Jeannette Ehlers's work often addresses themes and questions around memory, race and colonialism. In the performance Whip It Good, the artist reenacts one of the brutal punishment methods used during slavery. In using the same method on a white canvas, she creates a personal and simple, though contradictory, artistic act of striking back. The work was first presented for BE.BOP13 in Berlin at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse in 2013 and later recreated as a video piece at Vestindisk Pakhus ("The West Indian Warehouse") in Copenhagen, where, in earlier times, rum, sugar, and coffee from the Antilles were lugged in.
In Montreal, the video of her performance is presented as part of Bossale World, the first edition of Af-flux's Black Transnational Biennial, curated by Eddy Firmin.
Press:
Le Devoir