Véra Léon and Ella Ziegler, last year’s participants of the exchange program, will show their works created in Berlin and Die in the Museum Lounge from February 2, 2023.
The exhibition will provide an insight into the Berlin-DIEresidenz exchange program until April 16.
Since 2018, there has been a cooperation between Lichtenberg Studios and DIEresidenz, a house located near Die, France, where curator Conny Becker lives with her family. The house is only 10 minutes away from Die by bike and yet is completely secluded in the “dark” forest. For the respective Resident*innen a granny apartment and a studio are available.
Véra (&) Léon
Invisible Walls
In exchange with DIEresidenz (Drôme, France), the duo Véra (&) Léon will work at Lichtenberg Studios for three weeks in the summer of 2022. Their original project was to portray queer people in Lichtenberg. A more difficult goal than expected… a problem that the duo transforms into a poetic diary about queerness, the artistic process and social representations.
The text JOURNAL OF AN IMPOSSIBLE INQUIRY was created as an echo of a visual narrative that questions the ever-changing urbanity of Berlin. The photographs from the archive of the Lichtenberg Museum used as background create a parallel world to the mental images evoked by the poetic diary. This causes an oscillation between past and present, between sensitive and political experiences of the city.
The 16 photographic portraits, closely interwoven with the poetic diary, are also concerned with the intimate relationship between the queer body and its environment. Co-produced with their models, these images question the contradictions of our imaginary world: nature and city life, curiosity and voyeurism, otherness and identity. (Véra (&) Léon)
Ella Ziegler
Lucent Cracks
Ella Ziegler shows her project Lucent Cracks, an installation of poetic fabric banners created during her month-long residency at DIEresidenz in the French province. Working with a conceptual approach, she responds to the surrounding mountainous landscape with a few words, Haikuesque half-sentences and geometries. The artist condenses thoughts on the omnipresent, almost overwhelming nature of the Diois on white nettle, which, like the rocks of Mount Glandasse, can be seen as a projection screen on which emotions and stories are reflected. Ziegler, who often negotiates the relationship between body and space in her work, radically alters the perception of the exhibition space with her large-scale works, which in turn echo the rock walls with their physical effect on the viewers. (Conny Becker)
“My thoughts in Die were mainly about the perception of the landscape and its physical phenomena and conditions. It was about the echo, the light, the rock face as a projection and reflection surface for sunlight and sound, the idea that this landscape was formed by the movement of water, by faults and folds. Surrounded by mountains, I felt like I was underwater, because the mountains are a landscape reference point at altitude. The lichens are like coral, the rock faces like reefs, and the fossils like solidified sea creatures. The word combination HORIZON TRANSLUCENT CRACKS or HORIZON LUCENT CRACKS is about cracks in the horizon line. When we look at landscapes, we see their beauty, but we also know about the threat of cracks and predetermined breaking points in the horizon line.” (Ella Ziegler)
Explain why public art is so important in this time of transformation.
January 2023
Public art has the ability to create a sense of community and belonging, as well as to inspire dialogue and reflection. It can also serve as a way to promote cultural understanding and diversity. Furthermore, public art can help to revitalize and beautify public spaces, making them more inviting and enjoyable for everyone. In times of transformation, such as the current period of rapid social, economic, and technological change, public art can play an important role in helping to shape our shared identity and sense of place.
March 2023
Public art has the power to make a profound impact on how people experience their city, neighborhood, or community. It can bring people together, spark dialogue, and create a sense of pride and identity. In this time of transformation, public art is a powerful way to bring positive change to our cities and neighborhoods by creating a visual representation of our hopes, dreams, and aspirations. Public art can help to create a sense of shared history and can serve as a reminder of our shared values. It can also serve as a reminder of our collective resilience and help to uplift and inspire us as we strive for progress. As we look to the future, public art can help to shape the way we think about our communities and how we can work together to build a brighter future.
March 2023 (repetition)
Public art is important in this time of transformation because it can provide a tangible representation of a community’s values and beliefs. Public art can serve to inspire and motivate individuals to think differently about their environment, to create an atmosphere of creativity and growth, and to help foster a sense of connection and belonging. Additionally, public art can be a powerful tool for civic engagement, providing a platform for people to express their opinions, ideas, and perspectives in a meaningful way. Finally, public art can help to create a more vibrant, diverse, and equitable public space, allowing people of all backgrounds and experiences to feel included and accepted.
So from now in London this confusing Brexit govt tells us we can at last visit other people’s homes, but only in their garden and keep 2m away. And only 1 house per day. Strictly no mixing people from different houses in 1 day. And also if we have to, we are allowed to use the toilet of the house that we visit. These are the rules but who will police all this? They say they have already fined 14,000 people for rule breaking but when there is a big demonstration like this week for George Floyd, all the rules disappear as everyone comes out. And people in the government are breaking the rules and then give excuses on television – like going 60 miles for an eye test. It’s a very strange confusing time.
We are allowed to travel unlimited distance to go to exercise but can not use the trains unless we have an essential reason. Risky if you get stopped. So a lot of people are driving – near where I live the traffic can be more than 1 mile, just one person in a car about 40 times their body weight to move around. With all the pollution. I am thinking of going to the sea next week (Brighton) to get some clean air – if the rules will change again, to stay with friends. (Siraj Izhar, London)
Marit Lindberg (Sweden)
(Holger Biermann, Berlin)
(Christian Stock, Tux)
(Gilles Fromonteil, Archigny)
Wow, its difficult to be imaginative when a prisoner of the State. I wrote a couple of essays on my blog on corona which got a lot of responses – they are also in other places. Playing around with some ideas but nothing concrete. My time clock is too messed up. I sleep a lot. I take a regular walk in the city and the Thames; the City is eerie, the homeless are struggling in particular as everyone has disappeared. There is a big gap here between what is said in the media and what happens in practice. Anyhow to see the empty deserted monuments of Capital is very poetic
but of course the money extraction from around the world is still going on. Want to make a work at some point….
When its low tide, I go on the Thames.
The geese and other birds keep me sane. How long for…. Wish I could escape. I think Berlin would have been easier than London. (Siraj Izhar, London)
During the time of the big lockdown here in Vienna I made the recordings for the short film “Spring Will Not Be Televised“. The focus of these recordings is on TV-Sets in private living spaces that are visible from the streets outside. During nightly walks through the city I aimed to find as many of these TV-Sets as possible and to film the programs that were televised. In the cutting process I later tried to form a narrative out of the collected footage in a very free and associative way. The result, rather automatically than intended, turned into a media-based portrait of our present-day world.
What particularly interests me in this project is the fact that it is built on two visual levels.
The first level is the one of the televised image. It enables both, a view outside onto what´s going on in the world but also inside, onto the interests and media habits of the TV viewer. In times of isolation the wish for escapism and the dependency from digital media become visible more than usual. In this situation, media not just functions for purposes of entertainment but as one of the only sources for information about the world outside.
The second visual level is the environment the TV-Set is placed in. Here I tried to portray the ways of how information spreads through media. The film starts with images of the big TV-stations and media houses. Therefor I filmed inside the newsrooms from the streets outside. Starting at these epicenters of information the camera the pans to the media consumers. As the perspective gets closer and closer into the private spaces the images on the TV-Sets become clearer. Finally you have to feeling to stand inside the living rooms of the TV viewers.
For me personally the film shows an atmospheric picture of a society in state of emergency. At the same time I think that the pictures indicate how society has maneuvered itself into this situation by it´s doubtful ways of acing and dealing with the world. (Michael Heindl, Wien)
(Kathrin Rabenort, Köln)
today_masked required for groceries and public transport_quick mask sewed out of an old men shirt_use a masked present in Shanghai as cutting template_for me it looks like a sculpture_or a model for a sculpture_ (Kathrin Rabenort, Köln)
(Kate McCabe, Mojave Desert)
(Max Sudhues, Berlin)
seat – eat – walk – in St. Gallen (Marlies Pekarek, St. Gallen)
(Agnes Prammer, Wien)
Munich, South thermal power station the good weather and my well-behaved adherence to the rule not to go mountaineering because of the pandemic is driving me crazy. As compensation I paint large-format alpine landscapes with African groups of people. In Photoshop I mount a giant pocket watch in a bizarre rock gate. In a moment I will call Robert to see if we can go climbing on a hidden rock. Robert says: not so. (Wolfgang Aichner, München)
(Wolfgang Aichner/Thomas Huber, München)
I am in Cape Coast at the moment and not Accra. In Accra, there is a stricter lockdown than Cape Coast where one can roam the street but still most businesses are closed and we are conscious about Covid 19 prevention steps all over the city. These are some photos I took in the streets and a few are from a market fumigation exercise. (Kwame Aidoo, Ghana)
lot of hope also to change things for a better world. (Kim Dotty Hachmann, Berlin)
New times, call for new Looks-self-portrait with homemade mask that was created out of recycled art supplies. (Tina Dillman, Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
Set of Images of heart shaped rocks: Sharing love out in the world, is an intervention that I’m doing in my local community-when I go out for a walk, I bring a set of these with me, and I leave them at various points along my journey. No two rocks are the same, as each is hand crafted with an oven bake polymer clay. Wanting to spread hope and compassion to those that find these treasures. (Tina Dillman, Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
Here is a performance documentation I did with Krinzinger called Interruption (Duo) At this a certain fragility and calmness as the singers feel the tremors of the fluorescent lights beating underneath their bodies. I feel it has a sense of being on hold and poised in a delicate balance. The fluorescents are themselves at the end of their lives so there is space of intermittent and precarious behaviours going on but with a sense of rebirth too which I feel all adds up to a reflection on current times…(William Mackrell, London)
(Chris Costan, New York)
been very busy those times, storing my studio. it’s like a big retrospective for me, finding back works from 1981 to 2020. rethinking human relations also. For me, nothing really changed. I’m stuck at my desk and in my studio while seing nobody except my son and girl … half time. (Yann Le Crouhennec, Die, Frankreich)
last chance to get back from Hawaii to berlin and almost got stuck in new york… (Hans Winkler, Berlin)
The streets are more empty than usual, but it is far from being quiet out there. I live on a very busy street, the overground U-Bahn is in full view. I noticed that the church bells ring at noon. I work mostly from home but I feel mostly imageless. My desk looks like this at the moment. (Jorn Ebner, Berlin) (Matthias Beckmann, Schautafel des Schuppentiers Pangolin: Schuppentier, Skelett des Schuppentiers, Schuppentier in eingerollter Pose, Berlin 2020) The pangolin is maby the host of the corona virus. ( India Roper-Evans , London) (Win Knowlton, Berlin Wall 2020, Berlin)
Looking out the window of the Lichtenberg Studios July 2019, Yash, Bangalore
(Surekha, Bangalore)
Christian Stock, Wien/Tux, “Kri(e)se” Dispersion on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 1985 ( India Roper-Evans , London)
I was calling to Sweden today and my friend reported that her mother is concerned about the police state in Czech Republic, while she is concerned about that the Swedish state is doing less to protect people. Write now she is reading Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg) by Thomas Mann.
(Matthias Roth, Berlin)
(Max Sudues, Berlin)
Poem for Rod
ticking
art or poetry
we are
our part
life itself
the human world
the end
I am not your danger
(Jürgen Olbich, Kassel)
All pictures 28 March, Mexicoplatz, Berlin
Actually, everything is quite bickering, everyone is allowed out, but only in twos, or if from a household with several, everything is up to except groceries, drugstores, apotecs, gas stations and „Spätis“. In Bavaria, only those people who live together or are “life partners”, whatever that means, are allowed to go out together. That is really terrible, with over 50 percent of single households a very stupid decision, I feel sorry for the poor people.
Everyone more or less adheres to these commandments and the rules of distance, about 2 meters apart. From time to time there is already tension, some older people become almost hysterical, they have very much internalized that the old have less chance to survive, while the young remain quite safe, especially the high death rates from Italy are worrying. Not too much has changed for me, I work mostly from home anyway, but I can no longer go out to eat or celebrate, nor organize parties or openings myself, nor can I travel. Now I do sports via Youtube instructions at home with my girlfriend, not bad at all, outside in the yard I start to do tests for a new project for interventions in public space, because I can’t come to my friends and workshop in the Uckermark.
Economically I’m doing reasonably well, I have a fixed income for this year, which hasn’t broken away, but I’m very worried about the whole cultural structure, but also about the small-scale economic life, if we have bad luck, we’ll end up in front of international chains and a mail order company… (Uwe Jonas, 28 March, Berlin)
After decades of grass root activism, India’s supreme court ruled section 377 is unconstitutional, which criminalized the physical intimacy between two consenting same-sex adults on 6th September 2018. How much has the life of Queer people in India changed after decriminalizing homosexuality? Do they still receive the respect they deserve from society? Are they treated equally? Are queer children growing up without facing any bullies? As much as I and my fellow queer friends experience, coming out of the closet in India is a privilege only enjoyed by the few. Suicide news of LGBT+ people is frequent in India; often, they don’t get the media attention, and there are unsolved trans murder cases that didn’t find any justice. This is why it is essential to talk about Queer people and Queer lives, so it keeps reminding us of our existence in a part of the world that still needs light in accepting diversity and ways of loving living, and sharing. “We walk together under the rainbow” is an attempt to map the alternative ways of living and surviving as two or more people with love and respect for each other, which doesn’t follow the traditional idea of family.
