A city’s art scene is always temporary—it is characterized by alternating actors and shifting conditions of production. Urban politics, cultural budgets, and the possibility of occupying, using, or creating spaces are shaped not only by developments in general society and political decisions, but also by the myths that they follow or that are formed with them. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Berlin has been regarded as a creative capital, where forms of self-organization and temporary use have been decisive for cultural life – and have been embraced by institutions and exploited by the capital market. What consequences does the Berlin myth of the 1990s have for the city’s art scene today? How did temporary spaces contribute to ongoing structures? And how can they be countered today? The talk discusses these and other questions with Annette Maechtel, art scholar and managing director of NGbK Berlin, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, artist and former member of Botschaft e.V., an interdisciplinary group active in the 1990s, and Axel Wieder, director of the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art and founding member of the bookstore and discourse platform Pro qm.

Location: Stadtwerkstatt, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11, 10178 Berlin
Entry: 19:30 Uhr, free entry
Language: English

This event is part of the Autumn School Stadt als Beute [City as Prey] Revisited.

Play a recording of the conversation: Berlin is/will be/has been over. Temporal Conditions and Self-Organization in Berlin-Mitte after 1990

A city’s art scene is always temporary—it is characterized by alternating actors and shifting conditions of production. Urban politics, cultural budgets, and the possibility of occupying, using, or creating spaces are shaped not only by developments in general society and political decisions, but also by the myths that they follow or that are formed with them. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Berlin has been regarded as a creative capital, where forms of self-organization and temporary use have been decisive for cultural life – and have been embraced by institutions and exploited by the capital market. What consequences does the Berlin myth of the 1990s have for the city’s art scene today? How did temporary spaces contribute to ongoing structures? And how can they be countered today? The talk discusses these and other questions with Annette Maechtel, art scholar and managing director of NGbK Berlin, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, artist and former member of Botschaft e.V., an interdisciplinary group active in the 1990s, and Axel Wieder, director of the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art and founding member of the bookstore and discourse platform Pro qm.

Location: Stadtwerkstatt, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11, 10178 Berlin
Entry: 19:30 Uhr, free entry
Language: English

This event is part of the Autumn School Stadt als Beute [City as Prey] Revisited.

Play a recording of the conversation: Berlin is/will be/has been over. Temporal Conditions and Self-Organization in Berlin-Mitte after 1990