Opening: Friday 4 June at 5 p.m.

04/06/2010-19/08/2010

Since 2005 Leo Asemota has been working on ‘The Ens Project’. During his stay in Amsterdam Southeast from March until June, as part of the BijlmAIR artist-in-residence, he has been refining the central being in this project called ‘The Handmaiden’.

At CBK Zuidoost Asemota presents an installation of four glass cases.

BijlmAIR is the residency program of CBK Zuidoost, SMBA and Stichting FLAT. CBK Zuidoost moved to its new location Anton de Komplein 120. Click here for the site from CBK Zuidoost

At CBK Zuidoost Asemota presents an installation of four glass cases. They reveal traces of the memory of the Bijlmer as part of the colonial history of the Netherlands. Migration through the ages play a central role by which Asemota zooms in on mythological characters and folklore of the ancestors of the inhabitants of Southeast, especially of Ghanaian and Surinamese. Like in earlier editions of ‘The Ens Project’ Asemota continues with his use of unorthodox and original material like vellum, palm-oil, beeswax, orhue (kaolin, used in the former kingdom of Benin) and coal dust as well as introducing other materials such as fur, silk and bronze.

Leo Asemota was born and raised in Benin City (Nigeria) before settling in London in 1998. Previous exhibitions and presentations from ‘The Ens Project’ include The Handmaiden; Liverpool (2010) at Metal at Edge Hill station in Liverpool, One’s History is Another’s Misery (2009) at Autocenter Berlin which subsequently travelled to Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, The longMarch of Displacement (2008) at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Emerging Discourse Part 2: Performance and Mimicry (2008) at Bodhi Art New York, ens memoralis (2008) at the National Portrait Gallery and After Walter (2007) a performance interpretation of Walter Benjamin’s “An Artwork in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility” which was broadcast on Resonance 104.4FM, London’s premiere art radio station.