AC/KADEMIE 6

WED, Apr 6, 2022 Online event, 16:00 CET

Please join via Zoom (password: 5748500) or Vimeo.  

Tropical Tap Water is a band consisting of Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba, Diana Cantarey, Julian Abraham “Togar” and Simnikiwe Buhlungu. They will present their work and discuss the process behind their collaboration. They will share songs and texts that they wrote together, for example their text written in relation to their role as harvester during the Majelis Akbar #2 (mega assembly) for the Lumbung network of documenta fifteen.

Furthermore they will share their views and thoughts on communal resources of tangible and intangible assets, which they call Baskom/Waskom. Baskom is a way to embrace and practice the sharing of resources. In between their talks, presentations and conversations, Tropical Tap Water will have live jamming sessions and show videos, images and other documentations from their jamming sessions.

“Our band was planted and watered at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam in 2020. In this period we all became new citizens of Amsterdam, coming from so-called Global South countries. Sometimes we read [very difficult] theoretical texts together, sometimes we go on train ride adventures to see art together, sometimes we don’t see one another, sometimes we meet on zoom, sometimes we jam together. As of now, we are busy writing songs for our upcoming album while thinking on how we can continue the band after the residency period finishes. We are professional jammers: available for hire for birthday parties, weddings, exhibitions, mourning ceremonies, music festivals and other events. Our dream is to play in a conference.”

Diana Cantarey (Mexico, 1994) is an artist and fact-ion designer that parasites Amsterdam. Her practice weaves questions around extinction, excess and exploitation. Active member of different collective art initiatives like the production house El Colegio de la Desextinción, the De-reading Group of decolonial studies and the jamming band Tropical Tap Water. Lately she is transforming into a reptile and enjoys playing the bass.

Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba (México, 1988). Plastic reporter. Some of his recent articles are 'patadoxes that remain unpublished about arts, culture, politics, economy and desire in México. Now lives and works in Slumil K'ajxemk'op (also known as Europe) and from there collects liquids for the Tropical Tap Water baskom.

Julian Abraham "Togar" (b. Medan, Indonesia) is an artist, musician and pseudo-scientist. His practice often focuses on the demystification and dissemination of specialist knowledge to broader communities. Often found himself sitting behind the drums, composing Beaterballen Beats for Tropical Tap Water.

Simnikiwe Buhlungu (1995) is an artist from Johannesburg, South Africa. Interested in knowledge production[s] – how it is produced, by whom and how it is disseminated – Buhlungu locates socio-historical and everyday phenomena by navigating these questions and their inexhaustible potential answers. Through this, she maps points of cognisance, i.e. how do we come to know? Lately, she has been listening to some maskandi music, thinking about apiaries and scanned publication contributions to Simunye Resource Works, a publishing house that is forever yet-to-exist.

Ac/kademie is a series of artist-lead conversations amongst the residents of the Jan van Eyck Academie and the Rijksakademie, two post-academies in the Netherlands. This series is organised in collaboration with the Saastamoinen Foundation and the Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts, Finland.

The Jan van Eyck Academie and the Rijksakademie alternate monthly in hosting a public dialogue between its artists-in-residence. In each session the artists will be given agency to shape their conversations in ways that best express their artistic languages in relation to one-another. Through their first-person account the talks will provide valuable insights into their practices and working processes and will also be an opportunity to hear their thoughts on wider questions regarding art practice, the process of forming one’s own artistic language, among other topics. One after another, this series of conversation will amount to a unique overview of a wide range of practitioners from diverse socio-cultural and disciplinary backgrounds. And will also allow for an informal setting for peer-to-peer exchange and community building, extending outwards through the online platforms to engage with the art students based in Finland, and with many other publics around the world.

As institutions with a long history of hosting and nurturing the artistic development of practitioners in pivotal moments of their career, the Jan van Eyck Academie, the Rijksakademie, the Saastamoinen Foundation and the Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts, once again place the emphasis on and give agency to artistic practice.