Bambí Benkö

spiritualiteit, sculptuur, publieke ruimte, LHBTIQ+, installatie, Ecologie, Community, beeldhouwen, Artistiek onderzoek

Bambi Benkö is a non-binary Dutch-Hungarian visual artist with a focus on ceramics, sculpture, participatory performance, spatial and political intervention in public space. Within their sculptural work, they are interested in creating liminal environments, situations and objects that entice haptic sensations and desire. Under the name Tools for Action, collaborations are realized in activist and cultural contexts with the aim of developing new forms of assembly, often drawing on the paradoxical qualities of inflatable sculptures. The sculptures are put to use as tactical media interventions, as deescalating tools on the streets, as extensions of the body, as ephemeral in-between spaces for collective dreaming. Since 2020 they are invested in dream work as a collective healing practice and host dream gatherings in collaboration with musicians such as Nikos ten Hoedt and OTION. They are also a co-organizer of Massia, a queer feminist commune, artistic retreat, political refuge and ecological school in rural Estonia, where they host artistic and ecological retreats focused around the themes of dreamwork, queer mycology and ceramics. Bambí exhibited at various international venues such as the Victoria & Alberts Museum (2014), the 7th Moscow Biennale for Contemporary Art (2017), the ArtScience Museum in Singapore (2019), the Fondazione Sandretto in Turin (2023) and realized performances with the Theater of Dortmund (2016), Kulturprojekte Berlin (2018), Hellerau-European Center of the Arts (2019), Amsterdam Dance Event (2022) and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Warsaw (2024). They are awarded with several prizes such as the German Price for Arts Education from the Ministry of Culture and New Media (2017) and recently the Brutus Arts Prize in Rotterdam. (2024).

**Dream Wide Awake (2025), Heilige Familie Kerk, Rotterdam** - Dream Wide Awake came from my year long practice and need to host dream gatherings and sleepovers. This year I initiated together with the music producer Nikos ten Hoedt and performer and musician OTION (Guillelmo Blinker) the durational sleep over and performance event Dream Wide Awake in the Holy Family Church at the Nootdorpstraat 4 in Rotterdam North. The idea was to create a temple for dreaming. An inspiration was the Abathon, a dream temple on sacred sites in ancient Greece to receive healing and guiding dreams. The first pilot event drew 45 people and the second event culminated with the Heilig Huisje festival and drew up to 75 people.The audience we hosted was very diverse and intergenerational. At a time when our attention is scattered by social media and our imagination is hijacked by nightmare scenarios from authoritarian right-wing politics, it is an act of resistance to dream together. Here, dreaming is not an escape from reality, but a deep form of attention in the search for and introduction of alternative possibilities. Especially in Rotterdam, where possibilities of night life are scarce, Dream Wide Awake filled a need of coming together in an intimate setting, where we can dream and relate otherwise. My role was to create the scenography, to create an immersive environment where the dreaming can take place. The intention is to create an annual returning event and grow a dreaming community. Nikos ten Hoedt is providing the production side of the concert, by making arrangements with the artists. As initiator of Pelagic Ambient, he has an interest in creating soft listening spaces. OTION's role is being “MC Lullaby”; as a performer and experienced facilitator in ceremonies and rituals grounded in his Afro-Surinamese heritage, he is holding the space and energy throughout the night. Installation in collaboration with Ferry Chrispijn of the Church Community. In the past we have collaborated with the following musicians, who are for the most part based in Rotterdam: Faustin, Dirty Dms, Michael Love Michael, Avvnt MM, Mara (Snip), Qoa & Primeiro Segundo.

**Rainbow Roller Fantasy (2025), ism Burnside & Kunstenlab Deventer** - "Rainbow Roller Fantasy" is a video recorded during Art, Skate, Rave Repeat, an architectural intervention at Burnside Skatepark in collaboration with Kunstenlab Deventer and its youth program Nieuw Label. From March 27 to April 5, 2025, the skatepark in Deventer was transformed into a course featuring several inflatable light sculptures, a pole for pole dancing, a luminous rainbow, and the hall bathed in colored light. By introducing roller skating to Burnside, the artist sought to transform the space from a rugged, hard, and rather "masculine" place into a softer, dreamier, and "feminine" space. Rainbow Roller Fantasy is the result of this intervention. A film shoot and performance evening were organized in a single evening with members of the Queer and Skate communities of Deventer and Nijmegen. In preparation, luminous costumes were created in collaboration with Rotterdam fashion designer Dragadina.

Delegation of Slippery Affairs / — **Delegation of Slippery Affairs (2024), Tools for Action (Bambí Benkö x nat skoczylas)** - At the request of Polish curator Szymon Maliborski, my self-founded artist group, Tools for Action, was invited to inaugurate the new museum building of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in Warsaw. In collaboration with Polish activist and artist nat skoczylas, we conceived the performance "Delegation of Slippery Affairs" (2024), a nomadic rave, a witch-like celebration, and a rite of passage for the opening of the new museum building. Subversive dreaming was the starting point for creating a communal experience that escapes the normative and selective constraints of the art world and its "white cube" politics. My role was to conceptualize the project and create participatory inflatable light sculptures for the event in the museum. Inspired by the concept of "Undercommons" by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, we issued a call to bring your artwork to the new museum for the opening night. With this gesture, we aimed to create greater access for artists in Warsaw. Concept and execution Bambí Benkö, nat skoczylas | Tools for Action Sculptures Bambí Benkö, Milo van Riet, Remko Kruize, Pascal Espinosa Choreography Jagna Nawrocka Performance nyio kan Costumes Lea Asche, Beciu Cyruchin DJ Asidron Choir Chór Niemęski 4 non straights, Warszawski Ansambl Międzypokoleniowy: Zespół Wokalny Decybele Production Anna Litwińska Curator Szymon Maliborski https://artmuseum.pl/en/events/delegation-of-slippery-affairs

**Earthseed (Dream Space 05), 2024 | Bambí Benkö x Vera Logdanidi | Brutus Arts Prize** - Earthseed (Dream Space 05), 2024 Bambí van Balen x Vera Logdanidi (music)  Production support Josse Vessies (light programming) Milo van Riet (assistance) Size: 650 x 550 x 550 cm Materials: foil, led strips, raspberry pi, soundsystem, concrete, water Duration: 10:00 min https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1008847363 Earthseed is a time-based light installation for collective dreaming. An oval -seed-like inflatable sculpture with helix like led-strips hoovers above a pool of water, where it creates reflections in the water. The title ‘Earthseed’ is inspired by Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, a speculative fiction playing in the year 2024 in which mutual aid challenges the fascist moment. The installation is created in collaboration with Ukrainian music producer Vera Logdanidi, who composed the music for her upcoming debut album. The installation evokes an otherworldly atmosphere, inviting you to calm down, to receive and to dream. Commissioned for the Wild Summer of Art, showcasing 50 Rotterdam based artists, the work received the Brutus Arts Prize. “The jury chose Bambí van Balen’s work for their significant influence on both the art community and wider society. By combining art and activism, they open new pathways for collective imagination and social change. Their ability to intertwine dreams with political strategies marks them as an exceptional and important artist of our time.” - Brutus Jury “Dreaming is for me an act of relational repair and a way to come into intimate contact with each other. By holding space for each other, we tend to each others griefs, creating webs of care and mutual support. Through my collaboration with Vera the war in Ukraine became palpable. I believe that in our accelerated, polarized and oversaturated world, there is a need to calm down and to wonder how we relate and support each other.” - Bambí van Balen

**Persistence Is All (2024) Bambí van Balen | Garage Rotterdam** - Light installation with 32 numbered and signed ceramic sculptures from a limited edition of 64 multiples Materials: stoneware, glaze of copper saturation, silicon LED lights, raspberry pi. Single size sculpture: 45 x 55 x 55 cm Dimension of formation variable. Inspired by minimal sculpture, 80ies neon club aesthetics and Van Balen´s previous Tools for Action work Mirror Barricade (a choreography and direct action training with 110 inflatable silver reflective barricade cubes against a neo Nazi march), Persistence Is All is a poetic exploration of barricades, crowd formations, meditative stone circles and genderfluid erotics with four legged bodyparts. The sculptures are to be anchors of stillness and perseverance in the sloshing of times. Installation as part of the exhibition No Dancing Allowed / 2, curated by Bogomir Doringer at Garage Rotterdam 27.01 – 07.04.2024 Produced at Sunday Morning @ EKWC (European Ceramic Workcentre) in 2016. Light installation from 2024.

**Dream Chapel (2023) | Bambí van Balen x OTION | Museum Helmond** - Dream Chapel Installation as part of exhibition Resilient Rebels, Kunsthal Museum Helmond 13.10.2023-24.03.2024 Installation by Bambi van Balen in collaboration with Christy Westhoven, Sarah Kerbosch, Jazmin Schenonen, nat skoczylas Soundcomposition by OTION Size: 550 x 550 x 500 cm Materials: Cordura fabric, dried Artemisia (mugwort), cherry pit pillows, LED strips, arduino, fountain, dichroic TPU foil, sound system. Fragrance aroma based on Artemisa Vulgaris. Duration dream trip: 15-20 min Max visitors at a time: 12 Mugwort grows on the banks of the Maas River and next to Bambi van Balen´s studio. The herb has been used for centuries for its pain-relieving effects, its ability to restrict birth and regulate menstrual cycles, and for its oneiric power to induce lucid dream states. Clusters of dried mugwort hang from the outside of the inflatable dome as an incantation. In the centre, a small fountain as an ode to flowing, highlighted by a mysterious bubble shifting between blue-violet and pink light. The liminal space is an invitation to release and be receptive to dreaming. Accompanied by the voice and repetitive rhythms of OTION, inspired by R&B, hip-hop, neo soul, jazz, traditional Afro-Surinamese and West African music, you are invited to pause, let go of the tension of everyday and join in an olfactorial and audiovisual journey. In resonance with the music, the installation performs a variation of light pulsations and patterns to stimulate affective landscapes and synchronicities within neural networks. These light pulsations are translated into bioelectrical activity, causing brain frequencies to slow down to so-called alpha waves. Within neurobiology, alpha waves are associated with REM sleep and thus with dreaming. Is it possible to dream while awake? The answer to this question is an ongoing study by Bambi van Balen. Photo by Dave van Hout, Peter Cox,

**Dreaming Release (2022)** - Dreaming Release is a collaborative experiment between OTION (Guillelmo Blinker) and me, that took place at MU Hybrid Art House as part of the exhibition MOVE ! Body Politics in Motion on the 17th of September 2022. As a still form of dance, we invited the audience to lie down and let their bodies be moved by the vibration of sound and the frequencies of light. OTION is a singer and songwriter with a background in dance. He uses sound as a somatic healing practice, creating “resonance with the water of your cells” In my own practice I started to create liminal environments with inflatable light sculptures. The soft ephemeral object alludes to the language of dreams. The light sculptures perform a variation of light pulsations and patterns, creating affective landscapes and synchronicities within the neural networks. Following the experiential stages of a sleep cycle, we created a collective state to dream and release. Foto by Boudewijn Bollmann.

**RÆV REHEARSAL (2021)** - RÆV REHEARSAL was a durational performance, choreography and community project in the summer of 2021 in Rotterdam. The project emerged as a response against the imposed isolationism by the Covid-19 pandemic. With a bluetooth speakers system, floating inflatable sculptures and a minimalist techno beat, ravers moved through the city like a radiating, dancing swarm. Then, the streets became the club; the stairs, roundabouts and benches, temporary stages. Starting point was the murmuration of starlings: Can we move and dance as a flock of birds and practice new forms of assembly? RÆV REHEARSAL was initiated by Bambi van Balen (Tools Design) and Floor van Leeuwen (swarm choreography). It was Bambi van Balen´s first project in the Netherlands, when they moved from Berlin to Rotterdam. The video shows a 360° documentation of the raving swarm during the Amsterdam Dance Event on the 15th of October 2021 on invitation of Stichting NDSM-werf. Camera Christina Stein. Edit by Bambi van Balen. More information: https://toolsforaction.org/raev_rehearsal/

**Signals 3.0** - ´Signals 3.0` (2019) was a participatory commemorative performance and ephemeral monument in the heart of Dresden commemorating the "peacefull" revolution of `89 and making a connection with the present. Performance by Bambi van Balen | Tools for Action and Tomás Espinosa in collaboration with Kunsthaus Dresden, Hellerau - Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, Montagscafé | Staatsschauspiel Dresden. Video by Bambi van Balen With interviews by Abdu Elalem, Johanna Kalex, Holm Vogel, Thomas Pilz.

**Barricade Ballet** - ´Barricade Ballet` (2016) is a poetic video documentation of the Mirror Barricade, a social sculpture from modular inflatable mirrored cubes, that can be assembled within seconds into a barricade. It is built by 14 high schools and citizens of Dortmund, who positioned themselves against an international right-extremist manifestation in their city. The video shows a choreographed direct action training with the inflatable mirror cubes, interspersed with footage of the actual counter protests against the Neo-Nazi demonstration on the 4th of June 2016. Initiated by Bambi van Balen as part of their activities within Tools for Action in collaboration with the Theatre of Dortmund. More information and extended credits here: https://toolsforaction.org/mirror-barricade/

**Sainsbury Chickens** - Date: 2010 Material: Porcelain, clear glaze. Edition of 72. Dimension installation variable. Size individual object: 190x130x110 mm In the 17th century Europe, porcelain was considered as valuable as gold. To revert the value chain process of mass produced chickens, chickens were turned into ´white gold`. In collection of Koninklijke De Heus B.V.

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