Held in Tuan Mami’s Vietnamese Immigrating Garden at Documenta 15, this gentle-paced durational performance navigates different experiences of solidarity for anti-colonial struggle, collective unsettlings and multivocal ceremonies.

Feeling through interdependencies for enduring joy, grief, refusal and anger – perhaps speculative, perhaps unbearable, perhaps love, the audience is invited to enter the garden to work together towards havens, somatic solidarities, and crossings for ongoing journeys under and above ground. Staging the defence of Bungkalan farmers movement on the piece of land damaged by industrial exploitation in the city associated with arms manufacturing, Refusing Oasis honours the hands that touch the soil and reclaims the earth for those who dig it.




 * Collaborative performance by Decolonising Botany Working Group.  (Laura Burns, Youngsook Choi, Cian Dayrit, Taey Iohe, Ayesha Keshani, Tuan Mami and Helen Pritchard)

* Presented at W22, Document 15, Kassel Germany (2021)

* Supported by Nhà Sàn Collective and ba-bau AIR






Interim gardening in May 2022 with Laura Burns, Tuan Mami, Helen Pritchard.