Nothing But Solid—Measuring Space and Time

Vanessa A. Opoku, 2021

In a fluid stream of bright points, surrounded by a dazzling, many-layered cloak of sound, we follow a flaneuse through space and time. Passages of memory dwell here: the past in light of the present, and the present reflected in the past, crossing and traversing personal and the collective memories. The installation is accompanied by a recitation based on the output of an artificial intelligence application that was trained with verses by German-Jewish poet Mascha Kaléko (1907–1975) and Afro-German activist and author May Ayim (1960–1996): “I Am Here and I Know.” A nearly immobile avatar keeping watch follows the goings-on, similar to a Greek chorus providing commentary on the actions. Vanessa A. Opoku’s Nothing But Solid is a fictive journey that was inspired by the ambivalent state of a protagonist oscillating between the ghosts of the past and threats of the present, between certainty and selfquestioning, between losing and finding.