A Talk, a Window and Sound

Clare Molloy & Susanne Sachsse
Saturday, 08.02.2025, 4 PM
In cooperation with Club der Polnischen Versager

As the second event with contemporary witnesses in the program sequence DIFFRACTIONS—Collecting & Un/Learning, curator Clare Molloy and artist and performer Susanne Sachsse invite you to come together at a location in the neighborhood of Kunst Raum Mitte, the former Scheunenviertel. At the Club der Polnischen Versager in Ackerstraße, they interweave personal memories and musings on artistic practice.

A talk, a Window and Sound is a rare and intimate conversation that provides insights into Sachsse’s personal archive: into experiences of working in collectives and the way exhibitions have become an important focus of her artistic expression. Sachsse relocated to the capital during the 1980s, having graduated from the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts, and went on to work as an actress at the Berliner Ensemble, where she collaborated with renowned theatre makers such as Einar Schleef, Heiner Müller and Robert Wilson. In 2000, Sachsse left the Berliner Ensemble to focus exclusively on her own artistic practice, a decision that has yielded significant recognition and acclaim.

This retrospective will take place on a winter afternoon in Berlin-Mitte: Susanne Sachsse and curator Clare Molloy will fill the Club der polnischen Versager with memories while projecting images onto the windows. The conversation will trace Sachsse’s unique view of performance and theatre around the fall of the Berlin Wall, with a particular focus on influences from the Berlin underground scene on her current work.

Date:
08.02.2025, 4 p.m.
Free admission
Venue: Club der Polnischen Versager e.V., Ackerstr. 168, 10115 Berlin

Language: German and English

Accessibility: The venue is accessible via a front step. Seating is provided. The talk lasts approximately an hour and includes sound and image projections.

Retrospective

A Talk, a Window and Sound

Clare Molloy & Susanne SachsseSaturday, 08.02.2025, 4 PMIn cooperation with Club der Polnischen Versager As the second event with contemporary witnesses in the program sequence DIFFRACTIONS—Collecting & Un/Learning, curator Clare Molloy and artist and performer Susanne Sachsse invite you to come together at a location in the neighborhood of Kunst Raum Mitte, the former Scheunenviertel. A Talk, a Window and Sound

DIFFRACTIONS—Transforming

The municipal exhibition space Kunst Raum Mitte is reopening with the DIFFRACTIONS—Transforming program sequence. DIFFRACTIONS—Transforming approaches the spatial, material, and historical relationships of the location, placing them in dialogue with the present. The focus is on various upheavals—site-related, such as urban development and the gallery’s relocation, as well as political, such as the fall of DIFFRACTIONS—Transforming

Transforming

DIFFRACTIONS—Transforming, 2024, Installationsansicht, Kunst Raum Mitte. Foto: Jannis Uffrecht.

The exhibitionTransforming recontextualizes the spatial, material, and historical relationships of the place formerly known as the galerie weisser elefant. Founded in East Berlin in 1987, the municipal exhibition space was renamed Kunst Raum Mitte by the Department of Art, Culture and History in 2024 to look back on the history of the gallery with new Transforming

DIFFRACTIONS—Collecting & Un/Learning

25.10.2024 Research presentation by Anna Zett27.10.2024 Performances by the Class for Performative Arts (HGB Leipzig)27.10.2024 Talk with Isabel Lewis and Yon Natalie Mik01.12.2024 Walk with Rainer Görß 08.02.2025 Talk with Clare Molloy and Susanne Sachsse Collecting & Un/Learning is a thematic sequence within the DIFFRACTIONS program that explores various research processes. It examines historical traces, relationships, DIFFRACTIONS—Collecting & Un/Learning

Guided Tours of the Exhibition

17.11.2024, 3 PM: Tour in English with Natalie Keppler (Curator of the Exhibition, Artistic Co-Director Kunst Raum Mitte) 30.11.2024, 3 PM: Tour in German with Annika Reketat (Curatorial Assistant Kunst Raum Mitte) 15.12.2024, 3 PM: Tour in German with Agnieszka Roguski (Curator of the Exhibition, Artistic Co-Director Kunst Raum Mitte) On these selected dates, visitors Guided Tours of the Exhibition

Kunstraum Mitte Walk with Rainer Görß and Ania Rudolph

The artist Rainer Görß has been part of the art scene in Berlin-Mitte since 1980. From the 1990s onwards, a collection of countless artifacts from the East-West transformation processes and the liquidation campaigns of the GDR’s state-owned enterprises (VEB) was created here, including in today’s KW Institute for Contemporary Art (KUNST-WERKE BERLIN). The Kunstraum Mitte Kunstraum Mitte Walk with Rainer Görß and Ania Rudolph

Performative Exhibition: ELEFANT by Lissy Willberg in Cooperation with HGB Leizpzig

How can an institution address its history? What methods can be used to approach, explore, and expand upon alternative narratives? Based on these questions, Lissy Willberg and students from Isabel Lewis’s Class for Performative Arts at the HGB Leipzig are exploring these issues by approaching and engaging with historical materials found at Kunst Raum Mitte. Performative Exhibition: ELEFANT by Lissy Willberg in Cooperation with HGB Leizpzig

Affective Archives

Talk Affective Archives mit Isabel Lewis & Yon Natalie Mik. Foto: Mathias Völzke.

Are archives spaces of affect? How can research be conceived that questions its own standards and instead embraces as a method everything that eludes the standards of documentation and classification? In an exchange with Agnieszka Roguski and Natalie Keppler (Artistic Directors Kunst Raum Mitte), the artists Isabel Lewis and Yon Natalie Mik discuss performance art Affective Archives

Studio Exhibition

The traces and research materials from Anna Zett’s research residency and the subsequent event ‘Bye Bye Beginning’ can now be seen as a studio exhibition as part of the annual DIFFRACTIONS program. During her research residency from September to November 2024, Anna Zett worked with archive materials from galerie weisser elefant. The artist focuses on Studio Exhibition

DIFFRACTIONS—Commoning

29.08.2024 Open-Air ScreeningFall break 2024 Comic Workshop DIFFRACTIONS—Commoning is comprised of various events that focus on collective action. The program sequence explores possibilities for resistance and protest through moments of togetherness, engaging with an understanding of space that includes both the neighborhood surrounding Kunst Raum Mitte and the everyday aspects of the location. The aim DIFFRACTIONS—Commoning