Decolonial Gaze vs WAVA

The ‘Agents of History’ group uses digital technologies to uncover untold stories that can be explored in urban space using a smartphone. The new project ‘BLCK WRK’ links historical facts with biographical traces of Black migrants who demand their rights to work and stay in Hamburg. The historical starting point as well as the starting point of the walking tour is the former ‘harbour office’, which was located at Rothesoodstraße 8. George Padmore, who organised the world’s first ‘Conference of N* Workers’ in 1930, worked there. Participants at this conference included the ‘brother delegates’ Franck Macaulay from Nigeria and E.F. Small from Gambia. Almost 100 years later, Larry Macaulay, together with Agents of History, analyses the current situation of African migrants and identifies continuities of exploitation that still have an impact today.

WAVA is an innovative nonprofit platform that reimagines public spaces through augmented reality, making site-specific artworks accessible worldwide through augmented reality. What's on: Apparitions with the 36th Bienal de São Paulo With works by: Maxwell Alexandre, Akinbode Akinbiyi, Michele Ciacciofera, Cevdet Erek, Theo Eshetu, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Ruth Ige, Hamedine Kane, Andrew Roberts, Juliana dos Santos, Ming Smith, Camille Turner, Cici Wu with Yuan Yuan, Vilanismo. WAVA and the 36th Bienal de São Paulo launch a first-of-its-kind global augmented exhibition—bringing the Bienal’s artworks to site-specific locations worldwide, such as Auckland, Badagry, Beijing, Brasilia, Kinshasa, Hong Kong, New York City, Rio de Janeiro, Tijuana/San Diego (on the border), and across São Paulo. Previous exhibitions around Frankfurt am Main are still on view, including works by Yael Bartana, Raafat Hattab, Muhammad Toukhy, Hinda Weiss, Morehshin Allahyari, Tony Cokes, Flaka Haliti, Tamiko Thiel and /p, Les Trucs, Tanya V. Abelson, Florian Adolph, Alex Chalmers, Shaun Motsi, and Kristin Reiman. Stay tuned. There’s always more to come! — Today, every public space is simultaneously an augmented space. Virtual data layering expands the physical space and opens new realms of possibilities. We wish to make this in-between space accessible for artistic interventions by anchoring virtual artworks to specific locations, channelling the ephemeral presence of an interruption or a glitch. Fostering site-specificity and thinking with curatorial dispositions, WAVA aspires to open up the augmented layer to the public and artists alike, serving as a nomadic framework for virtual and physical communal gatherings across different cities and places.