Sandra Mujinga
Disruptive Patterns, 2018

Artist
Sandra Mujinga

Title
Disruptive Patterns

Year of creation
2018

Technology and dimensions
3-channel HD video installation, color, silent, loop

Year of acquisition
2022

The acquisition was made possible by the Stoberkreis.

Sandra Mujinga's “Disruptive Pattern” questions the prevailing surveillance politics of a time in which hyper-visibility is omnipresent. A dancer, multiplied and looped on three screens without sound, stages a loose freestyle choreography in dialogue with metallic, intangible forms. The duplicated dancers dance for themselves in their own world as well as for an audience. They are neither confrontational nor do they let us off the hook. The impression is that Mujinga's silver dancers do not overexert themselves; They feel comfortable and are almost relaxed. They are not representatives of the hyper-frenetic dance craze of the last few years. The multiplied dancers move naturally in their element, flowing, undeterred and unimpressed. Are they aware that they are being looked at? Their freedom lies in their anonymity: they are amorphous, but cannot be overlooked. They express inclusivity without singularity. Mujinga's mercury figures, covered in virtual heavy metal, have drip. They have total control and eliminate opposites by forcing the viewer to watch and at the same time allowing them to feel their own impassivity if one should not watch them. “Disruptive Pattern” is a powerful counterstatement to the pro-representation movements of recent years – those mandatory diversity schemes that create caricatures rather than celebrate the diversity of Blackness.

Jessica Lauren Elizabeth Taylor

Excerpt from the catalog article in: Anna-Catharina Gebbers (ed.): Magical Soup. Media artworks from the collection of the Nationalgalerie, the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection in the Hamburger Bahnhof and loans, Berlin 2020, p. 52.