New venue on Friday, October 18, 2024: Due to the closures caused by US President Joe Biden's visit to Berlin, the conference on Friday, October 18, will not take place in the HKW as originally planned, but in SAVVY Contemporary
Reinickendorfer Str. 17
13347 Berlin (Wedding) The content of the program will not be impacted except for the exhibition tour 14:00-15:30. Satch Hoyt’s exhibition Constellations is currently on view at art.loft berlin right next to SAVVY.

The Collaborative Research Center Intervening Arts (CRC 1512) based at Freie Universität Berlin is partnering with HKW (Haus der Kulturen der Welt) to offer a unique program on the topic of constellations, curated collaboratively by and hosted at both institutions.

Over the course of two days, the conference is enriched with innovative settings and formats offering alternative approaches to knowledge production and transmission, including live performances. Before and in-between both days, audiences are invited to join a tour critically addressing the shared history of both architectural sites, associated with westernized symbols of freedom, through performative interventions.

Artistic interventions that unsettle hegemonic structures and dynamics carry the potential to move institutions and individuals towards sustainable, inclusive, and equitable futures. Inspired by contemporary Indigenous artist-scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s advocacy for “constellations of co-resistance”, and in resonance with the scholarship and poetry of Audre Lorde, Édouard Glissant, June Jordan, and Walter Benjamin (to name just a few), the gathering asks how constellations of living, thinking, moving, caring, and being may unfold in theory and in practice.

We invite you to meet us at the crossroads between art and scholarship to expand and deepen our understanding of the relational and multidirectional qualities of constellations. What are the potentialities of decolonial discourses and approaches in the transformation of existing spaces, temporalities, and relations? Is it possible to generate structures without reproducing oppressive power regimes, and what can be learned from historical experiences?

 

Program

Friday, October 18, 2024, 10:00–22:45

10:00      Registration / Convivial Get Together
Angie Stardust Foyer and Magnus Hirschfeld Bar                                              10:30      Welcome
Karin Gludovatz, FU Berlin, Speaker, CRC Intervening Arts
Bonaventure S. B. Ndikung, Director and Chief Curator, HKW
Conference Team, CRC 11:00-12:30      Constellative Unsettlings
Unsettling Relations. Intervening Temporalities at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale
Lecture by Silvy Chakkalakal, Universität Zürich
Loosing One’s Head
Response and Artistic Contribution by Jason Wee, Artist and Writer, New York/Singapore

Moderated by Janette Helm, CRC

12:30     BREAK 14:00-15:30      Constellations Displayed & Displaced
Program change: Satch Hoyt’s exhibition Constellations 15:30     BREAK 16:00-17:30      Ancestral Constellations and Performative Futurities
Making Way, Giving Way: Diasporic Spidering and the Architectura Project
Input by Nadine George-Graves, Northwestern University, Chicago
Un-Muting Sonic Restitution and the Constellation Series
Input and Live Performance by Satch Hoyt, Artist, Berlin

Moderated by Layla Zami, CRC

17:30      DINNER BREAK 18:30-19:45      Collaborative Gestures in Constellations
Pinky Say Something
Performance by Moe Satt, Artist and Curator, Myanmar
Response by Zoncy Heavenly, Artist and Writer, Berlin

Moderated by Mariama Diagne, LMU München

19:45-21:15      Performance Constellations
Lecture by Marcela A. Fuentes, Northwestern University, Chicago
Conversation hosted by Angela Alves, HZT Berlin

Moderated by Judith Pieper, CRC

21:15     BREAK 21:30-22:45      Picotero Soundscape
Vinyl Set by Don Alirio, Curator and Researcher, Barranquilla
Introductory Conversation with Maëlle Karl, CRC

Saturday, October 19, 2024, 13:00–19:00

11.00       Ist das mein Ort?
Rike Flämig

Freie Universität Berlin, Henry-Ford-Bau, Garystraße 35, 14195 Berlin

Performance with following discussion as part of Tracing Influence: Intervening in Western Cold War Architecture, a series of performative interventions in the Berlin urban spac, and transition to the CRC Annual Conference:

Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Theaterwissenschaft, Hörsaal, Grunewaldstr. 35, 12165 Berlin

13.00-14:30      Mapping Out the Potential of Constellations
Lecture by Nassima Sahraoui, Frankfurt/Tübingen

Moderated by Doris Kolesch, CRC

14:30     BREAK 15:30-17:00      Diasporic Transfers in Artistic Practices
Ein Gespräch
Sinthujan Varatharajah, Author, Berlin; Lizza May David, Artist, Berlin; Claudia Dathe, CRC

Moderated by Mariama Diagne, LMU München, and Birgit Eusterschulte, CRC

(in German language)

17:00     BREAK 17:30-19:00      Interweaving Collective Practices
A conversational and culinary gathering among and with Asian diasporic artists in Berlin
Members of Mutating Kinship Lab

Facilitated by Emma Lo and Luise Willer, CRC                                      

During the conference, the audio installation Loosing My Head by Jason Wee can be heard.

The annual conference Moving (in) Constellations is organized in cooperation with the HKW Berlin and conceived by Mariama Diagne, Birgit Eusterschulte, Doris Kolesch, Layla Zami on behalf of the Decolonial Art Spaces Working Group of the Collaborative Research Center Intervening Arts at FU Berlin, and in cooperation with HKW Curator for Performative Practices, Carlos Maria Romero.

The annual conference is framed by Tracing Influence: Intervening in Western Cold War Architecture, a series of performative interventions in the Berlin urban space.