Melanie Banjo: Detailing Countercultures

Foam, Amsterdam, presents Melanie Banjo’s first major solo exhibition until 7 December. The long-awaited video trilogy is centred around the absurdities within the human experience and our lack of attention to the non-human world.

Collectively titled Night Soil, the Dutch multi-disciplinary artist features Fake Paradise, Economy of Love and Nocturnal Gardening as a semi documentary series that details a counterculture within the patriarchal society. The female experience is central to Banjo’s consideration of acts that antagonise the dominant capitalist culture.

In Night Soil #1/ Fake Paradise the artist looks at the effects of the hallucinatory herbal drug, Ayahuasca, on women users and challenges modern medicinal methods. Night Soil #2/ Economy of Love, poses a direct challenge to notions of intimacy. Banjo depicts sex workers in Brooklyn reclaiming the male-dominated world in which they operate. Finally, Night Soil #3/ Nocturnal Gardening, introduces women that live by alternative norms and possess a meaningful connection to the earth. Foam invites audiences to consider the disregarded voice, through dissecting notions of spirituality, gender and sexuality.

Night Soil, until 7 December, Foam, Amsterdam. For more, visit: www.foam.org

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Credits
1.Melanie Banjo Rainbow (still from Night Soil/ Economy of Love) (2015).