Melanie Bonajo

Melanie Bonajo is a queer, non-binary, Dutch artist, filmmaker, feminist, sexological bodyworker, somatic sex coach and educator, cuddle workshop facilitator and animal rights activist. Through their videos, performances, photographs and installations, Bonajo examines current conundrums of co-existence in a crippling capitalistic systems, and address themes of eroding intimacy and isolation in an increasingly sterile, technological world.
They research how technological advances and commodity based pleasures increase feelings of alienation, removing a sense of belonging in an individual, and their works present anti-capitalist methods to reconnect, explore sexualities, intimacies and feelings. Their experimental documentaries often explore communities living or working on the margins of society, either through illegal means or cultural exclusion, and the paradoxes inherent to ideas of comfort with a strong sense for community, equality, and body-politics. Their work has been exhibited and screened internationally, from the Tate Modern, MoMA PS1, to De Appel Arts Centre and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to Manifesta 12, the Gwanjou Biennale, the Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, the Kunsthalle Basel, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the Berlinale, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Treefort Film Fest.

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Notable work

Bonajo's film series Night Soil is a trio of experimental documentaries about modern approaches to nature and the cultural implications of acting against capitalism. The first in the series, Night Soil - Fake Paradise, is about psychedelic plant medication, human-plant conversations and how ancient rituals of indigenous descent can be translated to urban environments. The video pays close attention to the female voice, which has traditionally been neglected in psychedelic research. In the sequel, Night Soil - Economy of Love, a women's activist movement approaches sex work as a way for femmes to reclaim their power in a male-dominated pleasure zone. Their emphasis is on nurturing, educating and empowering all sexes around the power that lays within the female orgasm. The third film, "Night Soil - Nocturnal Gardening," considers how communities come together through alternative and pre-colonial uses of land. Structured around four central storylines, the video explores indigenous land rights, off-the-grid subsistence, racism and injustice in the food system and the consequences of consumer behaviour on farm animals centering female activists.
Progress vs. Regress, which premiered at Hacking Habitat, is the first in a trilogy that questions how technology has changed social relationships through the eyes of centenarians in the Netherlands. This film was also selected for IDFA 2016. The film Progress vs Sunsets examines extinction or the endangerment of vulnerable groups through techno-capital development, but also extinction in an abstract sense, such as that of feelings and thoughts. Through the eyes and voices of children, the film illustrates the complicated issues around animal rights, bio-politics, dwindling resources, ecology, anthropomorphism in which Nature, as the ultimate “other” is seen as a utilitarian object outside of ourselves, and the implications these ethics have on human desires, emotions, emotiveness and sentimentality towards ‘the others”.
Bonajo's most recent film TouchMETell initiates a discussion with children about boundaries, gender roles, physical autonomy and intimacy and the lack of physical contact in this digital age, where we seem to have forgotten the language of our bodies.

Feminism and activism

Bonajo's Furniture Bondage photography series pairs domestic tools with the naked female body. In 2012 they initiated Genital International, a feminist performance collective event about participation and equality. Bonajo's photography series and music video work Pee on Presidents is often tied to the recent anti-censorship and sex-positive branches of the feminist movement for its endorsement of female body agency in public environments, resulting in a provocation of censorship laws in the media.
As a psychedelic eco-feminist using technology, Bonajo's activism extends into our relationship with the natural world, using gender as a lens to engage with ecology, spirituality and the body politic. Increasingly it is addressed towards nature and the rights of non-human persons, as manifested in the Matrix Botanica — Non-Human Persons publication, and Matrix Botanica — Biosphere above Nations film. This performance and film explores the absurd construction of placing human identity “outside” nature. This work re-shapes contemporary human/plant/animal rituals in a desacralized global society, and examines remaking relations with nature on the basis of recognising them not as “things” but as creative, self-directed, originative others. In addition to the film, they also shows how the symbol of nature and animal has drastically changed over the years in a publication entitled Matrix Botanica. This revised version of the magazine makes visible the way our relationship to nature has changed through the popularization of amateur-nature photography on the internet.

Embodiment and sexuality

Bonajo is a certified Somatic Sex Coach and International Cuddle Workshop Facilitator. Their work is based on the principle that when we expand our pleasure ceiling by practicing knowledge around our own body's needs and boundaries, increase sensitivity through presence and cultivate new language, we also create more nuance, depth and safety in our relationship with others. Touch is their anti-capitalist medication to re-negotiate intimacy and body connections in a safe space to counter the epidemic of loneliness and the erosion of our feelings. This is apparent in Skinship_, a touch-based place for kinship_, initiated by Mel. It is a collective run queer/trans/non-binary/genderfluids/agenders/genderexpansive and femme centering space restructuring and re-prioritizing the body as a vehicle for connection and safety, cultivating touch, pleasure, sexuality, playfulness, consent, boundaries and friendship as a form of activism. In 2020, the Skinship collaborated with several educators to offer 21 Days of Selfpleasure, a queer and pagan self love advent calendar.
In 2021, Mel collaborated with KABK on the Wxtchcraft Studium Generale talk series, which featured Silvia Federici, Adriene Maree Brown, Staci Haines, Starhawk and more. This curriculum stands opposed to the commodified and tamed cultural representation of the witch, and in opposition to purely rational, scientific reason with its many tools of oppression.

Music and performance

Bonajo has performed internationally at venues such as Paradiso in Amsterdam, Baby's Alright in NYC and Collège des Bernardins in Paris alongside artists such as Kembra Pfahler and Bianca Cassidy of CocoRosie. Their band, ZaZaZoZo, is a music project with Joseph Marzolla known for its spacatronic folk sound and animalistic influence. All their music is produced by Bonajo's brother Tommie Bonajo at his Tomster studios. They released their debut album INUA in spring 2013 by Tsunami Addiction. More recently Bonajo collaborated with Michael Behari to create a vinyl record entitled Single Mother Songs on the End of Nature, published by Bonnefanten Museum. Boundary Boss by Bonajo, Splitter Splatter and Friends is the follow-up, released in 2020, and addresses children on having ownership over their personal boundaries for a healthy solid sense of self and self-esteem in a post–Me Too movement era.

Current

Bonajo released their first major publication since Spheres in December 2015 Matrix Botanica Nonhuman Persons designed by Experimental Jetset, which explores the ways we experience nature through representations on the internet, via YouTube and blogs posting adorable, funny or adorably sad amateur videos and photographs of nonhuman animals. This publication delves into the ways nature education has changed over the years and integrates the voices of animal behavior scientists rather than a National Geographic perspective.
In 2020 Bonajo was selected to represent The Netherlands at the 59th Venice Biennale, 2022. They will be working with a curatorial team consisting of Maaike Orlando Gouwenberg, Geir Haraldseth and Soraya Pol. The work will be presented at the Chiesetta della Misericordia in the Cannaregio neighbourhood in Venice.

Selected works

Filmography

2020 with Splitter Splatter & Friends
2019
2018
2016 Night Soil - Nocturnal Gardening
2016
2015 Night Soil - Economy of Love
2014
2014 ZaZaZoZo
2013
2013 Matrix Botanica - Biosphere Above Nations

Discography

2018 Melanie Bonajo - Single Mother Songs from the End of Nature, with Michael Beharie
2016 Matrix Botanica - How to Escape from an Elderly Home Method 2016, with Tommie Bonajo
2014
2013 ZaZaZoZo - Inua

Publications

2020 The Coven, In collaboration with Harmon Fries
2020
2015
2014 Pee on Presidents,
2012 SPHERES,
2012
2009 Volkerschau Zine
2009 Furniture Bondage
2009
2009
2007
2005

Events and curatorial

2021, online
2020
2020 Skinship: A Touch-based Place for Kinship
2019 Sexyland, Amsterdam, NL
2015 QQC Performance Festival, Paradiso, Amsterdam, NL
2015, Baby's All Right, NYC
2014 HOODOO ∆ VOODOO, Collège des Bernardins, Paris
2014, Mediamatic, Amsterdam
2014, Paradiso, Amsterdam

Solo shows

2019, Rabo Lab, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL
2019, DE
2018, NL
2017, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt
2016, Foam, Amsterdam
2015, Amsterdam
2015 Company Gallery, NYC
2013 Matrix Botanica; Biosphere above Nations, Museum de Paviljoens, Almere
2011 86 details of Paradise, Outline, Amsterdam
2009 The Grand Exploring Soul and the Point where History Failed, Rijksakdemie Open, Amsterdam

Group shows

2022, curated by Ine Gevers and Morgan Catalina, Utrecht, NL
2022, curated by Sarah Held & Sylvia Sadzinski, Vienna, AT
2021 curated by Katerina Gregos, Tallinn Art Hall, EE
2021, Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris, Helsinki
2021, curated by Chus Martinez
2021, NART Annual Exhibition, curated by Saskia Lillepuu, Narva, EE
2021 Vrijdenkers, curated by Nathalie Faber, Amsterdam, NL
2021, curated by Francesca Corona, Rome, IT
2021, Futura Centre for Contemporary Art, curated by Caroline Krzyszton, Prague, CZ
2021, Rouen, FR
2021 From a Grain of Dust to the Cosmos, curated by Baron Rosenkrantz, Ishoj, DK
2021 Potential Agrarianisms, Kunsthalle Bratislava, SK
2021 Flowers in Art, curated by Dea Antonsen, Ishøj, DK
2021 Rauw. De afkeer van idealisering, Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, NL
2021, curated by Anne Berk, Nijmegen, NL
2021, curated by Benedicte Goesaert, Poperinge, BE
2021, Helsinki Art Museum, FI
2021 Phantom, curated by Francesca Corona, Rome, IT
2021 The Institute of Things to Come, curated by Valerio del Baglivo, Torino, IT
2021 curated by Barbara Strieder, Oliver Kretschmann, Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg – Hau, DL
2020 curated by Vera Korman and Dana Sahar, Jerusalem, IL
2020 Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, FR
2020 curated by Imke Ruigrok, Museum Ijsselstijn, NL
2020 curated by Andrés Jaque, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, CN
2020 curated by Katerina Gregos, Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg, DE
2020 Kunsthaus Hamburg, DE
2020 Kunsthaus Dresden, DE
2020 Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg, DE
2019 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, NL
2019 Arles, FR
2019 Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR
2019 Kunsthalle Lingen, DE
2019, curated by Rebeka Põldsam, Pori Museum, FI
2019, curated by Hans den Hartog Jager, Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, NL
2019, an exhibition by Martha Herford Museum in collaboration with Tanja Seiner, Design Museum, Ghent, BE
2018, 2018, Westfälischer Kunstverein, DE
2018 Out of Office, Singer Museum, Laren, NL
2018, Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, NL
2018 ABN AMRO collection exhibition, 'Natural' Constructions - curated by Danila Cahen, Circle ART, Amsterdam, NL
2018 Genius Loci, Parc Saint Léger, Pougues-les-Eaux, FR
2018, Martha Herford Museum, DE
2018,, Museum Kranenburgh, Bergen, NL
2018, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL
2018 Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
2018, Palermo, IT
2018 Anima Mundi, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, NL
2018 Haus der Sinnsuche, gutes leben durch Kultur, curated by Ellen Blumenstein, Kunstsaele, Berlin, DE
2018, de Domijnen, Sittard, NL
2018 Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, curated by Katerina Gregos, Riga
2018 Reis naar de toekomst, Tussendiepen, Drachten, NL
2018, Haus der Kunst, München, DE
2017, Tate Modern, London
2017 2017, Kunsthal, Rotterdam
2017, Nicodim gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2017, curated by Martine van Kampen, KAF Expo, Almere stad, NL
2017, Schwarz Foundation, curated by Katerina Gregos, Lesbos, GR
2017 De Domijnen, Sittard, NL
2017, FAÇADE 2017: Face your freedom, Zeeland, NL
2017 Screen Present Tense, HDLU, Zagreb
2017, Leopold Museum Vienna, AU
2017 Bienne Festival of Photography, Biel, CH
2017 Planetary Garden, curated by Ashley Lumb & Laura Mclean, Manuka Arts Centre, AU
2017, curated by Karen Verschooren & Ilse Huygens, STUK, Leuven, BE
2017 Living in Dreams, curated by Els Fiers & Frank Koolen, De Bond Brugge, BE
2016 Give Me Yesterday, Fondazione Prada, IT
2016 Close-Up A New Generation of Film and Video Artists in the Netherlands, EYE Film Institute, Amsterdam, NL
2016 Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, CH
2016 Hacking Habitat, NL
2014 Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, NL

Awards

2020 Awarded the Dutch Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale
2019 Prix Pictet
2018 Amsterdamprijs voor de Kunst
2018 Nam June Paik Award
2017 Prix de Rome
2017 Campaign Artist for Amsterdam Unseen
2016 Shortlisted for the Dutch Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale
2016 IFFR Tiger Award for short films
2015 IFFR Tiger Award for short films
2014 IFFR Tiger Award for short films
2013 MK Award
2011 C.o.C.a
2009 Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Peter Paul Peterich Fonds
2009 Festival Internationale de la Mode et Photographie
2007 PUP Award
2006 Berlinale Talent Campus

Education and residencies

2020 International Cuddle Workshop Facilitator
2019 Somatic Sex Coach and Educator
2014 The International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York, USA
2009-2010 Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst, Amsterdam, NL