In order to provide artists and curators from Lagos and Berlin with insights into the art world of the other country and to work there, the Goethe-Institut Nigeria has cooperated with the Office for Further Education and Culture Berlin-Mitte, Galerie Wedding, ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics, the art space SAVVY Contemporary Berlin and the Arthouse Foundation Lagos the residency program for artists and curators from Berlin and Lagos. This year's scholarship holders include the Nigerian architect and artist Antoinette Yetunde Oni as well as the Berlin artists and filmmakers Katrin Winkler and Dane Komjlen. From September, they will be working on the theme of the "New Commons" during their residencies.
Since its foundation in July 2015, the exchange program of the Goethe-Institut Nigeria aims to enable the participants to spend several weeks working in the other city and to give them an insight into the work of the partner institutions. The artists have the opportunity to network and receive advice and to present their work results in various formats. The exchange program will be held bilaterally for the second time this year, allowing two six-week stays in Lagos. At the same time a three-month residency for an artist or a curator from Lagos takes place in Berlin.
Two juries in Berlin and Lagos, consisting of representatives of the participating institutions and an external expert, selected the scholarship recipients for 2019 in spring from more than 50 applications: the Nigerian architect and artist Antoinette Yetunde Oni, the visual artist and filmmaker Katrin Winkler and the filmmaker Dane Komjlen from Berlin. While the Berlin artists will be traveling to Lagos for several weeks on September 21 and November 1, 2019, Antoinette Yetunde Oni will begin her three-month residency in Berlin on September 9, 2019. During their stays, the scholarship holders are working on the overarching theme of this years residency program, which is an artistic reflection on the notion of the "New Commons“.
From the 7.-16. In November 2019 there will be an exhibition of research and works by the scholarship holders in the gallery Wedding - Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst (Müllerstraße 146-147, 13353 Berlin). Further events are planned.
Information can be found under:
http://galeriewedding.de/
https://www.zku-berlin.org/
About the Artists
Yetunde Oni was born in 1994 in London before moving to Lagos, Nigeria at age nine. Her work narrates fictitious futuristic landscapes and architectural interventions that explore solutions to environmental concerns such as resource degradation and desertification in the Sahel Region. Her exploration of West African topography began during her time as an NGO representative at the the United Nations where she advocated for rural women’s land rights in Ghana and Nigeria. In addition to her work as an artist and advocate, she currently works as a designer for a Lagos-based architecture firm where she collaborates with local artisans. Yetunde holds a BA (honours) in Architecture from the Manchester School of Architecture.
Katrin Winkler (*1983) is an artist and filmmaker based in Berlin. She works in the fields of expanded cinema, critical research, photography and video. How history is in-/visible and entangled with the contemporary moment is a reocurring theme in her artistic practice. She holds a BFA in Photography from the University of Applied Sciences, Munich. She was a student assistant at the Katutura Community Art Center, Windhoek, Namibia and the City Varsity, Cape Town, South Africa. She studied Media Arts/ Mass Media research and Art in Public Media Space with Günther Selichar and finsihed the Master Class Programme with Clemens von Wedemeyer at the Academy of Fine Arts, Leipzig. And she studied Photography & Media & Integrated Media (MFA) amongst others with Allan Sekula, Ashley Hunt, Michelle Dizon and Billy Woodberry in the MFA Programme at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles. Her works have been shown internationally.
Dane Komljen was born in 1986 in Banja Luka, SFR Yugoslavia, and is based in Berlin. He studied at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, Le Fresnoy in Tourcoing and the Universität der Künste in Berlin. His short films have been shown and awarded at the Locarno Film Festival, IFF Rotterdam, Festival de Cannes, FID Marseille, Toronto IFF, New York FF and Sarajevo FF. All the Cities of the North, his first feature, premiered in 2016 at Locarno and was subsequently shown at over 60 festivals and venues worldwide, received a theatrical release in the USA and has been distributed online by MUBI and Grasshopper Film. Phantasiesätze, his most recent short, won the Mantarraya Casa Wabi award at Locarno in 2017 before being shown at TIFF, NYFF, FIC Valdivia, FICUNAM, Jeonju IFF and FRONT Triennial among others. He is currently developing two new feature-length projects: A Treatise on Limnology and Desire Lines. The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London organized a complete retrospective of his work at the end of 2018. Earlier this year, he was comissioned by Volksbühne to put up the audiovisual performance As quickly as the leaves in the garden have faded.
The Berlin-Lagos residency program was initiated by the Goethe-Institut Nigeria in July 2015 in cooperation with the Städtische Galerie Wedding Berlin, the ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics, the SAVVY Contemporary Berlin and the ArtHouse Foundation Lagos.
Press contact
ZK/U – Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik
Dr. Sylvia Metz, Kristina Miller, [email protected], +49 30 39882650