DIE BALKONE
Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg windows
and balconies
an installation by Salwa Aleryani and Matheus Rocha-Pita
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On the windowsill sits a bowl full of beads that I slide down the facade of the building—one-by-one—through an abacus-like thread. Salwa Aleryani and Matheus Rocha-Pita’s collaboration is on expanding time and space during quarantine. Roca-Pita’s Untitled is a humble way to address that one doesn’t need a wall to have a home. It refers to a Brazilian children’s song “A Funny House,” a house with no walls, ground, or ceiling, that didn’t exist but is still made with a lot of love. Salwa Aleryani suspends an almost invisible thread from her window, with beads sliding down one bead at a time over Rocha’s “funny house,” and counting time spent in isolation.
SALWA ALERYANI
Salwa Aleryani (born in Sana’a, Yemen; lives and works in Berlin) is a visual artist working primarily with sculpture and installation. Through a constellation of found and made objects, her work engages with sites and infrastructures, as well as notions of hope and promise in building and rebuilding.
MATHEUS ROCHA PITTA
Matheus Rocha Pitta (born in 1980 in Tiradentes, Brazil) has spent much time over the past years investigating forms and perceptions of gestures. Focusing on the intersection of everyday life and art, he disconnects gestures from their individual biographical background and portrays them as deliberate aesthetic acts with a historical dimension. Rocha Pitta uses photography, video, and sculpture to identify and construct his own repertoire of gestures, which he activates in conjunction with the visitors and spectators of his works. He has created several series of works – Primeira Pedra (The First Stone, 2015), no hay pan (There Is No Bread, 2015), Assalto (Assault, 2014), Golpe de graça (Blow of Grace, 2013) – that display gestures to explore language, possession, and motion in a way that has far-reaching ethical implications.