Jeannette Ehlers, We’re Magic. We’re Real #3 (These Walls) – long durational performance

The constellation of the braids that mix with the climbing plant along the front of the building creates a poetic metaphor for the relationship between culture and nature, body and landscape, history and the present.

To the sound of the Atlantic Ocean’s roar, the performers move slowly back and forth in the square in front of the building. Quietly but insistently, they call on the attention of the passers-by. The bodies that follow the rhythm of the waves and the joined hair point to a shared existence and by their repeated movements take the form of a ritual within the African diaspora.

Equal parts of grief and strength are present in the performance, which expresses a longing for life outside the plantation system, and for the forest as a literal and symbolic free space.

Jeannette Ehlers began her work series We’re Magic. We’re Real in 2020.
The entire series of works makes use of hair as an important marker of identity across communities of African descent, as a simple but powerful gesture.

We’re Magic. We’re Real # 3 (These Walls) was first commissioned by Mads Nørgaard in November 2021.