Multimedia installations

aksanti 33 is a three-part series that refers to the end of long-standing family presences, personal events, and medical habits that had major importance in my life. aksanti 33 (part 2) is a 33-hour durational and participative performance that took place over 3 days at the FOFA Gallery in March 2023. It welcomed up to 30 visitors with whom I shared an intimate space for several hours and the non-addictive opioid-based medication that I took for the last time after 12 years of treatment and also sent to my aunt in DR Congo until Pfizer stopped its production. The project deals with pain, grief, and medicine through the activities of visitation, rest, and sharing of care. Participants were invited to feel and explore the work of time and medication on bodies, stories, and relationships. We simultaneously hold and archive the space together and we practiced the act of welcoming and letting go again and again.

aksanti (parts 2.01 & 2.02) are the archive of the performance. This interactive multimedia installation plays with the shrinkage of time and memories and how it changes our perception of social relationships by rendering the 33-hour experience into a 33-minute audiovisual immersion. When entering the room, viewers face a screen with the projection of noise and textual correspondence. Below the screen sit four CRT TVs decomposing the act of sharing the medication. As the viewers explore the room further, they are immersed in audiovisual noise activated by the movement of people in the room and the archive. The noise functions as the signifier of content and void and as the announcer of arrival and departure. The behaviour of the noise guides the visitors to a state of rest. When their bodies finally rest, the noise dissipates to uncover a combination of soothing music, bits of recorded dialogues, and a visual abstraction and granulation of time and gesture.