Sivanesan’s recent activities include: What’s Eating Gilberto Gil – a performance/lecture that proposes cannibalism as a strategy to counter neo–colonial violence, Jump Ship – an endurance/performance in collaboration with acclaimed tattoo artist WT Norbert that interrogates a history of South Asians at sea; Nice Dreams – a major installation with Gustavo Böke exploring what many regard to be the first act of terrorism in Australia; The Trouble with TJ – a series of installations, videos and text, marking 5 years since the death of aboriginal teenager TJ Hickey and the subsequent “Redfern Riots” ; a major installation at Cockatoo Island for the Biennale of Sydney, 2008 as part of theweathergroup_U; Gang 2008 – Australia/Indonesia cultural exchange. He is also active with media/art gang boat-people.org. He has exhibited at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art (Sydney 2010), MOMENTUM (Sydney 2010), Black and Blue Gallery (Sydney, 2009), Sydney Underground Film Festival (2009), OK Video Festival (Jakarta, Indonesia 2009), Filmer la musique (France 2009) Transit Lounge (Berlin/Australia, 2006 & 2008), Transmediale (Germany 2006), Videobrasil (Brasil 2005), Gang (Indonesia/Australia 2005), Electrofringe (Australia 2003), Abstraction Now (Vienna 2003), New Forms (Canada 2003), The International Symposium for Electronic Art (Japan 2002), d>ART (Australia 2002 & 2004), Liquid Architecture (Australia 2002 & 2004 – 05). Sivanesan lectures in experimental video at COFA (College of Fine Art at the university of New South Wales).

For Sivanesan, such an emphasis on research and story-telling has meant an increasing use of written and spoken language as an element in his work. Yet in these pieces, the move toward using language is a complex one. On the one hand, these newer works are very much about the crucial role of language in oral and written histories as a breeding ground for myth. At the same time, however, in addressing its untrustworthy tendency toward mythmaking Sivanesan has not tried to pin language down, to force language to behave as a faithful servant and perfect transmitter of meaning in his own work. Rather, he chooses to go with it, telling stories rather than sticking to strict argumentation, jumping back and forth in time to make outlandish (but compelling) connections, letting far-flung examples rub up against each other to beget illegitimate offspring – and all the while seeming perfectly happy to fight myth on its own turf.” (Excerpted from Brendan Phelan’s essay for Last Words, Summar Hippworth and Aaron Seeto (ed) 2010, courtesy of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art).

Focusing solely on Sumugan Sivanesan’s video works, M O M E N T U M | Berlin brings together a selection of 8 videos created over the last decade. The Anticolonials performance-lecture will be documented and shown alongside the videos for the duration of the exhibition.