Between belief in progress and appropriation of the future
Where is Planet B? is a performative symposium in the Berlinische Galerie accompanying the exhibition “Fazit” by realities:united, a group that develops projects at the junction of art and architecture. On the occasion of the planned abandonment of nuclear and coal power in Germany, the large thermal power plants are to be modified – the steam from still active power plants will rise in the form of huge rings that can be seen from afar as a symbol of a transformation reverberating through the country.
The intervention Where is Planet B? poses critical questions about social changes and the role of art: From the perspective of Generation 200X. Special guests of the performative symposium are Jan and Tim Edler from realities:united and the curator Ruth Noack.
Where do I come from and where do I belong? Which group do I belong to and which not? And why? What does power and dominance mean? Accompanied by an ethnologist, a musician and a director, students from Kreuzberg went in search of social, political and family contexts and their dissonances. Voices and moods were captured in their topicality and explosiveness and honed through performance as a panopticon of the most diverse social attitudes. The Jewish Museum Berlin has adopted some elements to accompany the exhibition “A for Jewish”.
In deutschen Landen 2018In deutschen Landen/ JMB, 2019In deutschen Landen/ JMB, 2019
An artistic research at the Jewish Museum Berlin, 2017-2019.
The goal is to develop an exhibition format together with young people. In a dialogue with people from different backgrounds, experiences and points of view, the Jewish Museum Berlin is both investigated in an open, dialogical process and simultaneously included in the curatorial work of the museum in order to create a dialogue with them. The “Schattenmuseum” takes its lead from the structures, needs and goals of the museum, looks for alternative approaches and designs an experimental set-up. Content, formats and methods are developed and implemented creatively in cooperation with schoolchildren, residents and museum employees.
First, ethnographic-aesthetic investigations in urban space (Measuring Jewish Berlin) as well as in archives and collections are carried out with the participants. At the same time, a blog is being created for workshops, campaigns, documentation and as a communication tool and project archive.
From mid-2017, sideviews have been involved in a collaborative exhibition at the Jewish Museum Berlin. Schattenmuseum / Growing – Jewish Life Today is a dynamic exhibition that focuses on the question: How can Jewish life today be portrayed vividly?
In the second step, workshops are conducted on the artistic realization of the research in various disciplines such as film, theatre, visual arts, model making, music, design and museum work.
On the basis of the resulting collection of materials, ideas and objects, a third workshop series will take place to realize the exhibition concept and architecture. Participants of the Schattenmuseum select exhibits together with the curators and the workshop results are processed through performance and installation. Various positions and stories on the topic “Growing – Jewish Life Today” as well as the process of dialogical discussion are depicted, brought to life and presented from November 2018 at the Ross Gallery in the Jewish Museum Berlin.
The exhibition “A for Jewish” poses questions, opens up space for dialogue and will continue to develop in a dialogical and dynamic way until the end of 2019: In workshops, participants can introduce perspectives and put down new layers of interpretation and design on the exhibition. Visitors are involved in activities, the performative design suspends any clear boundary between object and person, between narrator and story and invites you to participate in discussions, experiments, creative workshops, theatrical processes and film shoots. The participants of the shadow museum act as experts and present their specific forms of examination and presentation.
Begleitprogramm zu “A wie Jüdisch”/ JMB, Februar 2019
In September 2018, together with sideviews ten young people founded the Jugendgremium Schattenmuseum, in order to reflect on the work and to advise further museums and exhibition centres from their perspective. They also developed the accompanying program.
Shadowmuseum (Schattenmuseum) can be regarded as an alternative approach to the concept of a museum and has grown out of several years of cooperation between sideviews, the Jewish Museum Berlin and a group of schoolchildren from Kreuzberg in Berlin. Schattenmuseum is a structure for developing proposals for museums on how to interact with communities, collections and educational opportunities. Content, methods and artistic formats are developed and implemented collaboratively with young people and adults. Schattenmuseum is based on the actual structures, needs and goals of the respective museum. An experimental field unfurls, accompanying an exhibition for example, in which questions are asked, a space for dialogue is created or an experimental arrangement is set up involving different groups of visitors and including their perspectives in the exhibition. Schattenmuseum has been developing as an experimental arrangement in the Berlinische Galerie since the beginning of 2019. Since mid-2020, Schattenmuseum has also been collaborating with the Berlin Biennale, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the House of World Cultures.
In the Jewish Museum Berlin, the debate about the crisis of the museum as an institution has been going on for some time. sideviews was invited to take this debate as a starting point for a performative project with prospective young visitors. After researching the museum architecture with VOIDS, VOIDS.MuseumVerLernen takes a step further: the museum as a whole is analyzed creatively (from curatorship to communication structures, from security to production) in order to understand which type of relationship the institution offers both to its community and to its visitors.
Based on the statements that 8th grade pupils of the Refik Veseli School collected in audio interviews with employees, visitors and passers-by, the findings of this study was staged as a performance and symposium. 45 employees of the museum, including the director, came together for a discussion with thepupils about the opportunities and scope for involving young people in the development of a “museum for everyone”.
