Vita

Vanessa A. Opoku (she/her) is a visual artist who focuses on history, technology, and marginalized narratives within mixed realities. In her artistic practice, she reflects on how we can change perceptions of our world, reality, and all living things by forming alliances between art, science, and technology. Her preferred media include 3D graphics, animation, sculpture, photogrammetry, sound, and artificial intelligence.

Opoku is part of the artist collective PARA, which works in the field of interdisciplinary and site-specific installations and performing arts. Their works address topics such as chronopolitics, future heritage, and speculative feelings. Since 2021, she has been the art curator of Balance Club Culture Festival, which explores the political significance of club culture in society, its role in different communities, and its contribution to technological and cultural progress.
Opoku is currently a Meisterschülerin with Tina Bara at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (HGB) Leipzig. She studied Book Art and Graphic Design and Photography at the HGB Leipzig, graduating with a Diploma in Fine Arts in September 2021. She also studied Art and Digital Media with Constanze Ruhm at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Fine Art at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem. She holds a scholarship from the Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation and won "gute aussichten – junge deutsche fotografie // new german photography 2021/2022." She has recently exhibited her works at Église Palermo, Grassi Museum Leipzig, Künstlerhaus Dortmund, Halle 14 Leipzig, (im)Mutable Studio Los Angeles, with a solo show at Synnika Frankfurt, and Times Museum's Huangbian Station Contemporary Art Research Center (HBS) in Guangzhou, China.
Credits: Naomi Rado

Exhibitions

minding the gap


Group show
14.04.23 — 05.05.23

Alte Handelsschule
Gießerstr. 75
Leipzig, Germany

Mon. — Wed.: 9 - 12 h
Fri. + Sat: 15 - 18 h
With Tobia König, Vanessa A. Opoku, Roxana Rios, Nathalie Valeska Schüler.

MINDING THE GAP spans fields within supposed gaps and politically constructed dichotomies. In a multidisciplinary manner, the exhibition endures anti-capitalist work under the pressure of production and occupies the in-between of singular and collective reality. Minds space for what is repressed in pre-political spheres, and insists on connections between body and space.

When The Atmosphere Is Less Than Perfect


Group show 
07.04.23 — 25.04.23

MZIN
Museum der bildenden Künste
Katharinenstrasse 10
Leipzig

Tue. & Thu — Sun 10 - 18 h
Wed. 10 - 20 h
With Susanne Beck, Alicia Franzke, Nancy Göring, Alexandra Ivanciu, Kassandra & Apostolos, aNNa Lebedev*a, Mahshid Mahboubifar, Tess Marschner, Vanessa A. Opoku, Felix Pacholleck, Julia Perkuhn, Katharina Schreiter, Stefania Smolkina.
Curated by Tess Marschner and Felix Pacholleck.

In the multimedia installation WHEN THE ATMOSPHERE IS LESS THAN PERFECT, 13 artists approach the complications and potentials of the posthuman condition, which Rosi Braidotti describes as a moment of compelling transformation. Formerly inanimate, mute or ineffective bodies and materialities become perceptible as actors of relational modes and movements. These multiform creators of changing environments were never only human: in the installation WHEN THE ATMOSPHERE IS LESS THAN PERFECT they appear as historical, timeless, invisible, productive, threatening, linguistically gifted and collaborative co-beings and events.

REST IN PEACE Simulation


Solo Show
28.12.22 — 08.02.23

Nanfei Bar, hosted by Times Museum's Huangbian Station Contemporary Art Research Center (HBS)
Guangzhou China
and online

Review in Arts of the Working Class: https://artsoftheworkingclass.org/text/meditations-against-linearity
Rest in Peace Simulation is part of the transnational project Escaping Involution, hosted by HB Station in Guangzhou (CHN) and Synnika, Frankfurt/Main (DE).

In their collaborative work Rest in Peace Simulation (2022 – ongoing) the artists Philisha Kay and Vanessa A. Opoku approach and oppose the dominant narrative of linear time, that often goes hand in hand with the notion of progress, through guided meditations in virtual space. It aims to create a space to experience temporary disembodiment, and to dive into a sphere of being contrary to the seemingly irrevocable state of restless self-optimization – a place of resting. The 360° virtually generated environment of the Rest in Peace Simulation is designed by Vanessa A. Opoku, and accompanied by a voice over written and spoken by Philisha Kay. The simulation is set out to be launched in three chapters, with the now published first part: Out-of-Sync Recalibration.

ZENTRUM


Group show
01.12.22 — 08.02.23

Kunstraum IDEAL
Schulze-Delitzsch-Straße 27
Leipzig, Germany

Wed. + Sun: 15 - 18 h

www.idealartspace.de

In collaboration with: KV Leipzig, OxfordBerlin, Rosa Stern Space Munich and FAR - Foundation for Artistic Relations.

With digital and analog works by: Samuel Bich, Moving Target Collective (Alexa Steinbrück, Natalie Sontopski, Amelie Goldfuß), Fabian Hampel, Vanessa Opoku, Nadine Rangosch, Lion Sauterleute, Merlin Stadler, Paul Valentin.

ZENTRUM highlights models of self-organization, decentralized networks and collective work. As a contact zone of different art spaces, the exhibition offers a space to jointly develop approaches for solidary structures and the sharing of resources. How can these shared spaces be maintained and organized? How can collective structures be preserved from institutional fixation?

Wunderblock BETA


Screening
01.12.22 — 31.12.22

DOCK 20 – Kunstraum und Sammlung Hollenstein
Pontenstraße 20
Lustenau, Austria

Wed. + Sun: 15 - 18 h

www.dock20.lustenau.at

February to December 2022, online and in the shop window of DOCK 20 at Pontenstraße 20. The video becomes a means of introspection, a link between life reality, wishful thinking and archive, and an external memory of collective experience.

Award winners exhibition, gute aussichten, new german photography award 2021/2022


Group show
22.07.22 — 01.11.22

Haus der Fotografie
Festung Ehrenbreitstein
Landesmuseum Koblenz
Greiffenklaustraße
Koblenz, Germany

Mon. — Sun.: 10 - 18 h

www.2022.guteaussichten.org

In the 18th year of "gute aussichten," the eight-member jury selected eight prize winners from 72 submissions from 31 German universities: Max Dauven, Tamara Eckhardt, Maximillian Gessler, Alexander Kadow, Natalia Kepesz, Fiona Körner, Vanessa A. Opoku and Zoyeon.

The current award winners examine Internet memes, observe the sad reality of children, deal with the technical contrasts inherent in photography, have technical images changed by means of AI, are shocked by the reality of children playing war, wonder about the standardization of life in model home parks, and deal with foreignness and racism.

2525


Group show,
22.07.22 —24.07.22

SPOILER Berlin
Quitzowstraße 108a
Berlin, Germany
Curated by Niklas Jeroch.
Artists: Martin Bauer & Maj Mlakar, Ulrike Buhl, Christo Daskaltsis, Flavio Dege, Fanni Florian, Luke E. Holden, Christian Holz, Niklas Jeroch, Lefteris Kastrinaki, Wie-yi T. Lauw, Vanessa A. Opoku, Oded Yone, Lion Sauterleute

tender intelligences


Group show
07.07.22 — 14.07.22

(im)Mutable Studio
1206 Maple Ave
Los Angeles, USA

www.b-la-connect.org
tender intelligences is a curatorship by Paloma Oliveira and Renata Gaui that aims to bring a plurality of artistic perspectives on artificial intelligence (AI). The intention of the curatorial approach hopes to inspire other communities around the globe to be co-creators of this technology that will likely impact their lives.

tender intelligences is an exhibition on the use, design and care of community-driven AI that will first take place at the (im)Mutable Studio in Los Angeles this next summer and in the summer of 2023 at the Zentrum für Netzkunst in Berlin.

Edizione Multicolore #7


Book release & group show
03.07.22 — 31.07.22

HALLE 14
Zentrum für
zeitgenössische Kunst
Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei
Spinnereistr. 7
Leipzig, Germany

Tue. — Fri.: 11 - 18 h

www.halle14.org
Gabi Garland, Vanessa A. Opoku & Lion Sauterleute, Erik Swars & Tobias Muno

Edizione Multicolore is a platform for independent publishing. The initiators Dana Lorenz and Fine Bieler accompany selected artists from the creation of their own books to their publication. The exhibition in our art library presents the three latest publications and corresponding artworks. "Bussi بابا" is (d)a travel companion in a practical dust jacket by Gabi Garland. "Techné-Mythologies" includes an essay and eleven artistic works by Vanessa A. Opoku and was designed by Lion Sauterleute. "This and That" juxtaposes Polaroids by Erik Swars with texts by Tobias Muno.

Award winners exhibition, gute aussichten, new german photography award 2021/2022


Group show
26.03.22 — 01.05.22

Künstlerhaus Dortmund
Sunderweg 1
Dortmund, Germany

Thu. — Sun.: 16 - 19 h

www.2022.guteaussichten.org

With Max Dauven, Tamara Eckhardt, Maximilian Gessler, Alexander Kadow, Natalia Kepesz, Fiona Körner, Vanessa A. Opoku, Zoyeon.

"gute aussichten" comes of age! In the eighteenth year of its existence, the renowned prize for young artists is visiting the Künstlerhaus Dortmund with the works of the eight prize winners. As last year, the Künstlerhaus is the first stop of the exhibition, which will then be shown in Koblenz and Hamburg. A renowned jury selected the winners - all photography students were eligible to participate in the competition exclusively with their final projects, which they submitted to a qualified German institution.

Berg Versetzen (Moving Mountains)


with PARA
04.03.22 — ongoing

GRASSI Museum Leipzig
Johannisplatz 5-11
Leipzig, Germany

Tue. — Sun.: 11 - 18 h

www.berge-versetzen.com

With the opening of the first exhibition rooms, the museum shows the progress of its transformation. In the first part of the exhibition, visitors gain insights into the museum's colonial history and get to know some of the actors and networks that brought large parts of the ethnological collections to Saxony.

Berge Versetzen wants to return the peak of Kilimanjaro, which colonial geographer Hans Meyer took to Germany in 1889. To this end, the artists' group PARA invites the public to purchase replicas of the mountain peak, which will be produced in the exhibition at the GRASSI Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig and sold as part of a crowdfunding campaign. The proceeds of the sold replicas shall enable the return of the actual piece of the summit.

Nichts als Solide


Solo show
03.09.21 — 06.11.21

Synnika
NIKA.haus
Niddastraße 57
Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Fri.: 15 - 10 h
and by appointment

www.synnika.space

At Synnika, Vanesa A. Opoku shows works that can be understood as an examination of those traces that people leave in their surroundings and that are burned into landscapes and places. In conversation with poems by the Jewish poet Mascha Kaléko and the Afro-German poet May Ayim, which serve as a data set for an artificial intelligence, a monologue emerges in which a new, fictional lyric self is formed. Through the medium of this virtual being, the artist not only asks questions about identity, but also answers them with self-empowerment by placing the statements generated by the AI in a context that gives rise to a decided stance.

ARCIPELAGO


Group show
22.10.21 — 24.10.21

Église APS
Via dei Credenzieri 13
Palermo, Italy

www.egliseart.com

With Hammam Alawam, Fabio Aranzulla, Cihan Çakmak, Eli Eichler, Nancy Göring, Raisan Hameed, Genesis Kahveci, Johannes Ocker, Susanne Kontny, Lisa Kuznetsova, Christoph Liepach, Mahshid Mahboubifar, Tess Marschner, Mandy Moebes, Vanessa A. Opoku, Simon Osten, Felix Pacholleck, Anna Perepechai, Julia Perkuhn, Jay Ritchie, Julius C. Schreiner, Nina Schwartz, Pooya Sedighi Mournani

ARCIPELAGO traces the connections between origins and futures, examines specific points of relationship breakdowns, and tests the fatigue of the individual. The interconnected roots of plants-commonly referred to as rhizomes-serve as a medial philosophical conjunction in the search for potential polymorphic, postcolonial, queer, and ecological micro-appearances.

DOSIS II


Group show
26.08.21 — 23.09.21

Institut für Zukunft
An den Tierkliniken 38-40
Leipzig, Germany

With Thomas Baldischwyler, Katrin Becker, Dominika Bednarsky, cylo, Svenja Deking, Paula Eggert & Lukas Hartmann, Anaïs Goupy, JH Hamann, Yannick Harter, ILL, Barbara Lüdde, Sophia Kesting & Dana Lorenz, Salome Lübke, SaouTV & SupaKC, Ewa Meister & Johanna Ralser (mit Giuli Giani & Kristin Gruber), Larissa Mühlrath, Theresa Münnich, Murat Önen, Vanessa A. Opoku, Anna Raczynska, Daniel Rode, Juli Schmidt, Lisa Schumann & Johanna Stolze, Annika Stoll, Florian Wendler, 076**KRU

بوخنفالد مسيرة صوتية
Buchenwald. Ein Audiowalk
Buchenwald. An Audio Walk
بوخن ولد . یک پیاده روی صوتی
Buchenwald. Bir Audiowalk


Audiowalk release
2021  — ongoing

Stiftung Gedenkstätten Buchenwald und Mittelbau-Dora
Weimar, Germany

www.buchenwald.de

The audio walk enables a first arrival at the Buchenwald Memorial. As a story with many voices and perspectives, it welcomes guests to the memorial and accompanies them for about an hour on a very specific path through Buchenwald. It begins at the edge of the memorial parking lot, in its southeast corner, in front of the mailbox there. The rest of the path is described in detail in the course of the audio walk.

Instability — Planetary Transformations


Group show
24.09.20 — 27.11.20

FIBER Festival 2020
Tolhuistuin
IJpromenade 2
Amsterdam, Netherlands

www.2020.fiberfestival.nl
With the festival exhibition Instability, FIBER presents a range of emerging artists who respond to the transformative impact humans have on earth. Climate change, ecological crises and the underlying social and economic inequalities are causing global living environments to rapidly change into uninhabitable areas.

Slowly the absolute necessity for change is becoming more accepted, but what do these changes look like? And most importantly, what adjustments to our thinking about the planet – including thinking about ourselves – are needed to change course? Instability aims to contribute to this matter through artistic thoughts, experiences and imaginations.

Cinema Hamlet #1, Five Weeks of Moving Image exploring Transformation


Screening
31.08.19 — 06.10.19

HAMLET
Dörflistrasse 67
Zurich, Switzerland

www.hamlet.love
Programmed by Kelly Ann Gardener.

Cinema Hamlet is a new series in Hamlet’s program. In the first edition the term „Transformation“ is examined by five artists, curators and programmers, each on the basis of a weekend long program showing moving image.

Cartographies of the Vanishing Now


Group show
09.09.19 — 13.09.19

Waag
Nieuwmarkt 4
Amsterdam

www.fiber-space.nl

Cartographies of the Vanishing Now (COTVN) is a new research and development project exploring the potential of sensory art and alternative cartographic methods to remap reality in the age of environmental collapse. It sets out to capture the impact of the growing ecological instability on the way we organise and model our modern world, traces the forces behind environmental change and simultaneous shifts perspectives to move to brighter futures.

Publications

Techne-Mythologies. Topophilia, Identity and Virtuality — An attempt of Self-Empowerment through World-Building


Artist Book
2022
Publisher: Edizione Multicolore
ISBN: 978-3-948304-16-4

www.edizione-multicolore.org
Techne-Mythologies is an artist book that includes an essay by Vanessa A. Opoku and several artworks, of which 5 were exclusively made for the publication. In the essay “Techne-Mythologies. Topophilia, Identity and Virtuality — the Attempt of Self-empowerment through World-Building” the artist reflects on playing computer games, the connection between people and the creation of their surroundings, her family and their history of migration, and virtual worlds as spaces of empowerment.
The essay and the artworks are weaved together by Lion Sauterleute's design, that outspokenly embraces the digital aesthetic.

Available at MZIN Leipzig and www.edizione-multicolore.org

Metaverses and Borderlands


Article/Feminist Tech Vision
2022
In: Feminist Tech Principles, SUPERRR LAB

www.superrr.net
Feminist Tech is a set of work-in-progress guidelines for feminist tech policy-making and technology creation. The guidelines consist of 12 principles for feminist technology, which range from the intrapersonal to the global, and which are accompanied by a card deck and six essays envisioning more just technological futures.

This project is created by Superrr Lab and contributors of the Superrr Community. Superrr Lab develops visions and projects with the goal of creating more equitable futures. We research technologies, build networks and shape new narratives. Superrr is playful, visionary and feminist.


Körper - Kunst - Sexismus


Podium Discussion
2022
in: POSITION 2022— Forum und Ausstellung; Berufsverband bildender Künstler*innen Hamburg
ISBN: 978-3-930225-12-5

www.bbk-hamburg.de
DER KÖRPER IN DER KUNST — FORUM 2022.
European cultural history is characterized by a millennia-old tradition of the suppression of the feminine, which is naturally also reflected in art traditions. A tradition of the male gaze on an exposed and highly sexualized female body, which in turn has manifested itself in numerous pictorial motifs, stands out particularly clearly. How do we deal with this cultural history? What possibilities of transgression does contemporary artistic engagement with it know?

Nichts Als Solide
(Nothing but Solid)


Catalog
In: gute aussichten - new german photography 2021/2022
ISBN: 978-3-9819355

www.2022.guteaussichten.org
Children growing up in precarious circumstances (Tamara Eckhardt), young people playing war (Natalia Kepesz), threat and foreignness in one's own homeland (Vanessa A. Opoku), the pitfalls of foreign cultures (Zoyeon), the (un)culture of model home parks in Germany (Fiona Körner), 18 neat chapters of photography (Maximilian Gessler), pictorial testimonies through the marriage of analog and digital techniques (Alexander Kadow), the taming of the viral as well as volatile language of Internet memes by means of "Trojan horses" (Max Dauven) - the current award winners: inside move in their works along a timeline that embraces present, past, and future in equal measure.

Chapter I - Landscape


Catalog
2021
In: WHEN THE ATMOSPHERE IS LESS THAN PERFECT
Ed.:  Anna Perepechai, Fabio Aranzulla, Felix Pacholleck, Julia Perkuhn, Tess Marschner
The publication "WHEN THE ATMOSPHERE IS LESS THAN PERFECT" is a collaborative project, gathering 26 artistic positions, resulting from several years of work on the Anthropocene.

Talks/
Lectures

On digital art, AI, post-colonial art practice and marginalized narratives in the arts and culture.

A MAZE./Berlin 12th International Games and Playful Media Festival

Artist Talk &  Panel Discussion
Silent Green
https://2022.amaze-berlin.de/

MAPPING MEMORIES - JUDENGASSE EXTENDED

Panel Discussion
Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt/METAhub
https://www.juedischesmuseum.de/mapping-memories-judengasse/

MINDING THE GAP

Artist Talk
Kunstverein ars avanti Leipzig
http://arsavanti.blogspot.com/

Imperial Lives. Biographic Approaches as Decolonial Practice.

Berge Versetzen— Attempt at participatory restitution
Online/Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum
www.imperiallives.com

Edizione Multicolore

Public Reading of Techne-Mythologies
MZIN/Museum der Bildenden Künste Leipzig
www.mzin.de

Breakdown — (Post)Digitale Communities der Freien Szene

Artist Talk
Schaubude Berlin/Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Berlin
www.schaubude.berlin

Digital Lab #3: Prototyping Futures – Digitalität als Kulturpraxis

Artist Talk
HALLE 14 Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst
www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de

DER KÖRPER IN DER KUNST — FORUM 2022

Panel Discussion
FORUM II: KÖRPER-KUNST-SEXISMUS
Kunsthaus Hamburg
www.bbk-hamburg.de

PARA: Rückbauwerk Tiefstack

Artist Talk
Stiftung Wasserkunst Elbinsel Kaltehofe, Hamburg
www.hamburg.de

Edizione Multicolore #7

Talks on independent publishing and public reading of Techne-Mythologies
HALLE 14 Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst
www.edizione-multicolore.org

Dreaming Beyond AI

Artist Talk
Online
www.dreamingbeyond.ai

REINVENTING GRASSI.SKD

Panel Discussion
GRASSI Museum Leipzig
www.grassi-voelkerkunde.skd.museum

Nichts Als Solide

Artist Talk
Synnika Frankfurt
www.synnika.space

Reassemble Part 1: Weaving With Worlds

Session #3: Creating Dialogues With Non-Human Entities Using Neural Storytelling
FIBER Amsterdam
www.fiber-space.nl

Deutsche Telekom Magenta Moon

Visual Storytelling: World Building with Blender
Leipziger Platz, Berlin
www.magentamoon.de

Mentorships/Jury

In the Loop – On Artificial Intelligence and Time

Dreaming Beyond AI in cooperation with ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Deichtorhallen Hamburg and Kampnagel
https://dreamingbeyond.ai/en

Digitales Labor#2

HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin
www.hebbel-am-ufer.de

Reassemble Lab: Weaving With Worlds

FIBER Amsterdam
www.fiber-space.nl
© 2023 Vanessa Opoku. All rights reserved.