A Flower Garden of All Kinds of Loveliness Without Sorrow is the artist Christian Nyampeta’s first solo exhibition in Germany.
The title is borrowed from Een bloemhof van allerley lie ijkheyd sonder verdriet (1668), one of the first Dutch dictionaries by Adriaan Koerbagh, a Dutch philosopher and critic. Despite its own contradictions, Koerbagh’s publication attempted to demystify the language of the Church and the State, and to intervene against the cultural injustice resulting from the distortion of religious and clerical meanings.
Drawing from the story surrounding Koerbagh and his practice influenced by a Radical Enlightment, Nyampeta’s A Flower Garden at the GfZK deals with the representational mechanisms of language and narrations, processes of translation, as well as cultural acts of violence.
The project consists of three components: an exhibition that presents a combination of works which narrate histories and fictions from within the former European colonies Congo and Rwanda , a scriptorium in which a Leipzig working group discusses and annotates the English and German translation of writings by the Rwandan philosopher Isaïe Nzeyimana and a public programme.
Sponsored by: Alpha 2000, Europas Zukunft gUG, mondriaan fonds, Förderkreis der GfZK