On the Poetics of Loose Ends

The 99 Questions Gathering at the Humboldt Forum (October 25 – November 3, 2024) was more than an event – it was a hybrid of exhibition and conference, a living, breathing web of thoughts, voices, and questions. Under the title “On the Poetics of Loose Ends,” the gathering celebrated fragments, openness, and the unfinished: those moments where knowledge does not end but begins.  

 

The museum was understood as a place that resists rigidity – not a vessel for categories but a relational network. A space where loose ends are not tied up but interwoven, creating new connections and pluriversal possibilities. It imagined a museum that transcends the boundaries of center and periphery, high-tech and low-tech, urban and rural, opening instead a field of becoming and care.

 

The program of the gathering was shaped by two central Research Nodes, developed collaboratively over two years: Textiles Semillas: A Living Project of Weaving and Cultural Bridging and South-to-South: A Meeting on African and Afro-Diasporic Technologies. These nodes, a poetic resistance against the binary logic of museological thinking, wove local perspectives into a global fabric of art, technology, and cosmology.  

 

Participants included: Alejandra Mizrahi, Ana Roman, Andrei Fernández, Ba Taonga Julia Kaunda-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 Savranski, Michael Dieminger, Miguel Buenrostro, Mônica Hoff, Oscar Santillán, Paula Gaetano Adi, Patrick Mudekereza, Sara Garzón, Sarah Ndele, Unión Textiles Semillas, Vanessa Orewá, Walla Capelobo, and Elsa M’bala. Together, they created a polyphonic program of installations, workshops, performances, discussions with love that invited participants to engage with the boundaries of thought and knowledge – and the deep loose web of connections. 

 

The gathering was a vision for the potential of a dynamic, pluriversal museum – a museum that breathes, grows, and nurtures. A space where loose ends are not endpoints but sites of transformation.  

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