The annual conference of the Collaborative Research Center "Intervening Arts" will be held on October 18 and 19, 2024, with a series of performances at Freie Universität Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), and other locations across Berlin
This year’s conference of the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1512 "Intervening Arts" will be taking place on October 18 and 19, 2024. The program was developed in close collaboration with Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Titled "Moving (in) Constellations: Artistic Interventions as Institutional Transition," the conference aims to open up discussion between academics and artists, expanding and deepening our understanding of the relational and multidirectional qualities of constellations. The conference will be accompanied by the performance series "Tracing Influence: Intervening in Western Cold War Architecture," which will take place on October 16, 17, and 19, 2024, at four venues across Berlin that were constructed during the Cold War with the help of American donations. The events will primarily be held in English, with some Germanand Spanish-language content. Anyone with an interest in the topic is encouraged to attend. Prior registration is not required.The motto of this year’s annual conference is "Moving (in) Constellations." Over the course of two days, international researchers and artists will investigate alternative approaches to traditional practices of knowledge production and transmission. In doing so, they will experiment with how artistic interventions that make use of constellatory forms and formats can be used to unsettle hegemonic structures and dynamics, carrying the potential to move institutions and individuals toward sustainable, inclusive, and equitable futures.
The conference "Moving (in) Constellations" asks how constellations of living, thinking, moving, caring, and being may unfold in theory and in practice. 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? These questions will be addressed in talks, artistic interventions, discussions, and performances.
The conference will feature performances from three current fellows at the CRC. Artist, poet, and curator Jason Wee from Singapore will be presenting a sound installation on both days of the conference. Moe Satt, an artist and curator from Myanmar, will perform "Pinky Say Something" on Friday, October 18, while curator and music researcher Carlos Mario Mojica (aka Don Alirio) will present a vinyl set later the same evening.
Conference visitors and members of the public are also encouraged to attend a series of site-specific performances being held across Berlin on October 16, 17, and 19, 2024. The three-day performance series "Tracing Influence: Intervening in Western Cold War Architecture" will take place at the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek, the Amerika Haus, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, and Freie Universität Berlin’s Henry Ford Building, as well as during a bus ride between two of these stations.
All four of these buildings were constructed in Berlin in the 1950s with the help of American donations and were intended to expand the educational landscape of the divided city. The performance series will engage with these architectures to question their pedagogic mandate, their democratic vision, and their problematic modernist legacy through performances, assemblies, and other forms of gathering. In doing so, the shared history of the two host institutions of the annual conference will be highlighted.
The Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1512 "Intervening Arts" is an interdisciplinary research project that was set up at Freie Universität Berlin in 2022 with funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG). Its aim is to research the potential of art as a form of intervention in societal, political, and cultural processes. It comprises eighteen research projects in three areas. Its members investigate how artistic practices can actively intervene in various social and cultural spheres, thereby transforming them.
The Latin words veritas, justitia, and libertas, which frame the seal of Freie Universität Berlin, stand for the values that have defined the academic ethos of Freie Universität since its founding in December 1948.