Nine months ahead of its opening, documenta fifteen announces the exhibiting lumbung artists. The term “lumbung artist” refers to the practice of lumbung, which is at the heart of documenta fifteen and which also underlies the collaboration between the Artistic Direction ruangrupa and the participating artists. Meetings in smaller and larger working groups, so-called majelis, are a central format in the lumbung process:

“We—ruangrupa, the Artistic Team, and the fourteen lumbung members—began early on to hold regular majelis in preparation for documenta fifteen. We also invited the lumbung artists to meet in mini-majelis.

Within these mini-majelis, the participants can get to know each other in the run-up to the opening and present their practice and their projects planned for documenta fifteen to each other, discuss questions or advise each other on the artistic process. By sharing resources and making decisions together in the spirit of lumbung, collective ways of working are tested within each mini-majelis.

The mini-majelis are thus geared towards long-term exchange and sustainable connections beyond documenta fifteen. Their composition is shaped by the different time zones in which the artists and collectives live and communicate. At irregular intervals, moreover, all those involved in documenta fifteen come together in a large majelis akhbar.”

Arranged in the structure of their mini-majelis and with their respective timezones, the exhibiting lumbung artists of documenta fifteen are:

ikkibawiKrrr (Korea Standard Time) / ook_reinaart vanhoe (Central European Time) / Richard Bell (Australian Eastern Standard Time ) / Taring Padi (Waktu Indonesia Barat – West Indonesian Time) / Wakaliwood (East African Time)

Agus Nur Amal PMTOH (Waktu Indonesia Barat – West Indonesian Time) / Arts Collaboratory (diverse time zones) / Black Quantum Futurism (Eastern Standard Time) / Chimurenga (South African Standard Time) / Jumana Emil Abboud (Eastern European Time) / Nino Bulling (Central European Time) / Subversive Film (Central European Time, Eastern European Time)

Cinema Caravan and Takashi Kuribayashi (Japan Standard Time) / Kiri Dalena (Philippine Time) / Nguyen Trinh Thi (Indochina Time) / Safdar Ahmed (Australian Eastern Standard Time ) / Sakuliu (Taiwan Standard Time)

Atis Rezistans | Ghetto Biennale (Eastern Standard Time, West African Time) / Marwa Arsanios (Central European Time) / Sourabh Phadke (Western European Time, India Standard Time) / yasmine eid-sabbagh (Baghdad Time, Western Sahara Standard Time) / *foundationClass*collective (Central European Time)

Alice Yard (Atlantic Standard Time) / Erick Beltrán (Central European Time) / LE 18 (West African Time) / MADEYOULOOK (South African Standard Time) / Party Office b2b Fadescha (India Standard Time, Eastern Standard Time) / Serigrafistas queer (Argentinian Time)

Amol K Patil (India Standard Time) / BOLOHO (China Standard Time) / Cao Minghao & Chen Jianjun (China Standard Time) / CHANG En-man (Taiwan Standard Time) / Sa Sa Art Projects (Indochina Time)

Hamja Ahsan (Western European Time) / Jimmie Durham / Central European Time) / La Intermundial Holobiente (Western European Time, Argentinian Time, Eastern Standard Time) / Pınar Öğrenci (Central European Time) / Saodat Ismailova (Uzbekistan Time)

Baan Noorg Collaborative Arts and Culture (Indochina Time) / Dan Perjovschi (Eastern European Time) / Fehras Publishing Practices (Central European Time) / Nhà Sàn Collective (Indochina Time) / The Nest Collective (East African Time)

Another Roadmap Africa Cluster (ARAC) (West African Time, Central African Time, East African Time) / Archives des luttes des femmes en Algérie (West African Time) / Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong Time) / Centre d’art Waza (Central African Time) / El Warcha (West African Time) / Graziela Kunsch (Brasília Time) / Keleketla! Library (South African Standard Time) / Komîna Fîlm a Rojava (Eastern European Time) / Sada [regroup] (Atlantic Standard Time) / Siwa plateforme – L’Economat at Redeyef (West African Time) / The Black Archives (Central European Time)

Many lumbung artists have already been able to visit Kassel this summer to do on-site research for their projects, meet other documenta fifteen participants, and get to know local actors and collectives. Further information on the exhibiting lumbung artists can be found here.

The publication of the exhibiting lumbung artists is done in cooperation with the street magazine Asphalt. The contribution conceived for this purpose by ruangrupa and the Artistic Team can be accessed online here. The complete Asphalt issue is now available on the streets of Kassel, Göttingen, and Hanover, and digital and mail order copies can also be purchased by emailing vertrieb@asphalt-magazin.de.

documenta fifteen takes place from June 18 to September 25, 2022, under the Artistic Direction of ruangrupa at various venues in Kassel, Germany. The Jakarta-based artists’ collective has built the foundation of documenta’s fifteenth edition on the core values and ideas of lumbung, the Indonesian term for a communal rice barn. lumbung, as an artistic and economic model, is rooted in principles such as collectivity, communal resource sharing, and equal allocation, and is embodied in all parts of the collaboration and the exhibition. lumbung is the concrete practice adopted by ruangrupa and the Artistic Team, lumbung members and lumbung artists, and all participants on the path towards documenta fifteen in 2022 and beyond.

Further participants beyond the exhibition are yet to be announced.