Living Room Session
Our tenth edition
Living Room Session is a recurring live program set in a metaphorical living room where different artistic practices meet. Curated and hosted by Shaquille Shaniqua Joy, each edition brings together artists who explore a shared subject through their own medium. For the tenth edition, we explore Transforming Ways of Seeing.
As we change over time, so do our relationships to people and spaces. A room or environment may remain the same, but the way we perceive and move through it shifts. Sometimes we grow into a space, sometimes we grow beyond it. Across the past four years, artists have translated embodied experiences into performance, sound, film, meditation, movement, and more – shaping the evolution of this metaphorical living room and inviting us to reconsider how we see, think, and listen.
Join us on April 24 and take a seat as Shaquille Shaniqua Joy guides you through an evening with a sonic lecture by BAKÍ ÁJĀ founder, interdisciplinary artist and griot A’isha Odera, a spoken reflection in performance by artist, writer, and curator J. G. Basdew, and the performance of Ochtenddouw by saxophonist Diana Dzhabbar and dancer, choreographer and teacher Vainergill Thurnim.
Line-up
A’isha Odera
A’isha Odera’s practice harnesses art as a medium of revolutionary becoming, asking – How might art and space be mobilised to remind us of our duty and capacity to shape what comes next? She approaches curation as an archaeological art form using it as a tool to explore how the spatial occupancy of Black technologies can heal fractured diasporic histories and cultivate future possibilities.
Her organisation BAKĪ ÁJĀ, serves as a communal vehicle for the proliferation of knowledge through film, sound, conversation, spatial occupancy and literature circulation. Through which she has curated exhibitions, educational exchanges and artistic confluences in New York, Uganda, Nairobi, London and Tanzania whilst also building an online and physical libary/archive.
Her artistic practice traverses sonic and visual expressions, lectures, movement and large-scale installation – an artist whoose polyvaneous outputs have orbited the likes of the Tate Modern, Kampalas Afropocene Studio Lab and Kilele Summit in Nairobi. Odera positions herself as a channel for knowledge and memory, a modern griot, one that is committed to pushing the boundaries of pedagoglical possibility.
J.G. Basdew
J.G. Basdew is an artist, writer and curator whose work moves between performance, exhibitions and public reflection. His practice explores how artistic voices can shift the way we see ourselves and one another, opening space for dialogue, imagination and shared understanding.
Alongside his artistic work, he initiates platforms and conversations that bring artists, thinkers and audiences together around questions of care, responsibility and how we might live well together. J.G. Basdew photographed by Woody Bos.
Diana Dzhabbar & Vainergill Thurnim
Diana Dzhabbar (1998, Kryvyi Rih) is an Afro-Ukrainian saxophonist based in Amsterdam. Music is a part of her personality. She can express her feelings and emotions through this and loves the audience to experience that as well. Diana plays with notable groups such as the “Brintex Collective” and “BNNYHUNNA,” showcasing a unique blend of cultural influences.
Vainergill Thurnim (1997, Amsterdam) is a freelance dancer, choreographer and teacher whose work explores the intersection of emotion, movement and human connection. Her artistic practice begins where words fall short: from personal impulses she creates performances that make inner experiences shareable. She has performed at venues including Het Nationaal Theater and Frascati.
Ochtenddauw‘ is a powerful 30-minute duet between dance and saxophone, where music and movement enter a dynamic, sometimes confrontational dialogue. Saxophonist Diana Dzhabbar blends jazz, soul, ambient, and hip hop, while dancer Vainergill Thurnim brings explosive movement rooted in West African and contemporary styles.
At its core, the performance explores anger and other suppressed emotions, especially as they intensify at night. Like morning dew marking the transition to day, these emotions transform, revealing anger not as purely negative, but as a force for release, healing, and change.
Choreographer & dancer: Vainergill Thurnim
Saxophonist & performer: Diana Dzhabbar
Understudy dance: Zacquel Phipps
Composer: $ean Luck
Shaquille Shaniqua Joy
Shaquille Shaniqua Joy is a moderator and cultural curator focusing on storytelling. Her work explores the embodied experiences of herself and others through conversations, programs and exhibitions. Shaquille collaborates with cultural institutions and museums, as well as platforms and brands. As a moderator she always strives to have conversations rather than interviews. Her excitement for people and their fascinations is the base of her practice, which inspires her to create various formats including the Living Room Session.
Would you like to attend this program, but don’t have the means to pay for a ticket? Send an email to info@felixmeritis.nl, we can work something out.
Note: By booking this ticket, you agree to potentially be photographed during the event.