PORTFOLIO

2025

They Didn’t Know | Wedding Play Fight

2024

Sonic Mirage

2023

// Cardboard Sculptures

Defining

Survival

Queer Everexistence in Motion | 2025

“Defining Survival (Queer Everexistence in Motion)” is a cardboard, textile and sound installation and the first institutional collaboration of Bodi Babatola, Austin Nortey and Chie Marquart-Tabel

In this interdisciplinary collaborative project, Chie’s cardboard sculptures and semifigurative visual language fusioned with Austin’s scrap metal and textile work: Chie incorporated scrap metal that Austin had brought from Kumasi into the mobile, while both together wax-dyed the quilt to make Chie’s seed-like forms part of the textile without losing Austin’s rust-patterns.

The process was shaped by questions, tries and discoveries and led to a work that combines the visual language of both artists, while giving a home to the audio recording of Bodi Babatola that can be listened to while laying on the quilt.

Bodi Babatolas poem was written at the studio next to the quilt- and mobile making and speaks to the shared idea of a queer, resistant force we hold within us.

A person lying on their stomach on a bed with a blue blanket, reaching for a camera lens, in front of a large window with a city view and trees outside, with a mobile hanging from the ceiling.

Defining Survival (Queer Ever- existence in Motion) considers queer survival as connection across places and times, as leaving traces and spores, as becoming part of a cycle. Through the combination of Austin Nortey's work with second hand textiles and metal scraps that speaks of the connection of material, time and change, and Chie Marquart- Tabel's semi-figurative, mystical formal language that runs through cardboard sculptures and quilt, the artists create a space of connection and care.

By inviting viewers to lie on the quilt, watch the movements of the sculptures and follow the poetic sound installation “Seedling Library” by Bodi Babatola, the group show Choreographies of Care ends here with a place that invites you to pause, arrive and rest.

To listen to the poem and look into the mobile click here.

Close-up of a multicolored quilt with various blue, teal, and orange fabric sections, some with circular and abstract patterns.

Close-up of colorful fabric pieces with various textures and patterns, including a turquoise, purple, and yellow with orange lines.

Quilt | Detail from Defining Survival
a collaboration of Austin Nortey and Chie Marquart-Tabel, 2025

Close-up of a scrap piece of cardboard with blue painted patterns, placed in front of other similar pieces with the same pattern.

Close-up of crumpled and textured gray paper on a dark background with blurred gray metallic objects in the background.

Mobile | Detail from Defining Survival
a collaboration of Austin Nortey and Chie Marquart-Tabel, 2025

Close-up of a colorful, patterned fabric covering a flat surface, likely an outdoor blanket or tapestry, with vibrant blue, green, white, and black colors and various geometric and abstract designs.

A person cutting a piece of fabric with scissors while wearing rings, bracelets, and a smartwatch.

A room with various plants in pots, a black curtain, and a chair with clothes, a backpack, and a pillow. There are bed sheets and bags on the floor, and a colorful fabric item is spread out on the floor.

Process Documentation

A person in a white shirt and black pants is working on a laptop at a desk with a black thermostat, a white mug, and a calculator, in an office setting.

draft for the quilt

A person standing on a ladder in front of a white wall with abstract, artistic hanging sculptures made of wood and paper. The sculptures resemble various animals and shapes.

Cardboard cutouts in the shape of letters or shapes lying on a worn wooden floor.

Person installing a large, camel-colored, paper or cardboard sculpture of an animal, possibly a prehistoric creature, on a ceiling using a ladder in an indoor space.

Hand-drawn sketch of a design plan for a workspace or studio, including a desk, chair, and various annotations regarding interior features and measurements.

An art installation in a modern gallery with suspended abstract sculptures made of wood and paper, hanging from the ceiling above a round, colorful fabric-covered platform with headphones placed on it, and large windows showing an urban scene outside.

A hanging art sculpture made of layered cardboard pieces, some painted blue, shaped into abstract forms and suspended by strings or wires.

Two framed art pieces with abstract cardboard sculptures mounted on a white wall near a large window showing a cityscape and parked cars outside.

Interior view of an art gallery. There is a white wall with two small framed artworks, and a large window to the right revealing a city street with modern buildings, bicycles, and cars outside.

Defining Survival (Queer Everexistence in Motion) Cardboard, Scrap Metal, Textile
500cm x 500cm x 500cm
2025

An art installation featuring a wooden picture frame with various paper and cardboard hands attached, with some holding string or tags, against a white background.

What do you hold on to?
Cardboard, Cord and Wood 60cm x 80cm
2024

An art installation hanging from the ceiling featuring abstract, multicolored shapes. Below, a large circular cushion with a colorful pattern on a tiled floor, with headphones and a cord nearby.

Close-up of a handcrafted wall hanging made from cut-out cardboard pieces connected with string, with handwritten notes on tags attached to the strings.

A framed wall art piece with cardboard cutouts of figures and shapes, connected by strings. There are six round paper notes at the top and bottom of the frame with handwritten words such as 'contribute, care, love,' 'open hearts,' 'EARTH,' and other phrases.

Which connection are you missing?
Cardboard, Cord and Wood
60cm x 80cm
2024

They

didn’t

know

Queer Everexistence in Motion | 2024

“They didn’t know” was the first chapter in the ongoing project Queer Everexistence in Motion that looks at queer resistence across time and space.

Each work is related to a question on community and resistance that was shared with members of queer communities in Accra and Berlin and incorporates the answers received in various ways.

The mobile, the first mobile Chie created, is made of protest signs that had been used at a protest few weeks prior to the opening.

Handmade protest signs hanging from a ceiling, with messages advocating for justice and equality, including phrases like "You cannot stop speakers from existing" and "No justice, no peace," with some signs featuring rainbow flags and bold colors.

Multiple protest art pieces including a portrait of a man with glasses and a portrait of a woman with curly hair, set against a plain white wall with partially visible signs and text.

Painted portraits of two individuals and protest signs hanging from a ceiling in an art space. The signs have handwritten messages advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and identity, with one featuring a flag with three horizontal stripes in black, red, and yellow.

Paintings and signs displayed on a white wall, including a portrait of a woman with green headwrap, a peace sign, and a red sign with white text.

Promotional poster for an art exhibition titled 'Queer Everistence in Motion' by Chie Marquardt-Tablet, held from July 4 to August 30, 2024, at OYA Kollektiv CaféKneipe in Berlin, featuring a stylized illustration of a person climbing a ladder with the words 'I HEARD DON'T KNOCK' in the background.

"They didn't know - Queer Everexistence in Motion" is a solo exhibition by Chie Marquart-Tabel that connects members of queer communities across national borders in 6 interactive sculptures, drawing a line between queer life and liberation struggles then and now. Who of us has which opportunities to fight?

In the face of spreading anti-queer laws in Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, the UK and the USA as well as a worldwide rise in fascism, this ongoing project takes a look at the existence and resistance of queer identities over time.

Intertemporality and interconnectedness as a concept weave threads from the negated historical existence of African queerness via the revolts of queer elders to the question of how communities and the roles of individuals can become the foundation of queer futures. We have always been there, and we will always be there.

We live in what our ancestors fought for us. What are we creating?

A sculpture made of cardboard shapes, including a large loop and a spiral, decorated with small artificial flowers, mounted on a black rectangular background.

Close-up of a crushed cardboard box with shredded paper and plastic packaging material inside.

Close-up of torn cardboard and dried plant roots or vines inside a cardboard box.

A cardboard sculpture of an elephant placed on a black framed picture or mirror on a beige textured wall.

Close-up of broken red clay bricks stacked in a pile.

Wedding

Play Fight

an interactive installation exhibition view
2024

Wedding

Play Fight

Roundhall | Galerie Wedding

We meet again on the mat. How do we encounter each other in such a place of extreme experiences, present in our bodies, when we have left some of our insignia of status and belonging in the changing room? When we react to each other, train each other, encourage and challenge each other? On the mat, I am in playful interaction with people with whom I could not or would not otherwise connect. The mutual attempts, successes and failures are obvious, honest and vulnerable. Twice, I met a Security at Lidl that I had trained with before. Those were the only times in my life that I knew the security guards personally. In sport in general and in martial arts in particular, people meet who would not otherwise meet. Not only do we meet, we can also do something with each other, build connections.

Wedding Play Fight is a neighbourhood arena. A place where you can learn to box, let off steam and just be.

The walls display martial arts clubs from the area, Berlin Wedding, with their trainers and fighters in the form of cardboard figures, somewhere between paintings and sculptures. People who train just a few streets away from the exhibition venue watch over you as you try out your first boxing moves on the small mat in the middle of the room, watch a fight or wrestle with your friends.

The basic idea was to create an interactive space. Galerie Wedding is a municipal gallery, financed by taxpayers' money, located directly on Leopoldplatz. Sometimes it made me angry that what is shown here appeals to so few of the people who pass by every day. Not because it wasn't good, but because it wasn't relevant to them. What holds Wedding together is also a question of what might interest the people outside the window. And what reduces the barriers that prevent them from entering.

They'll be knocking down your door.

At the exhibition opening, a young man suddenly stands next to me and asks what we're doing here. I take him to be Arab, which makes him one of two people at this exhibition opening; person number one is my best friend's boyfriend, who is also standing with us. I tell him about the opportunity to box here and that the people on the walls are fighters from the area. He tells me that he trains at Roter Stern, the left-wing Wedding sports club that only costs £10 a month. He likes what we do, says goodbye with a handshake and the words, ‘They'll knock down your doors.’

And in fact, over the next few weeks, the exhibition space becomes a hangout for local teenagers. Visitor numbers to the gallery double for the duration of the exhibition, and the average age is halved. Boys between the ages of ten and fourteen come in groups and spend an hour wrestling on the mat, working the punching bags and lounging in the beanbags. Every now and then, I give training sessions and teach the basics: how to keep your guard up, how to do a roundhouse kick. Kick after kick after kick, they slam their legs into the kicking pad I hold for them.

These children seem to have boundless energy, and I wonder where they have been expressing it until now. One day, I meet 13 kids at once in the slowly cramped room. When I ask them what they have all come for, they reply: it's cold outside and martial arts clubs are too expensive. Which families can afford to spend €60 to €100 per month and child just on sports? The enthusiasm with which people enter this room shows how much it was needed.

Once, I am showing someone around my work when a boy enters the room with his friends. He is Black and light-skinned like me, looks at me, points into the room and says, ‘Cool, huh?’ I grin: ‘I did that.’ ‘No way!’ His eyes are wide, I am proud.

It's not just the kids from the neighbourhood who come to training. On Sundays, I give my weekly training session for queers, now in our own halls instead of outside on the basketball court, under the watchful eyes of Aischa, Denise, Bülent and Frank. Our own little arena, to the sounds of Nadia Rose, Todrick Hall and Cardi B coming from the loudspeakers. Here I hear from many who no longer train because they no longer felt comfortable in the established martial arts clubs. Because they get strange looks in the changing rooms. Who are they telling that to? I myself haven't trained in six months.

I lead the warm-up, going through the basics: how to stand, are you stable? Guard up, now move in a straight line from your guard to your opponent's face and back to your guard. Nice. In pairs, we practise punch combinations and variations of light sparring, stretch and say goodbye to the night in Wedding. My words at check-out are always the same: I was stressed at first, but now I feel calm.

– Chie Marquart-Tabel on “Wedding Play Fight”

A cluttered workspace with a white desk holding sketchy drawings, notes, and diagrams. A pink mug filled with a beverage, possibly tea, sits on the desk. To the side, a black electronic device with cables. In the background, a wooden chair with a natural finish and a backpack hanging from a chair leg. The floor is wooden with some red markings or paint splatters.

View from above of a cluttered studio workspace with a person standing on a chair, surrounded by various art projects, including large cardboard cutouts of dog figures, paint bottles, and art supplies. The room has white wooden floors and various chairs and tables.

Person standing on a white wooden floor wearing white sneakers and blue pants, looking down at scattered paint supplies and a partially painted red object.

An art studio or workspace with a large abstract painting in progress on the wall, featuring red, black, and white colors. There is a portrait of a bald person in front of the painting, and various art supplies such as brushes, paint bottles, and painting trays scattered on the floor and a table.

A cluttered indoor workspace with large sheets of cardboard and paper cutouts spread across the floor. There is a black water bottle in the foreground and various small tools and objects scattered around.

Painted cardboard cutouts of people's faces and upper bodies laid out on cardboard and the floor, in a workshop or art studio setting.

A collage of painted portraits of various people on cardboard, with a large image of a smiling older man at the center. The background features a painted sign that reads 'HANK' in stylized white letters.

Wedding Play Fight
detail
100cm x 80cm
2024

Martial arts training area with a red punching bag, a black boxing focus mitt, a black punching ball, and colorful foam hand targets hanging from the ceiling, with sunlight coming through large windows.

Interior of a martial arts or boxing training room with pink and blue puzzle mats on the floor, a red round cushion in the center, and two television screens on the wall displaying sports or training content. There are framed artwork or posters on the walls, including a stylized portrait of a person in medical scrubs and a superhero style drawing of a smiling individual.

Interior of a gym or martial arts studio with a large window, foam mats on the floor, a punching bag, and colorful martial arts or boxing training mannequins mounted on black bases.

SONIC MIRAGE

Sculptural Set Design on Black Fugitivity

For the performance collective Everything Changes, an installation of these 3 cardboard sculptures was created to frame the show “Sonic Mirage”.

All sculptures were first developed as drawings, then enlarged and brought into into 3-dimensions by tracing line by line out of cardboard.

The pattern on the figure Protect (in the front) is a collaboration with Painter and poet Day-Eve Komet who also wrote the poem that is written on the walls as part of the installation.

Poetry by Day Eve Komet
Photography by Marb (@marbsworld)