Hannah O’Flynn (she/her) is an artist and researcher from Barcelona, currently based in Berlin. She is one of the founding members and director of with the rubbles of old palaces. Coming from an art and critical theory background, she has a practice that is strongly indebted to different forms of writing: from book making to scripts for performances, all brought together through humour by a recurring poetics of the absurd. She has a strong interest in forms of collective study, which has lead her to start the cultural research centre with the rubbles of old palaces.
She understands art practice as a continuous unfinished process through which to study in dialogue. Hannah O’Flynn’s work and research is focused on the human and non-human relationships with the dominating capitalist, colonial/imperialist and patriarchal structure of oppression, and the long histories of organising against, beyond and before such structural violences. She has been researching the different mechanisms that have been used historically within the capitalist system to ensure expanded capital accumulation: the colonial project of capitalism as a spatial “fix” to some of the inner contradictions of capital, and the development of uneven geographical development that shapes present-day globalised capitalism.
Her current work looks at food as life-sustaining, cultural ecosystem and political product, and investigates the intersections between food practices, culinary histories, food production and trade, and global politics; attempting, through these intersections, to map global networks of capitalist, colonial and imperialist relations. In 2022 O'Flynn produced SMASHED: Speaking Histories of Insurrection, a collage of interviews around the Irish pub as a political space for community building, oral history transmission and anti-colonial organising in the context of the long British occupation of Ireland. She just finished the film Pain de Fantasie in collaboration with Kari Leigh Rosenfeld for the exhibition Supply Chain Indigestion with Tian Guoxin, where she examines the intersecting colonial histories of the global expansion of the baguette.
She has previously worked at the Institute for Provocation (Beijing), studied at the Dutch Art Institute (Arnhem), Kingston School of Art (London), University of the Creative Arts (Epsom) and shortly at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing).
January 2021 - present:
Director of with the rubbles of old palaces space for cultural research, Berlin
EXHIBITIONS & PERFORMANCES
September 2023:
THE HEIST: A Tour Guide with Tian Guoxin and Liu Chao at BPA//Room, Berlin
September 2023:
The Critical Drinking Curriculum with Vita Buivid at Juxtapose Art Fair, Aarhus
May 2023:
exhibiting Supply Chain Indigestion with Tian Guoxin at with the rubbles of old palaces, Berlin
October 2022:
wrote and performed Cloud Tongues for the Her Face theatre series with Paper Tiger Theatre and Kunstbetrieb Birach, Berlin
August 2022:
exhibited SMASHED: Speaking Histories of Insurrection for the Project Space Festival 22 at with the rubbles of old palaces
February 2020:
co-curated and performed in The Cooking Show Seminar: the Politics of Food, Amsterdam
October 2019:
performance of Dust Floating in the Dark — A Disenlightened Dream in What’s with Privacy when it’s too Loud Outside?, as part of the WAS Biennale, Berlin
August 2019:
co-curated and exhibited in Holding Hands from Afar, at Bebe Books, DOK, Gent
June 2019:
co-curated and exhibited in LEAVE A MESSAGE AFTER THE.. / I want to be in a room with some wifi, at Pleasure Zone, Basel
March 2018:
performance of Waiting (part II) in Razzmatazz V, London
February 2018:
co-curated and exhibited in Performing // Ritual // Object, Kingston upon Thames
January 2018:
video performance of Waiting (part I) in Harvesting Mind, Braunschweig
April 2017:
performed Imperial Lunch, the Forbidden City, Beijing
April 2017:
co-curated The Toilet Show, Beiluoguxiang Public Toilet, Beijing
March 2017:
video performance of Water in Razzmatazz 3: Performing Borders at Museum of Futures, Surbiton
October 2016:
performed in A Night of Perpetual Performances, Goethe Institut, Beijing
May 2016:
performed in Sayingzheng III, Tuanjiehu Park, Beijing
May 2015:
No Working Project at the Tate Modern, London
January 2015:
exhibited in Marginalised, Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing
March 2014:
exhibited in Time, Picker Gallery, Kingston upon Thames
March 2014:
co-curated and exhibited in Portable Exhibition - A Mobile Utopia, Kingston upon Thames
FILMS
May 2023:
Pain de Fantasie (29:25 min) with Kari Leigh Rosenfeld, funded by the Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa and Bezirkskulturfonds in Friederichhein-Kreuzberg
CURATION
[Upcoming]:
curating the exhibition Anahita at with the rubbles of old palaces, Berlin
[Upcoming]:
co-curating the exhibition Empire on Display: The Ideal Citizen’s Guide to Empire Making, Berlin
May 2022:
talk series Promises of Ever-coming Prosperity at with the rubbles of old palaces, Berlin
March 2022 - present:
co-curation of the Critical Drinking Curriculum at with the rubbles of old palaces, Berlin
October 2020 - present:
co-curation of IMBISS: a Politics of Food Research Group, Berlin & Amsterdam
April 2020 - December 2021:
co-direction & teaching at Vladmail an online study group on de-colonial practices, histories and organising
WRITING & PUBLISHING
[Upcoming]:
publishing the translation of the essay Quimeras de la Expansión Infinita: Pensando la Acumulación Infinita con Dumplings de Fruit Chan in the online magazine Mañana
May 2023:
publishing article series Un buque frigorífico llano de plátanos for the online magazine HAMBRE
August 2020:
wrote essay Chimeras of Infinite Expansion: Thinking Capital Accumulation with Fruit Chan’s Dumplings
December 2019:
co-wrote and published Russian Literature Better than Sex: Singular You or Plural I? in Not a Neutral Conduit: Fictocritical Approaches in Artistic Research — Reader on Stage
January 2018:
wrote essay In Search of the Miraculous: Bas Jan Ader on the Absurd and the Longing for Trascendence
August 2017:
Little Eating Emperors zine publication with Nornir
February 2017:
Weishan artist book publication
AWARDS & FUNDING
2023:
funded by Hauptsadtkulturfonds for Anahita
2023:
funded by Culture Moves Europe (Goethe Institut) for The Critical Drinking Curriculum, Juxtapose Art Fair
2023:
funded by Präsentationen Zeitgenössischer Bildender Kunst (Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa) for Supply Chain Indigestion
2023:
funded by Bezirkskulturfonds in Friederichhein-Kreuzberg for Supply Chain Indigestion
2022:
funded by Neustart Kultur Prozessförderung (Fonds Darstellende Künste) for Her Face: Cloud Tongues
2022:
selected and funded for the Project Space Festival 22 for SMASHED: Speaking Histories of Insurrection
EDUCATION
MA Art Praxis, Dutch Art Institute (2017-2019)
Exchange Program at the Experimental Arts Department, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (2014)
BA Fine Arts, Kingston University, London (2013-2017)
Foundation Program at University of the Creative Arts, Epsom (2013)