RITA is formed out of friendship and a shared interest in working collectively and collaboratively. The artists of RITA come together from disparate cultural contexts as new arrivals in Weimar, Germany. When one of the founding artists explained his desire to establish himself as an artist in this new place to his mother, she replied that she would pray to Santa Rita (the catholic saint of impossible things) on his behalf. The name represents a desire to find new paths, while bringing the cultural, familial, and individual histories which together inform a shared language. An intervention and extension of their inaugural work – a party and subsequent after-party – this new work combines sound, sculpture, and a food-oriented gathering, informed by care, energy, viruses, rituals, language and love. For Roses In The Afternoon, RITA considers the impossibility of a wild blue rose – commonly used as a symbol for attaining the impossible – a colouration of the flower which can only be reached through cultivation. A dinner table doubling as a sound installation is the set for an opportunity to rest and recover, asking the question; “who hosts who?”

Team: Natalia Castillo Rincón, Lucía González Gaitán, Camilo Londoño Hernández, Hala Masri, John Patterson, Rachel Thorleifson