At the centre of this unique artistʼs book by David Zink Yi is his two-channel video installation Horror Vacui (2008). The work documents rehearsals of the band De Adentro y Afuera, which Zink Yi founded together with Cuban musicians, and combines them with recordings of music-based rituals of Afro-Cuban origin: Cajon, Tambor Batá and Wiro.

Zink Yi juxtaposes the bandʼs rehearsals and the ritual practices in the video – as in the book – in an equilibrated way, thus revealing the structural similarity of these everyday actions. The essence of this similarity lies in the nature of imagining space as collective plenitude, as polyrhythm.

Horror Vacui stands for Zink Yiʼs artistic involvement with cultural everyday practices such as dance, music or meals – not so much as ethnic attributions rather than as examples of the establishment of identity and community.

This is the artist’s first comprehensive publication, published on the occasion of the exhibition at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, 3 March – 29 April 2012.

English and German text.