Ali Reza Hemat Boland

Dehiscence

Photographic installation, 2018

Artists Ali Reza Hemat Boland thoughts about political situation in Iran:

Dehiscence is peculiar word in botany it stand for the act as well as moment a pod bursts open; in medicine it is used when  a wound splits open after being treated or stitched. It is used here in the title of the exhibition alluding to both metaphors; it is as if our wounds split open to give birth to art. Our narrative is the narrative of our wounds, our pain and our failures; the failure of politics, the failure of the age of moderation, the failure of reforms, the failure of negotiations, the failure of even halting negotiations, the failure of any attempt for change, the failure of reaching freedom, independence, the right to self-determination, equality, and all those things for which blood has been shed. Failure Dehiscence is the overlay repeated narrative of wounds cutting open, wounds that have been stitched over and over again, and we - unable to cure them, frightened, can only murmur our land from miles away.

Photo (C) Brigita Kas

Jessica Gnyp

work in progress

photography, 2018

Artist Jessica Gnyp is presenting a photographic installation consisting of visual research that combines the photographic and sculptural. Project is currently in process and depicts water pumps found in Moabit. Research thus far explores the materiality of photo and water. The photographs are soaked in water collected from the pumps and take shape as the paper dries.

Website info: jessicagnyp.ca

Evrim Kavcar

tekrar değil, ısrar* (an exercise for a lecture performance)

time based drawing, 170x68cm. fine sand, water and crayon on paper.

sound recording in three parts; 3', 3' and 2'

mud balls, various sizes, 2018

The installation consists of a time based drawing that hangs in the air, balls of mud that are carefully scattered in the main hall in a fashion that will relate to the bodily presence of the audience, and three speakers that you have to listen closely to hear sounds and sentences that live in the distance between these scattered parts of the installation.

The dust that will keep falling off the drawing during the openhouse is a residue of the earth (in the case of Berlin, sand) that has been accumulating in my studio since July 2018. The balls of mud are made from soil that was present in parks at different locations of Berlin - water that has long evaporated, and time which differs from a day to a week.

Having started off from concepts related to soil, earth, land, etc, the parallels between the techniques of working with the material and the workings of memory and subconscious have lead the process towards digging into gestures for revival in states of oppression. Inspirations such as Paul Celan's poetry, Rosa Luxemburg's letters, and a spider that has been living beside my pillow for the past 3 months will also be present in this installation in a form of their choice.

* translates as: "insistance, not repetition" (in reference to Gertrude Stein)

Angela Powell & Jessie Burrows

Jessie Burrows & Angela Louise Powell

Persuasion Architects, 2018

A continuing point of interest for collaborative artists Jessie Burrows and Angela Louise Powell, and focus of their prior work in the GlogauAir residency, are the contemporary issues of privacy in the digital age. In an effort to highlight these issues within their practices, the duo created a pseudo-marketing startup ‘Persuasion Architects’, in which they address how digital and physical world marketing structures and mass data surveillance are used to influence our personal and social desires, as well as behaviours. Burrows and Powell toy with the disparity between behaviour in reality to that of its online parallels. The artists utilise aspects of these social online sources to open up discussion with their audience, harnessing the potential of the Apps and web-based tools they are critiquing.

Projekt Birkenstrasse

Projekt Birkenstrasse

Linus Lütcke, Matthias Gerber, 2018

The Projekt Birkenstrasse is an art project sponsored by ZK/U Berlin, which aims at an alternative use of the space underground station Birkenstrasse. The subway station, which is currently being renovated and redesigned, becomes a stage, an exhibition space for art, or even a subject for artistic works. By using the underground station for artistic actions, this part of the public space is made accessible in a new way. In particular the project thematizes the special feature of an underground station as an anonymous meeting place, a transit station and a place to linger in public space. The project is led and curated by Matthias Gerber and Linus Lütcke, who are residents of the project space „Ständige Vertretung" of the Z/KU Berlin from September to October 2018.

At the start of the project, local artists from the neighborhood were invited to participate in the project. The Call for Artists was aimed at artists whose works break up and question common behavioural routines in public space and thus open up new dimensions of the use (and/or design) of public space. Of particular interest were works that promote interaction with their viewers (the users of the U-Birkenstrasse) and provoke new ways of seeing and acting in public space in general and the U-Birkenstrasse in particular.

Caroline Vains

Caroline Vains

Re-present Rear-view

workshop presentation, discussion, 2018

Artists Caroline Vains project during the residency at ZK/U is called The Guesthouse Project #4. It focuses on migration, hospitality and questions of integration in the context of Berlin. During the month of September, artist initiated a series of 14 Politics Performance workshops with a diverse group of performers, dancers, artists and others - local, international, migrant, newcomer – at Coop Campus in Neukölln. Caroline Vains with partners used performance methods of physical and political theatre as well as scenography to explore the psychology of intercultural space, democratic interaction, the El Dorado of the good life, and shared stories and experiences. The workshops culminated in a final public performance held on October 6th in the Campus garden and greenhouse. For this Openhaus, artist Caroline Vains presents a video of this performance, together with participant-performers who are here to answer questions about the process, elaborate on insights into the focus topics, and endeavour to unpack how the performance methodologies facilitated them.

The project was a cooperation with local community art and culture organisation Schlesische 27 (http://www.schlesische27.de/s27/portfolio/coop-campus/).

Photo (C) Brigita Kas

Marcos Torino

Marcos Torino

object-work in progress, 2018

After Google questions the role of the viewer/public who in the Internet and surveillance days, its victim and main actor at the same time.  Is general public committed or just a voyeur? What’s the role of general public in art today?

Valentine Emilia Bossert

Re-present Rear-view

workshop presentation, discussion, 2018

Artist Valentine Emilia Bossert displays the result of a the first series of experimentations towards mapping collective consciousness. This process comes from an urge to understand and make visible how complex ideas are formed, how they relate to each other and can evolve over time. It is also an attempt to comprehend how the conceptual responds to the physical world.

In parallel, artist will present the latest developments on the project called "Graspomaton" - a transportable public installation mimicking the traditional photo booth, through pictures, plans, text and a model.