Rosanna Graf, Ordinary Women – Carrier Bags of Friction (Videostill), 2023, © VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2023
Artist talk with Rosanna Graf, Sophia Kennedy & Anna Nowak
Friday, 15. December 2023, 6 pm
Please note that this talk will be held in German!
The enigmatic worlds that Rosanna Graf (*1988 in Munich) creates in her video and sound installations as well as interactive performances always hold the potential to cause a sense of unease. In her artistic work, she explores collective fantasies and combines old and new myths into speculative fictions. Feminist, non-human and grotesque characters take center stage as projection figures. In a surreal state of limbo, detached from space and time, these marginalized figures fight against being stereotyped. For the exhibition hall of the Kunsthaus, the artist has produced the expansive 4-channel video and sound installation Ordinary Women – Carrier Bags of Friction. Female rage is the key element underlying this new body of work which, based on numerous references to film, literature and media, succeeds in deconstructing long-established role models.
In the artist talk, Rosanna Graf presents her current exhibition Ordinary Women – Carrier Bags of Friction. Sophia Kennedy not only plays the character of “The Journalist” in the displayed work but also created the sound. In conversation with curator Anna Nowak, the two artists will provide insights into the creation and production process.
Rosanna Graf (*1988, Munich) studied Fine Arts at HFBK Hamburg and Goldsmiths, University of London. Selected exhibitions of her work include Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin (2020); Deichtorhallen Hamburg / Sammlung Falckenberg (2019); Kunsthaus Hamburg (2019); annual editions of Kunstverein Munich (2017) and Galerie Conradi, Hamburg (2016). She is part of the performance collective DOLLHOUSES.
Sophia Kennedy, born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA is an American musician, singer and producer. Having grown up in Germany, she began studying film at the HFBK. In 2017, Kennedy released her acclaimed debut album on the label Pampa Records, which she recorded together with Mense Reents at Art Blakey Studio. In collaboration with Helen Ratka Kennedy, she founded the duo Shari Vari, which published their first album Now on the Malka Tuti Label in 2019. Kennedy’s second album Monsters (2021) on City Slang was awarded the VUT Price 2022 in the Best Album category. In the past, Kennedy has worked as a musician on theater productions and composed the music for various radio play productions. Kennedy lives and works in Hamburg and Berlin.