Denise Helene Sumi

Vienna/Austria — Coordinator of the Digital Solitude program & Editor-in-Chief of Schlosspost

Denise Helene Sumi is an art historian, curator, and editor. In 2018, she was a fellow for art coordination at Akademie Schloss Solitude. Subsequently she has been the coordinator of the Digital Solitude program and editor-in-chief of the digital platform Schlosspost since June 2019. Amongst others her texts were published in the magazines Eikon, Camera Austria, and Spike Art Quarterly. Previously she worked as assistant at Künstlerhaus – Halle für Kunst und Medien in Graz and in Hellerau – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, Dresden.

Denise is co-founder and co-director of the Vienna-based Kunstverein Kevin Space.

Akademie Schloss Solitude Profile

Articles with and by Denise Helene Sumi:

Exhibition documentation

Our Loves Are Not Only Human

with Johanna Bruckner, Gary Zhexi Zhang & Agnes Cameron, Umber Majeed and Tiare Ribeaux

The exhibition Our Loves Are Not Only Human shows artistic works in which the social and ethical dimensions of care between humans, non-humans, other species, and the world of things collide.

Video stream from March 31 – April 10, 2020

I don’t exist yet

by Susanna Flock

The protagonists of Susanna Flock's latest video work »I don't exist yet« are different shaped, bright green, clumsy objects. The work looks in a strangely funny-uncomfortable way at stand-ins (placeholders) of computer animated characters – not yet digital bodies – their realities and substitute realities.

Video stream from March 18 – March 27, 2020

ziyaret, visit

by Aykan Safoğlu

The latest cinematographic work ziyaret, visit by Aykan Safoğlu – the second part of a trilogy – is an attempt to sensitively deal with loss and transgression while visiting graves on the Old St. Matthew’s Cemetery in Berlin.

Web Residencies by Solitude & ZKM

In Recent Years, We Learnt a Lot of Technical Words (…)

Interview with Hanna Husberg and Agata Marzecova

Hanna Husberg and Agata Marzecova developed a simple website employing the aesthetics of the color code used to communicate the national Air Quality Index (AQI). Quotes by transcripts that recount experiences of living in the hazy Beijing air create sometimes contradictory perspectives on the phenomena.

Web Residencies by Solitude & ZKM

The Timbral Matter of Voice and the Right to Opacity

Interview with Pedro Oliveira

Pedro Oliveira created a »sound essay,« in which he examines accent recognition software in asylum procedures, and challenges narratives of care around it. It serves as an entry point to or a conversation piece on the instrumentalization of voices and accents, on bodies as the site for the production of »evidence.«

Web Residencies by Solitude & ZKM

Flora, Fauna and Folk Tales

Interview with Gary Zhexi Zhang & Agnes Cameron

In the village of Ein Qinyya, Palestine, a local mesh network functions as both an organic community intranet and a means of interacting with the environment.

Editorial

Membrane – Boundary & Connectedness

by Schlosspost

A membrane is employed as a boundary-object and as a site of connectedness. Looking at this dual character of the membrane, the discussion in this issue is about flows, exchange, permeability, and translations, as well as about restraint, rejections, and protected areas.

Interview

Moments of Erasure

with Janine Jembere and Nicole Suzuki

Drawing from the Japanese art of shifu, a Sun Ra song, and old screensavers, the works The Text Is Text-ile & Of Sounds And Something Else discuss the recalibration of historical (written) heritage and knowledge.

Studio Visit

The Power Structures of Built Reality

Interview with Ana Filipovic

How does the hyper-financialization of housing affect our homes and the cities we live in? An examination into built structures and cultural values of late-capitalist society.

Web Residencies by Solitude & ZKM

The Dinner Table: Reconstructing Mukbang

Interview with Jennifer Katanyoutanant

In a world where people are lonelier than ever, Jennifer Katanyoutanant builds a website for the millions of mukbang fans to have online dinners with one another.

Web Residencies by Solitude & ZKM

Bioplastics Cookbook for Ritual Healing

Interview with Tiare Ribeaux

Tiare Ribeaux fabricates an alternative present/near future – creating bioplastics, sharing those recipes, for creating speculative environments, and healing the earth.

Studio Visit / Video

I Wanted to Photograph You

Conversation with Aykan Safoğlu

Aykan Safoğlu reveals an intimate view on his work ziyaret/visit, an encounter with personalities buried at a West Berlin cemetery, in an attempt to sensitively deal with loss and transgression.

Studio Visit

What is a Score?

Interview with Robert Blatt

An extensive look into the practice of artist and musician Robert Blatt, which is rooted in explorations of expanded sonic situations – functioning as an occurrence itself.

Portrait

Art Spotted Somewhere Else

with Lucie Freynhagen

Three projects by Lucie Freynhagen that dismantle the logic of the art market and institutions, where art can be spotted somewhere else, beyond institutionally secured spaces.

Studio Visit

Dance as a Trajectory

Interview with Elena Morena Weber

A look into the passionate choreographic work of Elena Morena Weber, which often unpacks questions of belonging and ancestry and concerns sensitive and emotional human states.

Interview

Are We Independent?

with GmbH: Weiny Fitui and Marco Trotta

GmbH focuses on self-organized structures of independent cultural initiatives and the bureaucratic apparatus beyond it, highlighting complex processes.

Interview

Towards Possible Futures

with Æther: Voin de Voin, Marie Civikov, and Andrew Fremont Smith

A discourse into the relationship between the individual and the society, the self and the other, reconsidering European transpersonal identity and imaginary ideas.

Editorial

Soft Power

by Schlosspost

Contributions by artists, curators and citizens from around the world explore formats and methods of soft power apart from the common strategies of culture, politics, and economy.

Interview

Being Soft Is the New Power

with Paula Kohlmann and Mareen Wrobel

The Soft Power Palace festival stands for the need to strengthen European cultural exchange and methods of togetherness – between art, social practice, and activism.

Round Table Discussion

Expose yourself!

with Shirin Barghnavard, Christoph Dreher, and Vinicius Jatobá

Iranian filmmaker Shirin Barghnavard talks about her relationship to censorship and creativity, documentary and fiction, and the art of filmmaking.

Exhibition Documentation

Poesis, Poetry and Praxis

by Ricardo Portilho, Daniella Domingues, Christoph Szalay, and Denise Helene Sumi

Read about an installation that adapts, transforms, and challenges complex concepts of traditions and rituals; home and neighborhood.

Sketch

Passport Control

by Vinicius Jatobá, illustrated by Denise Helene Sumi

Europe, 2068. Thirty years after World War III, also known as The Islamic War, a Wall separates Europe from other nations.

Web Residencies by Solitude & ZKM

The Formation of the Contemporary Myth

Interview with Sahej Rahal

Web resident, Indian artist Sahej Rahal claims that every day new myths are created. As a consequence, he builds the myths of the future, that truly resist a truth claim.

Interview

They Left Off Getting Carried Away

with Cássio Diniz Santiago and Till Wyler von Ballmoos

A conversation with the two performers Till Wyler von Ballmoos and Cássio Diniz Santiago about diverse measurement and belief systems, and on the perception of time and different realities.

Round Table Discussion

Performance as an Act of Civil Disobedience

with Milos Sofrenovic, Vinicius Jatobá

Author Vinicius Jatobá and Denise Helene Sumi met with Milos Sofrenovic to address questions around his latest performance »40’ 33’’: All Power to the Imagination.«