may ayim: dichterin. 1996.
meandering, wandering, amongst densely woven threads. Akinbode Akinbiyi
It’s the way things, life, pans out, in the constant wandering, the constant searching for meaning, the never-ending paths, roads, lanes, highways, byways, labyrinthian in their endlessness, in their calling out to the wanderer, here, yet another intriguing corner, footprints faint on the earth, silent vibrational traces on the relentless pavements. 1996 was such a year. The sad, devastating news of the passing. A young neophyte working out on a discarded keyboard. – Akinbode Akinbiyi
“Known to reflect an array of erased and subalternated narratives in his black and white photographs Akinbode Akinbiyi wanders, wonders, and documents a loss as personal as it is collective in “May Ayim: Dichterin. 1996.” Almost as if capturing silence, the Nigerian-British Berliner moves with lightness through a space as heavy as the funeral of a beloved, a friend, a writer that almost three decades later will have made history as big as the gap left behind by transcending. The exhibition presents a delicate collection carefully selected from Akinbiyi’s personal archival images of 1996, documenting and mourning - and celebrating the timelessness of May Ayim’s work and its disclosure of undeniably uncomfortable truths. ”
In June 2022, curated extremely intimate black-and-white photographs by the Berlin-based Nigerian-British photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi. These photographs deal with the farewell of the Afro-German poet, activist, and editor May Ayim in 1996 and was a way to remember and commemorate her at the onset of a response to her work. "May Ayim: Dichterin. 1996." is part of rongin shagor, an artistic intervention connecting multidisciplinary and multilingual artists to a poem by May Ayim.
Photographs : Muhammad Salah Abdulaziz and Stefanie Kulisch
Design: Chhandak Pradhan
The project “rongin shagor” is developed at Oyoun within the framework of "dive in. program for digital interactions" of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) in the program NEUSTART KULTUR and the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa.