Schering Stiftung

Exhibition 

Installation views of the exhibition

Installation views of the exhibition "Omi Libations" in the project space of the Schering Stiftung, 2024, Berlin
Photo: Jens Ziehe

Installation views of the exhibition

Installation views of the exhibition "Omi Libations" in the project space of the Schering Stiftung, 2024, Berlin
Photo: Jens Ziehe

Installation views of the exhibition

Installation views of the exhibition "Omi Libations" in the project space of the Schering Stiftung, 2024, Berlin
Photo: Jens Ziehe

Installation views of the exhibition

Installation views of the exhibition "Omi Libations" in the project space of the Schering Stiftung, 2024, Berlin
Photo: Jens Ziehe

Installation views of the exhibition

Installation views of the exhibition "Omi Libations" in the project space of the Schering Stiftung, 2024, Berlin
Photo: Jens Ziehe

Installation views of the exhibition

Installation views of the exhibition "Omi Libations" in the project space of the Schering Stiftung, 2024, Berlin
Photo: Jens Ziehe

Installation views of the exhibition

Installation views of the exhibition "Omi Libations" in the project space of the Schering Stiftung, 2024, Berlin
Photo: Jens Ziehe

Tabita Rezaire [Amakaba] x Yussef Agbo-Ola [Olaniyi Studio]

Omi Libations

Tabita Rezaire [Amakaba] x Yussef Agbo-Ola [Olaniyi Studio]

Omi Libations

Duration:

April 25 – July 07, 2024

Exhibition opening:

Wednesday, 24. April 2024, 6–9 p.m.

Opening hours:

Thursday and Friday, 1–7 p.m.
Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays, 11 a.m.–7 p.m.

Venue:

Project Space Schering Stiftung
Unter den Linden 32-34
10117 Berlin


The exhibition Omi Libations is the result of a collaboration between the artist Tabita Rezaire, the artist-architect Yussef Agbo-Ola, and the biologists Alex Jordan and Anja Wegner from the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Konstanz.

The exhibition centers on a structure titled Omi: Yemoja Temple envisioned by the artists which is dedicated to the Yoruba Orisha Yemoja. In the pantheon of the West African Yoruba people, Yemoja is considered to be the mother spirit of rivers and oceans and all creatures living therein.

The exhibition focuses on water as the source of life. The conceptual foundation was laid by a research trip that Rezaire and Agbo-Ola undertook with the scientists. Their research took them to Zanzibar, an archipelago off the coast of Tanzania, and to Lake Tanganyika, where they studied the local water fauna including fish, corals, and micro-organisms.

The walk-through temple that engages all senses brings the habitat of this fauna to Berlin, inviting visitors to connect to an environment that the Yoruba consider to be inhabited by both physical and spiritual beings. The knitted textile surface of the pavilion designed by Olaniyi Studio, whose individual fabric elements have been dyed indigo blue in Nigeria using centuries-old techniques, shows abstract representations of the sea organisms discovered and studied by the artist-scientist team during their dives.

In the temple’s interior, visitors will find offerings to the sea goddess such as flowers and honey. An immersive sound installation combines ritual chants with spoken artistic and scientific reflections on the water ecosystem.

Omi: Yemoja Temple is, therefore, much more than an architectural construction: As an experiential space, it combines scientific research with spiritual rituals, and expands biological and ecological research perspectives to encompass a holistic approach integrating indigenous technologies and knowledge systems.

 

 

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OMI | Oceans of Multispecies Interconnections 

Common Ground 

Symposium — June 01, 2024

The one-day symposium OMI – Oceans of Multispecies Interconnections brings together artists, curators and scientists to discuss the manifold relationships with water.

Learn more
Dialogue — 2021 – 2024

Insights into the "Common Ground" project between the scientists Alex Jordan and Anja Wegner and the artists Tabita Rezaira and Yussef Agbo-Ola

Learn more

Partners 

This Project is realized in cooperation with the following partners:

Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary

Tabita Rezaire is infinity longing to experience itself in human form. Her path as an artist, devotee, doula, and cacao farmer is all geared towards manifesting the divine in herself and beyond. As an eternal seeker, Tabita’s yearning for connection finds expression in her cross-dimensional practices, which envision network sciences - organic, electronic and spiritual - as healing technologies to serve the shift towards heart consciousness.

Embracing digital, corporeal and ancestral memory, she digs into scientific imaginaries and mystical realms to tackle the colonial wounds and energetic misalignments that affect the songs of our body-mind-spirits. Tabita’s work is rooted in time-spaces where technology and spirituality merge as fertile ground to nourish visions for connection and emancipation. Through screen interfaces, healing circles and land stewardship, her offerings aim to nurture our collective growth and expand our capacity for togetherness.

Tabita is based in French Guiana, where she is caring for  AMAKABA a center for the arts of earth, body and sky.

Her offerings have been shared widely – Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, Museum of Modern Art – Paris; MASP, São Paulo; Serpentine , Institute of Contemporary Arts, Victoria and Albert Museum, Tate Modern– London; MoMa, New Museum, MoCADA – NY; Gropius Bau Berlin; and within international biennales in Sydney, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Kochi, Athens, Helsinki, Busan, Berlin. She is represented by the Goodman Gallery.

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Yussef Agbo-Ola, founder of Olaniyi Studio, is an architect and artist living between London and the Amazon. His practice questions how art, architecture, and anthropological research can create experimental environments that challenge the way we experience geological conditions and living ecosystems. His research manifests through architectural temples, photographic journalism, material alchemy, interactive performance, experimental sound design, and conceptual writing. Yussef holds a Masters in Fine Art from the University of the Arts London, and a Masters in Architecture from the Royal College of Art. He has led art and architectural commissions for the United Nations, Institute of Contemporary Art (London), Serpentine Gallery London, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, TEDx East End, BBC Arts, Venice Architectural Biennials, Palais de Tokyo, Tai Kwun Arts Center, and Lexus Automotive Innovation Centre Japan, among others. Agbo-Ola is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture at Columbia GSAPP where he directs an experimental design studio within the Advanced Architectural Design program.

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Alex Jordan leads an independent research group based at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, and works in oceans, lakes, and forests where animals live and have evolved. By working with animals in their own environments, he seeks insight into their subjective experiences, challenging our entrenched views on animal consciousness, experience, and perception of the world. Jordan is interested in exploring human limits of understanding other organisms, as well as the rules and criteria by which we judge non-human experience. By examining the social lives, aesthetic preferences, and subjective experiences of aquatic animals, the lab attempts to build a bridge of understanding between the human and non-human experience of our shared world. While maintaining a primary role in the scientific realm, Jordan and his team are also active at the interface of art and science, collaborating widely with artists, architects, and philosophers.

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Anja Wegner is a transdisciplinary researcher and marine science educator. She is currently a fellow at the Rachel Carson Center at LMU Munich and finishing her PhD in the Behavioural Evolution Lab at Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, studying damselfish and their social behavior on physical structures. Her project at the nexus of ecology, art, and architecture aims at establishing a practice of co-designing with marine fish in collaboration with artists, architects and designers. Scuba diving, she collects data and makes observations for quantitative behavioral analysis. Combining those findings with the perspectives and approaches from different disciplines, Anja wants to learn more about the fish while creating a non-gestational kinship with the animals she observes. Her approach allows her to reflect on her research and the process itself and to contextualize it within a multispecies framework.

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Contact & social networks

Schering Stiftung

Unter den Linden 32-34
10117 Berlin

Telefon: +49.30.20 62 29 62
Email: info@scheringstiftung.de

Opening hours
Project space

Thursday to Monday: 1 pm - 7 pm
Saturday to Sunday: 11 am - 7 pm
free entrance

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