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exchange
How can we establish perspectives and ways of speaking that have received little attention to date? In which knowledge contexts do we really move? How can we build connections and sustainably maintain them?
The idea of an exchange related to these questions has accompanied the 11th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art since September 2019. It has become an overall concept that combines curatorial, artistic, and mediating approaches. They ranged from artists’ talks to focus tours, tandem experiments, and urban dialogues. In this way, moments of exchange emerged even in these particular times. We found opportunities for communication that could not be stopped by borders and created safe spaces for encounters. In these, we sought to rethink established approaches and tested solidarity-based experiential practices.
The team of art mediators interwove various contexts, thereby convening different public spheres. Free tours in German, English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish regularly created spaces for conversation in the exhibition. During the focus tours, we honed our view, listening, and thinking by asking specific questions: Which movements and sounds can be found in the exhibitions? Where does a post- or decolonial perspective begin? What makes a work of art queer?
Visitors had two versions of the Truly Yours kits at their disposal for their explorations. The kits were a collection of tools, which could be inside and outside the Biennale exhibitions, to expand the experience. While one kit initiated discussions on topics such as memory, conflict, and institution, the other kit was specifically designed for children and allowed them to try out new ways of seeing, hearing, and playing. In the latter case, we were inspired by the Jugendgremium Schattenmuseum (Shadow Museum Youth Committee) and their SIRIBOX experiments. On two Sundays, the committee invited visitors of all ages to try out different ways of interacting within the biennale exhibition. For children, we organized special screenings of the Grupo Experimental de Cine animated film En la selva hay mucho por hacer (In the Jungle There Is Much to Do). For primary and secondary schools, we organized various workshops.
To counteract the exclusivity of the spaces in which we find ourselves, which are always only conditionally accessible, we transported our mediation practice outside and conducted dialogues in public places. For example, we invited children and young people in the neighborhood of the ExRotaprint complex to participate. And at Oranienplatz, in the vicinity of daadgalerie, we set up a screen printing and textile workshop. In this way, interested passers-by suddenly became workshop participants themselves.
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III: La familia son quiénes se alegran con nuestros actos diarios. Detrás de las curadoras de la XI
María Berríos, Agustín Pérez Rubio
Conversation
