Kaspar Schmidt Mumm / Artlands 2023

Kaspar Schmidt Mumm was born in Göttingen in 1990 and lived in Germany for the first ten years of his life. His family has migrated for three generations moving between Pakistani/India, Colombia, Germany, Canada and finally South Australia. He is currently studying a Masters at the Universität Der Künste: Berlin - Kunst Im Kontext, focused on the intersection of contemporary art and social work. Kaspar’s mother, an artist, uses art as a pedagogic tool for rehabilitation in hospitals and community centres. It was her ability to engage in extremely complex human relationships which has informed the foundation of Kaspar’s contemporary arts practice.

Kaspar is a founder of The Bait Fridge and lead vocalist of Slowmango, with recent performances at Dark Mofo, The Substation and Darwin Festival. Together they tour performances and workshops around Australia. Using large scale puppetry, live music, costume and performance the collective create systems for intersectionality through performance and pedagogy. Kaspar leads the creation of participatory sculpture with varying communities as tools for public dialogue; such as decorating a 4WD as a crocodile and driving it across a crocodile infested river to gather students in Arnhem Land for school.

A constant theme of Kaspar’s practice is world building as a narrative for societal issues. Since exploring cultural representation in Museums through his work with IMMI, Kaspar is currently working with Darren O'Donnell (The Mammalian Diving Reflex) on a five year program empowering teenagers to take control of The Humboldt Forum’s institutional processes of restitution.