99 Questions Gathering: On the Poetics of Loose Ends

The 99 Questions Gathering: On the Poetics of Loose Ends is an eight-day hybrid event blending conference and exhibition formats to highlight cosmology, technology, and diverse knowledge systems through art, workshops, and discussions. This gathering presents loose ends—unresolved elements that hold potential for new connections. This openness challenges rigid knowledge structures, encouraging continuous questioning and the creation of new threads. It invites us to consider the fluid intersections of knowledge, art, technology, cosmologies, and the pluriverse. Dialogues, workshops, and installations interweave, creating spaces for participants to engage with knowledge as an open-ended process—an invitation to view loose ends as potential rather than something to be resolved.

At the core of the gathering are two research nodes: ‘South-to-South: A Meeting on African and Afro-Diasporic Technologies’ and ‘Textiles Semillas: A Living Project of Weaving and Bridge-Building.’ The first node addresses alternative understandings of technology through land-based and ancestral techniques from Afro and Afro-diasporic communities, challenging Western notions of progress and extractive practices. The second node highlights the role of decolonial feminist practices, weaving connections between body, nature, and ritual, and brings together over 300 female weavers in northern Argentina, forming the Union Textiles Semillas.

Installations
This gathering features newly commissioned works: biarritzzz presents El sueño del Telar que durmió por la tarde, a large-scale multimedia installation exploring the relationship between weaving and the natural landscape. Lo-Def Film Factory and Russel Hlongwane present an audio essay examining African technological consciousness and the intersection of traditional knowledge and modernity. Walla Capelobo debuts The Hunters Speak the Same Language, bridging Indigenous knowledge and storytelling, while Sarah Ndele presents a multimedia installation reflecting on African traditions and modern technologies. In Inside the Verbeek-Mwewa Collection, Elsa M’Bala provides insights into this collection of artistic expressions from Lubumbashi’s working class over the past five decades.

Key lectures
On October 25, Patrick Mudekereza opens the gathering with a lecture on non-extractive curatorial practices. He explores how curating can transcend traditional models in reciprocal exchanges with Global South communities. On October 28, Martin Savransky will deliver his lecture A Poetics of Loose Ends: Speculative Infrastructures for the Planetary Present. His talk explores loose ends as potential sites for inquiry and transformation, challenging linear knowledge narratives.

Workshops and performance
On October 26, the focus shifts to embodied practices with workshops led by Unión Textiles Semillas, introducing their textile installation La Crecida, a traveling and evolving work that holds the textiles and embroideries created by the twelve groups of weavers that make up the Union Textiles Semillas. These sessions offer weaving techniques passed down through generations. Later, Joseph K. Kasau Wa Mambwe presents a performance examining digitization’s impact on human sensitivity and communal connectedness. On October 27, Diane Cescutti will lead Inflexible code/flexible threads, transforming a loom into a coding interface to explore how weaving and coding connect in an interactive workshop.

The gathering culminates on November 2 with a talk by Ba Taonga Julia Kaunda-Kaseka on Conceptualizing Ulemu, followed by Sonic Interventions by Edna Martinez and Miguel Buenrostro, weaving together affinities, echoes, and resonances of sonic practices shaped by transatlantic exchange.

With: Alejandra Mizrahi, Ana Roman, Andrei Fernandez, Ba Taonga Julia Kaseka, biarritzzz, Diane Cescutti, Edna Martinez, Elisa Balmaceda, Han Song Hiltmann, Jean Kamba, Joseph K. Kasau Wa Mambwe, Lo-Def Film Factory and Russel Hlongwane, Martin Savransky, Miguel Buenrostro, Monica Hôff, Oscar Santillán, Paula Gaetano Adi, Patrick Mudekereza, Sara Garzón, Sarah Ndele, Union Textiles Semillas, Vanessa Orewá, Walla Capelobo, Elsa M’bala.

Full program here.

About 99 Questions
99 Questions is a research-based platform curated by Michael Dieminger at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. It aims to decentralize the museum, transforming it into a space for mutual learning and exchange. The project relies on research nodes, where local-specific issues are discussed by local and international participants. These nodes represent a commitment to situated knowledge and sustainable collaboration. During the 99 Questions Gathering, the nodes converge, inviting public engagement.