NAPPING IN DENSITY

Presentation of artistic works by students of the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK)

at KW Institute for Contemporary Art

Concluding event of the teaching cooperation Geschichten zur Geschichte

between the UdK and KW

History can be documented, analyzed, criticized or even forgotten. We can deal with it in manifold ways, whether we consciously control this process or not. But how does a decidedly artistic approach to the past look like? How can a focus be set and materially conveyed in order to relate to the past in the present? And how does this relate to the future?

The teaching cooperation pursued these questions from two starting points during the winter semester 2023/2024: The first approach was to focus on the concurrent KW exhibition Coco Fusco: Tomorrow I Will Become an Island (2023-24) in order to highlight Fusco's artistic method of critically engaging with socio-political issues and events of the past and present. Drawing on Fusco's works, the participants explored materials from the recently established KUNST-WERKE BERLIN e. V. archive in further depth. Through the discussion of selected projects from the last 30 years, KW's current program was embedded within its exhibition history, which is located in socio-political discourses, while reflecting on them or adding new dimensions. At the same time, this exploration allowed to take samples of the institution's past in order to prepare the current presentation Napping in Density.

The topics discussed were starting points to which the participants could relate freely with their own artistic works. This resulted in an investigative, but above all artistic approach to history and archives, in which the past is activated, questioned and playfully reinterpreted. The results are 13 independent works, diverse in their media, in which the presence of past events and experiences emerges anew.

With works by

Arwina Afsharnejad, Jamila Barakat, Bella Bram, Miriam Döring (Class Bonvicini), Mika Ebbing, Koob Sassen Enterprises, Moritz Haase, Daria Kim, Daria Kozlova, Lena Kocutar, Victoria Martinez, Alma Poursangari, Livia Rauch, Jule Roehr, Aixing Wang, Alungoo Xatan

Concept and project management

Akiko Bernhöft (UdK)

Jenny Dirksen (KW)

Coordinator KW

Alexia Manzano