GREY IS THE NEW PINK - Moments of Ageing

Including photographs by Raymond Sagapolutele

Weltkulturen Museum Frankfurt

25 October 2018 - 01 September 2019

Participating artists: Ishola Akpo (*1983 CI/BJ), Ramy Al-Asheq (*1989 PS/SY/DE), Femi Amogunla (*1984 NG), Naama Attias (*1989 IL), Meret Buser (*1990 CH), Jess T. Dugan (*1986 US) and Vanessa Fabbre (*1978 US), André Günther/Albino (*1987 DE), Hartmut Jahn (*1955 DE), Günther Krabbenhöft (*1945 DE) and Britt Kanja (*1951 DE), Lars Krutak (*1971 US), Osborne Macharia (*1986 KE), Ninette Niemeyer (*1961 DE), Raymond Sagapolutele (*1971 WS/NZ), Patricia Thoma (*1977 DE), Karsten Thormaehlen (*1965 DE) and Jake Verzosa (*1979 PH) as well as participants in the open global “Call for Content”, students and elderly participants of the “textgestALTER” project as well as Jakob Gross, Roberta Mandoki and Annika Mayer from the project “Elderscapes”.

Who is old – where and when? Can we meet the ‘challenge of ageing’ optimistically? And what potential lies slumbering in the process of ageing?

GREY IS THE NEW PINK presents diverse ideas and models of ‘age(ing)’ from the perspective of cultural studies and the visual arts, as well as personal and individual experience. Like fragments in a lifetime’s memories, the exhibition combines into an anthology of ageing the individual ways of dealing with such topics as lifestyle, love and sexuality, transmission of knowledge, longevity, illness, health, and death.

In the exhibition ‘age(ing)’ is explored internationally in photographs, videos, literature, drawings, as well as large-scale and multimedia installations and performances both in the work of scientists, artists and poets, as well as younger and older people from the general population. Numerous exhibits from the from the Weltkulturen Museum’s Africa, Americas, South East Asia, Oceania, Visual Anthropology collections  and the library broaden the view of the subject. With game consoles visitors can improve their brain functionality and get refreshed at the “Weltkulturen Water Bar”.

Curated by Alice Pawlik (curator Visual Anthropology, Weltkulturen Museum).

Raymond Sagapolutele (*1971) is a New Zealand born, Samoan artist, photographer and member of the graffiti collective TMD, who lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand. He is a self-taught photographer and developed his style, which aims to enter into a dialogue with the viewer. He is currently completing his master's in Visual Arts at Auckland University of Technology. His master's thesis looks to answer the question of how does one validate the experiences of being diasporic in the wider context of hegemonic frameworks of culture within Samoan and New Zealand societies. Using this research is a pathway to unpack, challenge and offer another definition of the Samoan terms Talanoa and Va relevant to the diasporic Samoan in New Zealand and to transform them into the practice of photography.