Performance DESCENT von Riley Davidson im Bärenzwinger

DESCENT is a ritual performance by Riley Davidson. The performance marks the next chapter of “Furore,” the current exhibition by Nina Paszkowski, as part of which new works have been installed in the exhibition space.

DESCENT is a ritual performance in which flesh, sound, and silence recall what logic has forgotten. 
The performance draws on the myth of Inanna’s descent into the underworld—one of the oldest surviving texts in history (ca. 2100 BCE) from the ancient civilization of Sumer. The descent is understood as a necessary path of transformation. As we descend together into the collapse of empires, we—like Inanna—are called upon to shed versions of ourselves rooted in colonial ways of thinking. A vessel for wordless rage and grief. A ritual to untangle the knots of past generations. There is no way forward without the descent.

In the context of “Furore,” DESCENT expands the exhibition’s exploration of anger and transformation. The bear pit—historically a place built to display the supposedly “wild”—becomes a space in which violence, spectacle, and the boundaries between the self and the other are questioned. The performance also explores contemporary forms of spectacle: How do platforms such as social media mediate our encounters with violence and shape the relationship between witnessing and the self?

For a deeper insight into the exhibition’s themes and the creation of the works, Nina Paszkowski and the curators invite you to a dialogic tour at 7 p.m.