Dust as an Accidental Gift

ChertLüdde is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in the gallery—and the first in Germany—by Angolan artist Sandra Poulson (b. 1995, Lisbon, Portugal), whose practice explores the intersections of history, oral tradition, and global political structures, with a particular focus on approaches emerging from Angola. Dust as an Accidental Gift critically examines the pervasive presence of dust in Luanda, the capital of Angola, and uses it as a lens to explore the city's socio-economic, political, cultural, and architectural dynamics. At the heart of the installation is a pathway composed of everyday goods, chosen for the memories they hold and their ubiquitous role in the lives of Luanda's residents. Recreated from discarded cardboard and starch, these items are arranged into an irregular passage that echoes the chaotic and improvised layout of one of the city's most vital commercial hubs, Kikolo Market. This spatial configuration invites visitors to reflect on the experience of navigating seemingly unstructured, unpaved, and often uninhabitable urban spaces. The installation draws parallels to ‘Near-South' geographies and the possibilities of the ‘South in motion' as described by urban theorist AbdouMaliq Simone, who writes: "The South is the concretization of the simultaneous emergence and impossibility of worlding, of a concrete darkness that provides a home for impossible socialities that nevertheless assume an inscription, materialize lines of flight, attack, and articulation ‘grooving' the terrain." This is the very terrain where the boundaries between solid and soft, formal and informal, inhabitable and transient, are constantly negotiated. Originally commissioned for the Sharjah Architecture Triennial 2023, the installation is accompanied by a video of the Kikolo Market entrance, gradually zooming out to reveal its broader physical infrastructure. In seeing the unpaved road that cuts through the market's entrance, the camera captures dust rising with movement and settling into a dense layer that blankets the entire area. By reconstructing the market, Poulson continues her exploration of dust—not just as a material presence, but as a boundary-maker and a medium of socio-economic surveillance that defines and stratifies the layers of urban life. In Luanda, dust is both omnipresent and symbolic: a marker of place and condition, it reveals much about the city's economic, social, and cultural realities. It is paradoxically stable and inescapable, even as countless livelihoods are centered around the effort to remove it. Highlighting AbdouMaliq Simone's description of dust as "an accidental gift'' to the city, Poulson repositions this seemingly undesirable substance as essential to the shaping of urban society. In her work, dust becomes a catalyst—both a resource for the imagination and a provocation for action. More than just a byproduct of land and urban life, dust—and the daily labor to remove it—functions as a commodity, a source of income, a social marker, and a constraint. It structures the choreography of the city through the repetitive rituals it demands, embodying the contradictions at the heart of Luanda's material and lived environments. The exhibition is a collaboration between ChertLüdde, Berlin and Jahmek Contemporary Art, Luanda. An installation built from the same research was also presented at the 60th International Art Exhibition Foreigners Everywhere. Poulson's solo exhibition Este quarto parece uma República!(This Bedroom Looks Like a Republic!) is currently on view at MoMA PS1 in New York. On September 25th, she will open a solo show at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville.

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