AUFENTHALTSGESTTATUNG

Aufenthaltgesttatung
Acrylic, steel, cable, glass, hand-dyed cotton, hand-spun wool, shredded paper, light, thread
96 x 72 x 36 IN | 244 x 183 x 91 CM
2016

Application for German asylum to the Das Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF) or Federal Office for Migration and Refugees.

Here, I answered questions required of asylum seekers to Germany while on residency in Berlin as dictated by the Das Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF) or Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. I answer the questions such as “Have you ever been persecuted because of your background?” or “Where are you from?” with cotton handdyed with indigo, handspun wool soaked with tears, shredded journals, maps and passport copies. In a future world where federal employees processing applications for asylum have the training necessary to read such artworks as documents - my choice of cash crops (cotton, indigo), wool from a farm in Northern California, and map fragments tracing the outline of unceded Tsalagiyi Detsadanilvgi territories would speak volumes about past and present experiences of genocide, racial terrorism, social marginalization and displacement in the US.

Indira Allegra in conversation with Nicole Archer at the San Francisco Art Institute, February 23, 2017.

Presented in collaboration with A Living Thing and Black Futures Month

The Bay Area-based artist Indira Allegra uses weaving as a methodology to discover how social texts behave as powerful warps and weft within contemporary society -- crossing each other at sharp right angles and creating large-scale social cloths. Allegra joins us to speak about a recent residency at Takt (Berlin) where they completed the weaving Aufenthaltsgestattung, an artwork that served as their literal application for German asylum from the conditions of oppression that they encounter as a Queer, Black and Native Femme living in the United States.

Berlin: (In)flux
A film & lecture series exploring immigrant and refugee experiences in Berlin.

Berlin: In(flux) seeks to address the recent, unabashed rise of racism and xenophobia in the US and Europe. Designed in tandem with the San Francisco Art Institute's faculty-led travel course Das Berlin-Projekt, led by Lasse Scherffig (Assistant Professor, Art & Technology) in Spring 2017, Berlin: In(flux) presents the opportunity to engage in a timely and important exchange on asylum-seeking, migration and diaspora using Berlin as a case study.