JUMANA MANNA

Depositions

Curated by Chiara Pirozzi and Alessandra Troncone 

In collaboration with Associazione VerginiSanità

Opening: Saturday the 5th of March, at 11.30 am

From March 5 till April 30, 2022 – extended till May 15, 2022


The fourth exhibition of Underneath the Arches consists of a site specific work by Jumana Manna, titled Depositions. 

In her work, Jumana Manna explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial legacies and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and occasional writing, Manna questions the paradoxes of preservation practices, particularly within the fields of archaeology, science and law. Her practice considers the tension between the modernist traditions of categorization and conservation and the unruly potential of ruination as an integral part of life and its regeneration.

For the exhibition at the Augusteo del Serino Aqueduct, Jumana Manna has made a series of small ceramic sculptures to respond to the tradition, familiar in the Middle East and beyond, of leaving uneaten / old bread out in public spaces. These sculptures mimic the practice of offering to an unknown receiver, an act that rids the giver of the sin of uneaten food; or wasted life. This meaning of “offering” is intertwined with the ritual that ancient Mediterranean civilizations had of making votive gifts to the gods – especially to female deities – in the form of clay loaves and buns, later found as grave goods. Some of these examples are on display at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and other museums in the Campania region, such as the Archaeological Park of Paestum and the Archaeological Museum of Eboli. The sculptures created by the artist are part of an installation conceived especially for the site, which mixes references to archaeology and inspiration coming from the street.

Depositions will be preceded by the screening of Jumana Manna’s film A Magical Substance Flows Into Me (2016) in the frame of a public event organized in collaboration with Fondazione Morra and hosted by Hermann Nitsch Museum in Naples on Thursday the 3rd of March, at 6  pm.

This project is kindly supported by Fondazione Morra, and it is realized under the Matronage of Madre Museum / Fondazione Donnaregina per le arti contemporanee of Naples, and under the patronage of the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. Thanks to MANN – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli.

 

Curatorial assistants: Massimiliano Bastardo, Sara Guidi, Vittoria Magrì, Stefania Trotta.

 

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Artist Biography

Jumana Manna (Princeton, 1987) is a Palestinian visual artist and filmmaker based in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include: Jumana Manna / MATRIX 278, Berkeley Museum of Art, San Francisco; Sketch and Bread, Balade Charlottenburg, Villa Oppenheim, Berlin; Thirty Plumbers in the Belly, M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (all 2021); Wild Relatives, Tensta Kunsthall, Stockholm (2020); Jumana Manna, Tabakalera, San Sebastian (2019); Wild Relatives, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2018); A Magical Substance Flows Into Me in Mercer Union, Toronto (2017), Malmö Kunsthall, Malmö (2016), and Chisenhale Gallery, London (2015); Wild Relatives, Jeu de Paume’s Satellite 10 program at MABA and CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (2017); and Menace of Origins, SculptureCenter, New York (2014). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions and festivals, including Toronto Biennial of Art (2019); 11th Taipei Biennial (2018); Nordic Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale (2017); Liverpool Biennial (2016); Marrakech Biennale 6 (2016); 54th and 56th Vienna International Film Festivals (2016 and 2018); 66th and 68th Berlinale (2016 and 2018); and CPH:DOX, Copenhagen (2018), where Wild Relatives (2018) won the New:Visions award.