#David Rych | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

diebalkone-blog · 4 years

Text

Die Balkone. Life, art, pandemic and proximity

With: Salwa Aleryani and Matheus Rocha Pitta, Ulf Aminde, Rosa Barba and Jan St. Werner, Yael Bartana and Saskia Wendland, Elke Buhr and Tobi Müller, Matthias Daenschel, Jeremiah Day and Alisa Margolis, Christina Dimitriadis, Sam Durant and Ana Prvacki, Knut Eckstein, Theo Eshetu, Martin Frese and Eva Scharrer at Tina Löffelbein’s, Olaf Grawert, Jan Peter Hammer, Hannah Hurtzig, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Anne Duk Hee Jordan and Pauline Doutreluingne, Christoph Keller, Jessika Khazrik / Övül Ö. Durmusoglu, Matylda Krzykowski, Xavier le Roy and Scarlet Yu, Lage Egal, Antonia Low and Tommy Støckel, Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué, Kamila Metwaly and Max Schneider, Markus Miessen and Lena Mahr, Tom McCarthy and Eva Stenram, Müller Dreimalklingeln and Sonja Lau, Olaf Nicolai, Andrea Pichl, Marta Popivoda and Ana Vujanović, David Rych and kids, Susanne Sachsse and Marc Siegel, Isabella Sedeka, Antje Stahl and Felix-Emeric Tota, Raul Walch, Joanna Warsza and Florian Malzacher, Christina Werner and others.

Initiated by Övül Ö. Durmusoglu and Joanna Warsza

“If we behave like those on the other side, then we are the other side. Instead of changing the world, all we’ll achieve is a reflection of the one we want to destroy.” Jean Genet, The Balcony

We are at the very beginning of a new cycle that we cannot yet situate ourselves in. Its first palpable experiences are shifts in the relationship between inside and outside; in the distance between one day and another; between what is private, public, and political. At the same time, care, protection, and vulnerability are growing with new meanings. Balconies serve as the public apertures of the private. They seem to be where the house ends, and yet not. In their political history, they have both been terraces of openness and hope, as well as platforms for authoritarianism and supremacy. Balconies today are the thresholds from which we can encounter the world during the confinement of the domestic: which is safe and sound for some, but not for others. They are emergency exits to take a breath of fresh air, catch a moment of sunshine or a smoke. While our freedom of mobility is on hold, they become unique sites of everyday performance or even civic mobilization. Every architecture school has its own way of designing balconies. Everyone has their own way of inhabiting them. Especially now. In times of quarantine, so many of us cultural workers living in Berlin happen to all be here; not far from each other, and yet absent as usual. We are asked to commit to the digital space, without critically estimating the effects of for-profit information technologies. Berlin has an important history of artist squats, takeovers, one-night exhibitions. In former East Germany, what was public, in a sense of non-intimidated or uncensored art and life, frequently happened in someone’s kitchen rather than out in the open. Specifically, Prenzlauer Berg is a place where home-made resistance against the GDR hit critical mass. Die Balkone invites members of the artistic community living in Prenzlauer Berg to activate/inhabit their windows and balconies. With zero budget, no opening, and no crowds, the project proposes an intimate stroll (within current regulations) to search for signs of life, art, and points of kinship and connection. When some of us are cut off from our plans and our loved ones, we reach out to the balconies of the world, against isolation and individualization, not leaving everything in the hands of the virus and the fear it generates.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wenn wir uns wie die auf der anderen Seite verhalten, dann sind wir die andere Seite. Anstatt die Welt zu verändern, werden wir nur eine Spiegelung derer, die wir zerstören wollen, erlangen. Jean Genet, Der Balkon*

Wir stehen am Anfang eines neuen Zyklus, in dem wir uns noch nicht verorten können. Seine ersten greifbaren Erfahrungen sind Verschiebungen in der Beziehung zwischen Innen und Außen; in der Distanz zwischen einem Tag und dem nächsten; zwischen privat, öffentlich und politisch. Gleichzeitig wachsen Sorgfalt, Schutz und Verletzlichkeit und nehmen neue Bedeutungen an. Balkone öffnen den privaten Raum nach außen. Sie befinden sich scheinbar da, wo das Haus endet, und doch wieder nicht. In ihrer politischen Geschichte stellten sie sowohl Terrassen der Offenheit und Hoffnung dar, als auch Plattformen für Autoritarismus und Vorherrschaft. Balkone sind heute die Schwellen, von denen aus wir der Welt in der Eingrenzung des Häuslichen begegnen können: Dieses Zuhause ist für einige selbstverständlich, für andere wiederum nicht. Sie sind Notausgänge, um frische Luft zu schnappen, einen Moment Sonnenschein oder eine Zigarette. Während unsere Mobilitätsfreiheit eingefroren ist, werden sie zu einzigartigen Orten täglicher Performance oder sogar bürgerlicher Mobilisierung. Jede Architekturschule hat ihre eigene Art, Balkone zu gestalten. Jeder hat seine eigene Art, sie zu bewohnen. Vor allem jetzt. In Zeiten der Quarantäne sind so viele von uns Berliner Kulturschaffenden hier; nicht weit voneinander entfernt und doch wie immer abwesend. Wir werden gebeten, uns dem digitalen Raum zu widmen, ohne die Auswirkungen gewinnorientierter Informationstechnologien kritisch abzuschätzen. Berlin birgt eine wichtige Geschichte von Hausbesetzungen, Übernahmen und One-Night-Ausstellungen. In der ehemaligen DDR passierte Öffentlichkeit – im Sinne einer nicht eingeschüchterten oder unzensierten Kunst und des Lebens – häufig in der Küche von Jemanden anstatt draußen im Freien. Insbesondere der Prenzlauer Berg ist ein Ort, an dem hausgemachter Widerstand gegen das DDR-Regime die kritische Masse erreichte. Die Balkone lädt Mitglieder der im Prenzlauer Berg lebenden Künstler*innengemeinschaft ein, ihre Fenster und Balkone zu aktivieren / bewohnen. Ohne Budget, ohne Eröffnung und ohne Menschenmassen schlägt das Projekt einen intimen Spaziergang (im Rahmen der geltenden Vorschriften) vor, um nach Lebenszeichen, nach Kunst, Verwandtschafts- und Verbindungszeichen zu suchen. Zu Zeiten da einige von uns von ihren Plänen und ihren Lieben abgeschnitten sind, wenden wir uns den Balkonen der Welt zu, gegen Isolation und Individualisierung, und lassen nicht alles in den Händen des Virus und der Angst, die es erzeugt. * Eva Scharrer Thank you everyone for taking part, and especially to Kimberly Bradley, Józefina Chętko, Eva Scharrer and David Ulrichs for their generous help!

#diebalkone pandemic proximity prenzlauerberg berlin balconies windows

1 note · View note

kirkqcastudytrip · 7 years

Text

Initial Green Light Project Research

Described on the artist’s website as ‘Green light is an act of welcoming, addressed both to those who have fled hardship and instability in their home countries and to the residents of the cities receiving them. … Mass displacement and migration are core challenges in the world today, affecting millions of people around the globe. Green light displays a modest strategy for addressing the challenges and responsibilities arising from the current situation and shines a light on the value of collaborative work and thinking.’

‘multifaceted programme of creativity and shared learning. The educational programme includes a workshop for the construction of Green light lamps, language courses, seminars, artist’s interventions, and film screenings’

- rest of website features slick interactive animation (supposedly) outlining the steps of the design, as well as a video showing the assembly of the green light. ‘Made from recycled and sustainable materials and designed to be stackable, the Green light modules can function either on their own or be combined into more complex structures.’

Geometry of green light was developed with Einar Thorsteinn as part of his long standing research into fivefold symmetry

On artist’s website also mentions NGO Georg Danzer Haus - no links to either that or Emergency

http://olafureliasson.net/greenlight/

Francesca von Habsburg, founder of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21), and by TBA21’s chief curator Daniela Zyman

Made from European Ash, Recycled plastics from yogurt cups, plastic bags, recycled nylon & LED

Website also features links to a shop where the green light object is for sale for 250 euro - can be bought during course of the bienalle or mailed as a flat pack with a certificate of authenticity

All proceeds of the fundraising campaign are donated entirely to Emergency, a humanitarian NGO that work with refugees.

https://www.tba21.org/#item--greenlight_venice--1631

Issues inherent in NGO’s - resulting in lessened infrastructure in host countries (only issue if there is infrastructure at all, though)

During the planning process, they discussed the project in depth with the local aid organisations that they partnered with — Georg Danzer Haus and Caritas — who then brought in a new perspective and contributed new ideas.

http://tlmagazine.com/olafur-eliasson-on-green-light-at-tba21/

http://greenlightworkshop.org/article/about_gl_history

Pilot of project at TBA21-Augarten, Vienna - ‘structure that could be replicated and further developed in collaboration with other institutions and other contexts worldwide’

Raised over 100,000 euros

Each iteration up to 40 refugees and asylum seekers are invited for period of seven to eight weeks to build lamps - complemented by educational program based on Shared Learning principles. - ‘explore a variety of perspectives on migration, citizenship, statelessness, arrival, memory, & belonging, and generate an exchange of knowledge, experiences, and values.’

‘Green light aspires to expand by partnering with institutions around the world that are eager to use the agency of contemporary art to support processes of civic change and to test alternative forms of community.’

In first iteration in Augarten, Vienna - Shared Learning program consisted of daily German classes (devised to prepare for official language exams) - series of weekly seminars, artist’s interventions and special workshops.

Seminars such as ‘Displaced’ and ‘History(ies) of Migration’ brought students and refugees into teams to deconstruct notion of migration & individual impacts.

Number of artists (Tarek Atoui, Johannes Porsch, Shuddhabrata Sengupta of Raqs Media Collective, and David Rych) held ‘research-based, process-oriented interventions’ - based in belief in the ‘transformative potential of collective and embodied artistic production’

International and local speakers with expertise in artistic and institutional practise or critical theory were invited to speak ‘explored the social, geopolitical, and cultural aspects of migration’.

‘Key questions were the states of transition, globally and within the societies of arrival, the formation of new communities, and how art and its institutions can reflect and perform agency in regard to these contemporary challenges.’

Feb 24-May6 2017 held in Houston Texas (one of top 3 US cities to welcome refugees in last year) - NGO was Interfaith Ministries. Shared Learning program involved language classes, job formation training.

May 13- Nov 26 2017 at 57th Bienalle di Venezia, Venice - Eighty Participants - Shared Learning involved vocational and practical training (job training, language courses, psychological & legal counselling), collective applied activities & discursive program of lectures, talks and seminars. Contributors selected based on criteria such as interest in pedagogical (?) working methods, experience working with marginalised groups, development or directorship of schools or alternative educational hubs run or influenced by artists, and biographical diversity.

August 4-November 5, 2017

Invited to participate in 6th Yokohama Triennale - context of geopolitical constellations and protectionist Japanese immigration policies. This iteration of Green light centred on ‘enclosed communities’ within Japanese society, invites climate and nuclear refugees, indochinese communities who immigrated in 1970s as well as local students & volunteers. Shared Learning Program responds to specific context in Japan - has four local NGOs

If not a full 7 or 8 week artistic workshop, Green Light can be demonstrated in smaller formats - some ‘short seminar workshops’ that last two or three days. Held in Art Basel, Switzerland (June 18-19, 2016), the International Peace Institute in Salzburg (IPI) (September 4-6, 2016) & the National Gallery of Prague, Czech Republic (March 17-19, 2017) - some of the above were supervised by former Green Light participants, who in some instances gave workshops or small tutorials in the assembly of the lamps as well as sharing their experiences.

http://greenlightworkshop.org/green_light

Project initiated in collaboration between Danish-Icelanding artist Olafur Eliasson & Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna (TBA21)

http://greenlightworkshop.org/article/about_shared_learning

Shared Learning engages artists, dancers, language teachers, educators & cultural practitioners. “school’ of Shared Learning is located in centre of Green Light Space - curriculum has daily language classes tailored to language skills of participants & weekly psychological counselling - ‘Legal assistance & vocational training provided intermittently & upon request’

Artistic workshops are devised for the participants of Green Light therefore active participation by visitors is limited

http://greenlightworkshop.org/shared_learning - program: 6 week Occupational Consultancy, legal consultancy, workshop on fashion-textiles and identity, artistic workshops such as ‘A Cosmology of the Sea’, artist talks, film workshops

http://greenlightworkshop.org/article/You-must-have-control-of-your-life

main feature of the texts in an interview with Tahajud Alghrabi, a 48yo asylum seeker from Baghdad who used to work as a school principle - outlines her history of migration from Iraq, syria, Jordan & turkey in 2015 cam eight husband and two sons to Austria - currently working in a school supporting teachers w/ students of migratory backgrounds

Read about Green Light on the internet - went to the first meeting - introduced herself to Francesca von Habsburg ‘I don’t have time to stay at home and wait for somebody to help me. I want to help myself’ - wasn't on the list with the red cross but after insisting to Daniela Zyman to be admitted she told red cross it was okay. Wanted to use program to get a job after - sort of stand in CV. Has gone on to help other people in seeking asylum, w/ jobs and taking care of children through shared understanding of experience and language. ‘team was really good, they knew they were dealing with people who had suffered a lot and they treated all of us very gently’

In the words of the artist: http://greenlightworkshop.org/article/Assembling-Light-Assembling-Communities ‘Art and culture, I believe, can have a pertinent role to play in responding to such events: as a start, it can reverse our emotional disconnect and, whether directly or indirectly, inspire us to take action.’

‘We believe that culture is able to shine a light on and shape discussions about contemporary global challenges such as climate change and forced migration, and is able to develop new models of interaction and catalyze positive change.’

‘The journey (from the assembly of a light module to social change) might seem long and convoluted, yet a simple but crucial first step is to trust the potential in the non-spectacular situation of sitting down together and doing something basic with out hands’

lamp is more easily assembled with two pairs of hands. even though in later interview one participant said he got it done faster by himself

lamp was developed by close friend of artist - late Einar Thorsteinn (mathematician & architect) “super cube’ - geometric study began between artist and Thorsteinn & continued by the artist and his studio.

Hope that as Green Light community expands, cities, national governments & policy makers are influenced by creative approaches to welcoming refugees

http://greenlightworkshop.org/blog_list/8

Well kept blog with multiple posts per week - some centring on experiences of individual participants, some documentations of Shared Learning workshops

http://greenlightworkshop.org/article/A-place-where-we-could-spend-time

in interview w/ Murtaza Azimi 16yo Afghani refugee - heard about green light through his guardian ‘chance for all of us who are not going to school yet.’ mostly attracted by german classes - which quickly improved, learned to lose discomfort in the presence of people from other countries & how to live together and alongside others, ‘learned a lot about myself and about good manners and the importance of the way you behave’.

‘Yes, the project meant structure. Since the project ended, I’ve been taking language courses and two times a week I play football, and that’s it. It’s exhausting. Not being able to do anything is exhausting. Not doing anything is exhausting by itself.’

Look into experience of participants after involvement with project -

http://greenlightworkshop.org/article/Shared-Learning

‘conceived as an alternate educational model catering to plurality’

‘project answered to a double-bind systematic default: a lack of future possibilities for those who slip through the loopholes of the governing legal system and the construction of internal borders that enforce social, economic, cultural, spacial & personal marginalisation.’

cooking sessions - of interest

weekly initiatives

Participating artists focused on alternative educational models - ‘education without an emphasis on the production of expertise’

Ahmet Ögüt’s ‘Silent University’ curricula developed by refugees and migrants for refugees and migrants - to reactivate knowledge and studies that the individual can no longer practice due to circumstance

Artist-Musician Tarek Atoui’s workshop involved participants recording their environments (the park, city, instruments, speech & chants) which were subsequently composed into a sound piece.

‘internalized, institutionalized, and socialized othering and bordering can be reversed if we recognize our own situations and contributions to subtle structures of domination and are thus able to take another subject’s viewpoint’

‘

[6]

Sara Danius, Stefan Jonsson, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “An Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,” Boundary 2 20, no. 2 (1993): 24.↩

https://www.tba21.org/journals/article/Hosting-the-Spirit-of-Green-light

in words of artist ‘Green light aims to decentralise hospitality’ … ‘which means there is no centre, but rather only periphery’

‘We constructed a simple experiment, in which people first had to build something together and then they had to play a sharing game with each other. This is an investment game; it is called a public goods game among economists. The idea is that I put something into a pool and you put something into a pool. We don’t know what the other person puts into the pool, but this pool magically grows and we share whatever is in it. Now the best for me would be if you put everything into the pool, I get half of your things and then I keep everything for myself. Of course for you this would be a very bad strategy, and the crucial question is if we could come up with a situation in which we both trust each other to invest the maximum. What we found in this experiment is quite surprising, namely that when people built something together, which they knew the purpose of, then they were basically investing everything in the communal pool afterward. Whereas when people didn’t know the purpose of what they were doing, then they were much more reluctant to engage in the simple collective play of investing in a sharing kind of way. And very interestingly, when they knew what the result of the work was all about, they were also much more willing to trust or invest in another person whom they hadn’t met previously.’

‘when you don’t know the outcome of the labor that you are involved in, you become, so to speak, disembodied’

http://greenlightworkshop.org/article/You-have-to-be-social

Interview with Anas Aljajeh (27) studied Interior Design in Damascus until Syrian civil war - parts of the workshop that worked out fine ‘cooking together, eating together, sitting, talking’.

‘But the work itself, when we were working as a team, could sometimes get complicated, because not all the members of the team were working on the same level, you know? One person would make three lamps per day and three other people together make only one lamp a day. It created some complications.’

‘But in Greenlight I found that I actually preferred to work a little bit by myself. Because I preferred to improve, to make more lamps every day, which I could do that better if I worked alone.’

‘sometimes, I didn’t think the preparation of the wooden sticks was perfect. So I would have to redo them to my standards. Because I knew how to do it the way I wanted it to be. So that the lamps I made were perfect in my eyes, by my standards. I wanted to keep my standards.’

‘I think it’s important to find places like this, where you create infrastructure, where people come together with ideas, people who want to work and sharpen their skills.’

‘The problem with translation was there, since on the one hand we had work connecting us, but we still always needed language. You need good translators. If you can’t communicate to someone else the full idea in all its clarity, then they won’t understand what is happening.’

http://www.arterritory.com/en/texts/articles/6640-an_uncomfortable_green_light

As Eliasson said in an interview with The Art Newspaper, “I would love to say to Angela Merkel: ‘Here is a model.’”

0 notes