Studio Julian Hetzel und Ntando Cele

SPAfrica, a performance about empathy and extractivism. A project that explores how capitalism is connected to racism.

Julian Hetzel and Ntando Cele join forces to explore the limits of empathy – the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing. What if empathy doesn’t change or overcome power structures but reinforces existing privileges? SPAfrica reveals the problematic mechanisms and hidden racism of its working.

SPAfrica introduces a two-fold gesture about extracting ‘liquid empathy’ and builds upon the transaction of resources between Europe and Africa – water for tears and tears for water. On the one hand, drinking water from the sub-Saharan regions is imported into Europe: SPAfrica – the world’s first ’empathy drink’. On the other hand, tears are farmed at the heart of Europe and transferred to the source of the water in Africa. The project juxtaposes the exploitation of natural and emotional resources, exposing neoliberal strategies in the search for alternative raw materials.

In their new creation, Hetzel and Cele question how intangible assets such as identity and cultural background are capitalised on. In the international art market, the cultural background and the identity of the protagonists have become valuable resources for value creation. Is trauma the new gold of the arts?

The performance is based on a new model of resource exchange between Europe and Africa. On one hand, as stated on stage, precious drinking water is imported to Europe from sub-Saharan regions: SPAfrica. This is the name of the world’s first “empathy drink,” we are told. On the other, tears of compassion are harvested in the heart of Europe and brought to the water source in Africa.

Against the backdrop of extractivism, the accelerating privatisation of common goods such as water, and the capitalisation of emotions, Julian Hetzel and Ntando Cele explore the possibilities of empathy in SPAfrica. What if empathising with others does not lead to a sustained solidarity with those in pain but an alienating imbalance of power asserted in the act of “romantic gawking” (Bertolt Brecht) and reinforces existing privileges? The performance investigates the added value of empathy. Is the trauma brought into the world by racism the new gold of the arts?