FADI AL-HAMWI
Salt Spiral / دوامة الملح
Performance installation, 2024
Heidenheim museum, Deutschland
Guard never sleep / الحارس لا ينام
interactive performance installation Torhaus, Berlin, 2023
"Guard Never Sleeps" is an ongoing 10-day performance installation, (8 hours a day), intuitively structured within the Torhaus space. Torhaus was the Gatehouse
of Tempelhof former airport in Berlin, currently serving as a camp for refugees. where Al-Hamwi stayed for a week at Hangar 3 in Tempelhof when he arrived in Berlin in 2015.
The project showcasing Al-Hamwi's personal archived asylum processes, original papers, and documents related to his journey seeking asylum in Germany.
During the performance, visitors interested in entering the space and examine the documents must apply for a visa and undergo an interview with Al-Hamwi.
Visa durations for accessing the space range from 1 minute to open-ended permits. Once a visa is granted, the person can stay in the space until it expires. then Al-Hamwi asks them to leave the space upon visa expiration, and if they wish to re-enter, they must apply for another visa and undergo a new interview.
The interviews consist of spontaneous and improvised questions formulated by Al-Hamwi, covering the visitor's nationality, political views, psychological aspects, and personal experiences. These interactions oscillate between serious visa interviews and sarcastic, humorous conversations about life, exploring different facets of both the visitor and the authority figure represented by the guard.
The performance installation itself is characterized by a mix of kitschiness, seriousness, humor, and playfulness. The installation features a running system of papers within the space, propelled by rotation motors, symbolizes a slow, corrupted, and messy bureaucratic system, prone to glitches and failures.
Official performance days and hours were:
Days: From 06.10.23. until 15.10.23
Hours of the performance:
12:00 - 16:00 we are open
16:00 - 18:00 (break)
18:00 - 20:00 we are open
20:00 - 22:00 (break)
22:00 - 00:00 last shift.
Glass Fountain / نافورة الزجاج
Performance installation
Reuterplatz fountain, Berlin, Germany, 2022
Glass Fountain is a site-specific performance installation in the fountain of Retuerplatz, Berlin. The performance is an attempt to reactivate the fountain that has not been filled with water for more than 10 years.
During the performance Al-Hamwi is breaking 2 tons of security glass, spreading the shards on a platform inside the fountain, which makes the glass on the surface shaking and trembling by vibration motors attached beneath the platform.
Video: https://vimeo.com/749938720
Video: https://vimeo.com/758890699
Human Mistake II / خطأ بشري ٢
Performance installation
Europäische Kunstakademie Kunsthalle, Trier, Germany, 2022
I will make this mistake again.
I will never make this mistake again.
Human Mistake is a performance-based installation project centred around three main objects/materials: Glass, metal, and vibration motors. The work studies and explores the possibilities that cause a human mistake, both consciously and sub- consciously, accidentally or intentionally, as well as the actions or reactions that surround it. It is an investigation to translate and embody the chances of repairing what has been broken by accepting and honouring the damages.
Central to this work is the concept of duality. Dualities influence all aspects of the work from the way that he interprets space to the actions he performs and the sculptural objects that he created for the site-specific installation. Hues of light change from warm to cold, materials rub up against one another; hard and soft, and delicate glass meets the stable mass of hard metal. Electricity flows along red and blue cables carrying positive and negative currents, enabling the whiz- zing burring, scratching, scraping and bristling of the self-made machines to present a chorus of anticipation. For the Kunsthalle Trier the artist has adapted his vision and worked with the venue’s specific textural structures.
Even as the unexpected noises caused by self-designed and developed contraptions and machines permeate through each of the different rooms, Al-Ham- wi intervenes in the space, physically transporting glass panels and objects that on the one hand represent rudimentary materials that we are all familiar with but also figure into the duality of danger and security. What does the idea of safety glass mean, and is glass that is broken always a mistake? The- se and other questions of security, intentionality, transparency, and memory are being vigorously processed in real-time by both the machines and the artist himself.
Video: https://vimeo.com/750126151