Melanie Bonajo
Since 2012 Dutch artist Melanie Bonajo, who lives and works in Amsterdam and New York, has been working on her trilogy Night Soil.

Night Soil is a series of experimental semi-documentary films about cultural phenomena that contradict the linear progression of the capitalist system. Each Night Soil film explores trends that move outside the sociological and political norms of consumer society, most of them illegal. Bonajo presents her first major solo museum exhibition in Foam, for which all three video works will be united.

Night Soil #1/ Fake Paradise looks at the healing effect of the hallucinatory herbal drug Ayahuasca – used in the Amazon rainforest for a thousand years – on the mind and spirit of modern humans. Night Soil #2/ Economy of Love portrays a group of female sex workers in Brooklyn and attempts to change our ideas about intimacy. Night Soil #3 / Nocturnal Gardening, which examines radical and innovative ways to produce food, has its premiere at Foam.

Watch a video portrait of the artist below, in which she explains her artistic practice, the philosophy behind Night Soil and the video installations at Foam.


A video portrait of Melanie Bonajo, produced by Willem Aerts. Sponsored by Ammodo.

PARTNER NEXT LEVEL: AMMODO 
Since 2015, Foam has been organising the Next Level exhibition series with support from Ammodo. The series aims to introduce a broad audience to the innovative art of relatively young image-makers who take a revolutionary approach to the medium of photography.

Next Level: Melanie Bonajo - Night Soil is made possible thanks to Ammodo, the Mondriaan Fund and the Dommering Foundation. We would like to thank Stichting Foam Friends and Foam Fund for their generous support of this exhibition.

The exhibition design is realised by Clemence Seilles and Theo Demans. Melanie Bonajo is represented by AKINCI, Amterdam. 

Foam is supported by the BankGiro Loterij, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, Delta Lloyd, City of Amsterdam, Olympus and the VandenEnde Foundation.

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Melanie Bonajo