As part of Lucas Odahara’s Sleep and Death (Rasse & Schönheit), commissioned by Bärenzwinger Berlin for the exhibition „Into the drift and sway“, the artist prepared a collaborative exchange with writer hn. lyonga
set to take place on Sunday, February 20th at 15h.

In the past year, Odahara and lyonga have actively engaged in each other’s practices and personal lives. As queer people of color living in Germany for over a decade, their work often engages with questions of race and gender within European spaces and histories. 

For the upcoming event, they are stepping aside - but not away from the convoluted history surrounding Adolf Brand, the founder of Germany’s first published gay magazine. Odahara’s installation places a fragment of this history in the water basins of the Bärenzwinger. What are the water’s wills, motives, and modes of remembering? How can memories of the global south exist next to the monolithic power of western histories? Is it possible to look at water as a space of memory, in transition - one in which personal and historical memories can coexist? These questions are the bedrock upon which Odahara and lyonga’s collaboration rests. Their new texts ‘Twin Constellations’ and ’The river flows fastest towards the end’ will be read in public at the event.

Following the reading, a visit to the café of nearby Marinehaus is proposed.

Event in English language. The texts will be available as print-outs as well.

2G+ regulation is valid for the visit in the Bärenzwinger. Please bring the proof of vaccination or recovery with you and a negative Antigen-test result (no older than 24 hrs), or a proof of third ("booster") vaccination.

We kindly ask you to please wear a mask while visiting the exhibition.