Pelumi Adejumo's "A side: ONE LAST PRAYER - B side: ẹKÙN" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on July 29th, 2023 as one of 19 AEROPONIC ACTS of  WHERE THE MOON IS UP curated by Elisa Giuliani.

Here you will find the documentation of Pelumi Adejumo's presentation as filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım. The written report is by Giulia Crispiani and it includes a summary of the comments by esteemed guest respondents.

A side: ONE LAST PRAYER - B side: ẹKÙN

Pelumi Adejumo's question: What do metaphors conceal?

Pelumi's introduction: On the night of a full moon A woman, in panic leaves her body underneath a tree. She sheds off her skin and enters into the fur of a leopard. Strengthened by the animals spirit, she roars.

On the night of a full moon A man walks into a room with no sound, no oxygen. He panics. Abstracted from life, he recites a prayer.

What sound do they make? 

Giulia's report: Smoke in the room, one blue spot light on, audio is playing, a loop. Audience comes in and sit on stage around the spotlight. Three mics are hanging from the ceiling. We hear a voice singing non amplified behind us, echoing in the room, coming closer, comes in walking/running and moves into the spotlight works with a loop station, starts reading a text standing on their tiptoes to reach the mic. “A man is stuck—this is no metaphor—for inexpressible reasons—a man is stuck with no oxygen, a man finds himself stuck in an echo chamber.” The loop keeps going—“how do you gasp without air? What sound you make. Gasping for air without sound. A man panics, what sound does he make? What prayers does he recite? What song comes to mind? Holds paper and reads on their tiptoes, hold their chest—the fantasy of being a woman followed chased stopped unnoticed from behind, what the sound? Cutting edge. Pray to be a woman chased to have one more glorious sound…If I should die before I wake it’s cos it took my breath away.”—sings.—“You took my breath but somehow I am still alive.” Voice is modified speaks in first person—then loop comes back. A poetic writing. “What a man stuck hears—for the first time hears his insides.” Music stops and it’s pure poetry, music changes. Candles are lit, close to the audience around the spotlight, with matches. They sing sitting beneath the mics, then leave the stage.

Phanuel Antwi The image of you tiptoeing and stretching, the title—it becomes clear I am a literature person. What does a metaphor conceal? Gestures through the continuous, there’s something unfinished I am curios about. The tiptoe as an image—an invocation, elevation—the first few lines the prayer was echoing, I was in that world. There’s something about metaphors that is quite dangerous, they set a direction, which can be misinterpreted. The answer is in the question—it’s a tautology. What that concealing makes possible? What is the spiritual political work of concealing. What does it mean to tip-toeing us into multiple world. Chris Brown, Eric Gardner, what is about popular culture, how these deaths have became popular culture. When I see the candles and lighting them, what does that visual also conceal? Your tip-toeing the world into this room. 

Ayesha Hameed I think all of us need a moment to breath. All I could think of was Eric Gardner, the right to breath is denied. A sort of ceremony, the repetitions, the candles as a kind of potential, feels like a gesture on that direction. There’s a lot of grief but also a lot of joy. Syncopation of this mimicking the difficulty of breathing. The affect that is produced is simple and stark. Joy and grief in the same gesture—to quote Adrienne Maree Brown on her Instagram.  

Francesco Urbano Ragazzi Oxygen became the base of the combustion and the aspiration is the movement of the piece.

You took us underwater, a wire between up and down. Also the use of the voice expanded this feeling, between two positions in the universe, a call to evoke a third subject, you were not singing to us, we were a landscape. There’s a dimensional experience of the space through poetry. You need your body, you don’t need to add any other mean, poetry is a place of freedom, historically. Poetry re-entered contemporary art—you can look into materialization of language at the Venice biennale.

About Pelumi Adejumo

In italiano: 

TITOLO: Lato A: ONE LAST PRAYER - Lato B: ẹKÙN

DOMANDA: Cosa nascondono le metafore?

Nella notte di luna piena una donna, in preda al panico, abbandona il suo corpo sotto un albero. Si libera della sua pelle ed entra nella pelliccia di un leopardo. Forte dello spirito dell'animale, ruggisce.

Nella notte di luna piena un uomo entra in una stanza senza suoni e senza ossigeno. È in preda al panico. Astratto dalla vita, recita una preghiera.

Che suono producono?