niger. In particular, he introduces “Maaya entrepreneurship,” an integral concept of humanity concerning the relationship between the individual and the community.
“lumbung calling” takes place on the first Saturday of every month over seven sessions, from April to October 2021. It is hosted by the artist Jumana Emil Abboud and ruangrupa member Mirwan Andan. Previos editions focused on the lumbung values Local Anchor, Humor, and Independence.
“lumbung calling” can be viewed digitally through documenta fifteen’s social media channels YouTube and Facebook. It is held in English and translated into International Sign Language. Recordings of individual events will subsequently be available on documenta fifteen’s website and YouTube, supplemented by German and English subtitles.
Guests and hosts
Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh is an artist who explores the potentials of human agency through engaging in experimental, collective work processes. These include a collaboration with inhabitants of Burj al-Shamali, a Palestinian refugee camp near Tyr, Lebanon, and radical pedagogical projects such as Ses Milanes-créixer a la natura, a self-organized forest kindergarten in Bunyola, Spain, using nature as its main infrastructure. In Eid-Sabbagh’s work, photography often acts as a medium to communally investigate notions of collectivity, power, and endurance: for example, in her engagement as a member of the Arab Image Foundation, a practitioners-led archival institution, and as a focus of her PhD in Art Theory and Cultural Studies from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (2018).
Mamou Daffé is a social innovator and expert in art and culture management. Daffé is part of a new generation of social leaders whose mission is to design projects and local operations with a strong economic, cultural and social impact. In 2005, he founded the Festival sur le Niger, an artistic project in Mali aimed at promoting cultural expressions while stimulating the local economy through art. Fondation Festival sur le Niger is a lumbung member of documenta fifteen. Daffé is also the initiator of the innovative “Maaya Entrepreneurship” model, a social entrepreneurial model inspired by the humanist values of Mali. He co-founded together with other influential artists and cultural actors of the continent the first African Culture Fund (ACF) in 2018, of which he became the first chairperson. From 2015 to 2017, he chaired the Arterial Network, a Pan-African network of cultural actors. In 2011, Daffé created the Centre Culturel Kôrè, a sub-regional reference center for the development of art and culture, and the IKAM training institute for the development of art professions in Mali and elsewhere.
Jumana Emil Abboud is an artist whose creative interests lie in oral histories, personal and collective stories, and mythologies, particularly folk tales and their sites of being and unbeing. Abboud uses storytelling, performative elements, and workshop methodologies in her artistic practice to investigate our relationship to time and place, to the human and non-human, exploring tools of memory, attachment, and dispossession amid the challenge for continuity within political, ecological, and cultural struggles. Her work has been shown at The Jerusalem Show (2018); Sharjah Biennale (2017); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2016); Biennale di Venezia (2015); and Istanbul Biennale (2009), among many others. She has participated in art residencies, including Sakiya – Art/Science/Agriculture, Ramallah; Delfina Foundation, London; Arts Initiative Tokyo; and Gästeatelier Krone, Aarau. Abboud is currently pursuing a practice-led PhD at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.
Mirwan Andan is a member of ruangrupa, Artistic Direction of documenta fifteen.
Undine Schäfer is a sign language interpreter based in Göttingen.
Program
“lumbung calling: Generosity”
Saturday, July 3, 2021 at 9am (GMT), 11am (CET), 4pm (WIB)
With Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh and Mamou Daffé
Hosted by Jumana Emil Abboud and Mirwan Andan
In English with translation into International Sign
Livestream via Facebook and YouTube
Further editions
“lumbung calling: Transparency,” Saturday, August 7, 2021
“lumbung calling: Sufficiency,” Saturday, September 4, 2021
“lumbung calling: Regeneration,” Saturday, October 2, 2021
Previous edition
“lumbung calling: Local Anchor,” Saturday, April 3, 2021
“lumbung calling: Humor,” Saturday, May 1, 2021
“lumbung calling: Independence,” Saturday, June 5, 2021
Press contact
Karoline Köber
Acting Head of Communications and Marketing
documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH
T +49 561 70727 4023 / presse@documenta.de
documenta fifteen is funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) and the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media).
The lumbung network is supported by the Goethe-Institut.
