AS WE UNFOLD

Inviting people means opening doors and creating space. It means enabling encounters by or while at the same time relinquishing control. To unfold. As an artistic gesture, inviting can also mean sharing the resources received and creating space for other positions: For July 20, a whole chain of invitations opens up as part of the newly emerging event series 'Bistro im Bistro'. /POKY invites the exhibition collective Studio Croma from Mexico City, which in turn invites the artists Aida Lizalde, Daniel Robles, Fernando Polidura and Aleph Escobedo to realize a sculptural dinner. In addition, the HGB choir will perform a script developed by /POKY and Studio Croma (Mariana Dussel, Santiago Gómez). We will serve Çiğ Köfte from Taksim Bakery (Nazlı & Aysegül), from the neighborhood of Bistro 21. “Hospitality,” writes Marie José Mondzain, ”is precisely situated where ethics and politics join, and in that sense, it must be practiced like an art form.”[1] /POKY say about themselves: It is what it will have been. The artist duo /POKY (Julia Gerke & Alina Röbke) founded the independent art space “POKY - Institute of Contemporary Art” at the Mainz University of Fine Arts in 2019 due to a lack of exhibition opportunities. From 2019 to 2021, the cube, which measures just 9 square meters, functioned as a hybrid of exhibition space, sculpture, object in public space, curatorial project, dialogue and collective action. Since 2021, /POKY has been reflecting on “hosting” in the artistic field as an independent artist duo. ● 'Bistro im Bistro' with POKY, CROMA, HGB-CHOR and TAKSIM BÄCKEREI The taste of our first portion of 'Bistro im Bistro' unfolds with a pleasantly bitter note that asks the question: What if hosting always involves an uninvited guest: the parasite?
 With this ongoing format, we continue to explore the question of hosting in a structure of multiple agents. And there you find yourself surrounded by objects, human and non-human animals, and something that looks alive or still/actually is alive. We hear sounds and smell odors, some of which are delicious, some of which sting or frighten. There are bodies that you recognize as having been transformed. Pressed into shape - violently or gently, you ask yourself. There are bodies that make you realize that they have merged, that they never existed as one or that they no longer do. We eat from each other's plates, like rats after the housekeeper's feast, or like lovers and friends. And we keep asking ourselves: are we symbionts or are we parasites? Are we preserving a system or disturbing it and thereby productively forcing it to change? No system without a parasite[2], says Michel Serres. We could think of the expansion from unicellular to multicellular organisms: the endosymbionts. And the virus that attacks the organism, making it resist and transform itself into a more complex system. No innovation, creativity and resilience without a parasite, we might think. Or we might... Look for a table, around which one can begin to speak. Delicacy for parasites[3]. Switching, among others, in the roles of Host and Parasite: /POKY, who is Julia Gerke, Alina Röbke and everything that will have been [4]
 CROMA, an art space from Mexico City that comes alive through objects and entities by Aleph Escobedo, Margot Kalach, Mariana Dussel, Samuel Nicholle, Hellène Hector, Daniel Robles Lizano, Fernando Polidura and Santiago Gómez.
 HGB Choir interpreting a script written in correspondence by /POKY and CROMA, with Christopher Beyer as director and Miguel L. Mirquez as conductor.
 Taksim Bakery with chefs Nazlı & Aysegül serving us delicious hand-formed Çiğ Köfte. ● [1] Sh. „Loneliness in the crowd. The loneliness of Exile and Welcoming“, S. 61, in: „The Architecture of Loneliness, Reflections on Displacement and Welcoming“, edited by Mieke Bal, Amsterdam 2024 [2] loosely based on "The Parasite" by Michel Serres
[3]from "Script 3: The Intertwined Version" by POKY and CROMA [4] quote by the artists Julia Gerke and Alina Röbke Text: Lara Hampe (Inviting/excerpt) & Alicia Franzke (Bistro im Bistro)