About

On a transatlantic trip with Malian filmmaker Manthia Diawara, Édouard Glissant construes the multiplicity encapsulated in Black identity and the anti-slavery will. This multiplicity is more than the richness of Black culture, civilisation, or language; it can serve as a thread to apprehend and interrelate oppression and resistance, freedom and privilege.¹

He acutely argues that the awareness of this multiplicity is a spiritual departure for all of us; describing the moment of arrival is where 'all components of humanity' 'consent to the idea that it is possible to be one and multiple at the same time'.² Even though Glissant's practice has long been recognised as concentrating on African thought and cultural analysis, this vision remains open to all and to many layers of matters that can possibly unfold. 

Stemming from this vision of Édouard Glissant, Not to be a singular being is an ongoing initiative that examines what it might mean to 'be one and multiple', 'be yourselves and the other' simultaneously, spanning exhibitions, performances, screenings, discursive events, online platforms and new commissions.

As a form of resistance to commodified identity politics and the reduction of human beings into static classification, the 1st edition of Not to be a singular being brings awareness of our own personal complexity, speculating on and forging entanglements with others. This way the project is dedicated to imagining "difference", and "otherness" anew. It consists of an exhibition, an opening night with four performances,  two related events, and an online platform.

By bringing together four artists: Asuf Ishaq, Diana Zrnic, Foxy Azucar, and Katarina Ranković, we will think through the diasporic body as an archive of intergenerational experiences, newly emerging biopolitical interpersonal entanglements, individual position/authorship in community-based decolonial critique, and the fluidity of personal identity.