Timeline

OPENHAUS 23/11/2017

Offene Studios, Installationen und Resident*innengespräche -- Open studios, installations and resident talks

Das OPENHAUS ist ein regelmäßig stattfindendes, öffentliches Format des ZK/U. Das Publikum ist eingeladen das Residenz Programm kennenzulernen und mit ihnen über ihre Projekte und Prozesse zu diskutieren.

Beim Openhaus im November präsentieren außer den Resident*innen auch kreativ Praktizierende  ihre derzeitigen Projekte, die mit dem ZK/U kooperieren. Die Arbeiten drehen sich rund um das Erforschen, Dokumentieren und Beobachten im urbanen Raum. Die Grundidee ist, Kunst mit sozialen Aspekten und wissenschaftlichen Methoden zusammenzubringen. Welchen Einfluss hat unsere Umgebung auf uns? Mithilfe von teilnehmender Beobachtung wird erforscht, wie das Arbeiten im Gefängnis das soziale Leben der dort Beschäftigten verändert. Mit einer künstlerischen Herangehensweise wurde das Baden als Methode genutzt, um das Nebeneinander von Natur und Industrie im Gebiet des Westhafens zu erkunden. Anders forschten einige Künstler*innen mithilfe von Diskussionen und Interviews, um den Berlin-lifestyle zu ergründen, die Perspektive der Bewohner*innen auf urbane Transformationsprozesse wie die Gentrifizierung zu verstehen oder die Rolle der Kunst im sozialen Umfeld zu erörtern. Die Arbeiten werden in Form von Video, Fotografie, Installation oder Journalen präsentiert.

Verpasst nicht die Gelegenheit die Künstler*innen kennenzulernen, die Umgebung und Räume des ZK/U’s zu entdecken, Fragen zu stellen und Ideen über laufende Projekte und künstlerische Praxen auszutauschen.

Teilnehmende Resident*innen: Orhan Esen, Ada Favaron, Lee Dawson, Ben Nathan, Matthew Robinson, Nathan Gray, Victoria Tomaschko, Lianne Mol

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The OPENHAUS is a regular public format that takes place every month in ZK/U, inviting audiences to connect with the hosted projects and to explore the process of its residency program.

November’s Openhaus will showcase the ongoing research of the resident artists and other creative practitioners connected to ZK/U. The research covers different topics which reflect a common wish to unite artistic practice with social issues and scientific methods. The Artist-Displacement at a prison uses participant observation to understand the lives of the the men and women who work there and their families. In the same way, the act of bathing has been used as a participating tool to carry out urban research and gaining a greater understanding of the urban landscape around Westhafen. Other projects have been carried out using interviews and panel discussions to understand how art can become socially engaged, the nature of gentrification in Berlin, or social and political sustainability in urban environments. The research will be presented in a number of different formats including film, photography, art installation, and a journal.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet the artists and researchers in residence and explore ZK/U’s space and surroundings, to ask questions, to discuss and to exchange ideas about ongoing projects and artistic practices.

Participating residents: Orhan Esen, Ada Favaron, Lee Dawson, Ben Nathan, Matthew Robinson, Nathan Gray, Victoria Tomaschko, Lianne Mol

Ada Favaron

During the evening a multi-installation will feature snippets of the project 'Heimat', which will be screened in full length at ZK/U on 25th November.  'Heimat' is documentary involving expats and Germans who deliberately decided to move to Berlin: the purpose is to understand what does the city mean to each of them, what are their stories and moreover to comment the most common stereotypes. Furthermore, the work aims to create a discourse on gentrification: how is Berlin reacting to this phenomenon? Is it an inevitable process for every big city?

Lianne Mol

Former ZK/U intern Lianne Mol presents the zine to the ART as/is SOCIAL project. The project came into being as a research-based discursive format examining contemporary theoretical positions of socially engaged art in relation to the reality of artistic practice. Through a series of open discussion sessions with artists, curators and creative professionals, key concepts and case studies related to socially engaged artistic practice were investigated from the individual, contextualized perspectives of the participants. The reports of the sessions are bundled in the ART as/is SOCIAL zine.

zkuartsocial.wordpress.com

Ben Nathan & Matthew Robinson

November OPENHAUS will showcase the second collaborative work by Artists Ben Nathan and Matthew Robinson. Established in October 2017 Baden Projekt Berlin will continue to explore the juxtaposition of industry and nature in and around the West Harbour area of Berlin. The viewer will experience a multi channel video installation where moving image is projected onto industrial objects and various surfaces. A documentation of the previous work can be seen online.

https://badenprojektberlin.tumblr.com/

Victoria Tomaschko

The JVA for Women in Berlin and these who work with them

Using a combination of writing (interview transcripts) and images (portraits) I portrait women and men who work in prison. I am particularly interested in how the prison environment impacts those who work there. For this project I go into all parts of the prison I am allowed to access, take part in the daily routine and talk with inmates.

I am currently working on the most suitable ways of presenting my experiences and insights in images and text. The photographs provided here are examples of various types of work from a number of detention centres. I am currently working with 15 people.

Orhan Esen

Orhan Esen, has a background in social and economic history, is active as a urban researcher and guide, and is based in Istanbul and Berlin. Currently he is investigating the possibility of setting up a system to evaluate the sustainability of urban transformation projects from the perspective of the inhabitants. For this end, he is involved in dialogue with academicians and professionals in the fields of built environment, with housing right activists and representatives of inhabitants' associations. Members of the project advisory board convened last week. The meeting was open to any citizen interested in matters of interventions in the realm of housing: "As inhabitants how would we evaluate these interventions ?" The discussions of the meeting have been recorded, and the audio track will be broadcasted during the November open house studio visits, to encourage further participation.

MindLab#FINE ARTS: Cooperative Networking – Working together?

The "MindLab#: Cooperative Networking – Working together?" is a format to connect refugee artists, media professionals and creative people with representatives from the Berlin cultural and creative industries and ZUsammenKUNFT, a model project for community living. Sector-specific workshops give the participants of the Artist Training: Refugee Class for Professionals the opportunity to meet and take their first steps with artists from Berlin for future joint projects.

The workshop is linked to the FINE ARTS module, which will take place from November 20th to 24th as part of the "Artist Training: Refugee Class for Professionals" at the Berlin Career College of the University of the Arts Berlin. The workshop is open to all. Existing project ideas can be brought to be tried out! The MindLab will take place in the framework of the OPENHAUS.

Link to the event.

Nathan Gray

In 1901 a mysterious device is found in a Roman shipwreck of the island of Antikythera. In 1974 a science fiction author has a revelation that reality is an illusion controlled by an ancient roman machine called the Black Iron Prison. In 2028 a prominent technologist gives a press conference to announce he has died and is addressing his audience from an augmented reality network called After-life. This complex narrative weaves together historical research, philosophical enquiry and speculation on future events.

The Mechanism is a new Short Film By Nathan Gray that juxtaposes narration over hypnotic video shot in Greece, Germany and Australia. It was developed over the last 3 months with the help of ZK/U, Berlin and The Forum for Sensory Motion.

Lee Dawson

Dawson has been working on an ongoing series of paintings and sculpture that reflect their experience of Berlin and New York City civic structures.  Dawson is fascinated with themes of functionality in civic spaces that are molded in the everyday use by the individual and the juxtaposition of the given and adapted purposes of such spaces.