gegenarchive: wer bleibt wo

About

gegenarchive: wer bleibt wo

November 20, 2021 – January 30, 2022

Wanda Dubrau | Mascha Fehse & Valentina Karga | Pantea Lachin | Jinran Ha & Johanna Käthe Michel |  Angelika Nguyen | Nguyễn Phương Thanh | Andrea Pichl | Phạm Minh Đức | Karla Sachse | Daniele Tognozzi

Opening: November 19, 2021, 6–8pm, performance by Nguyễn + Transitory from 7:30pm

Opening hours: Wed –Sun, 12–7pm

gegenarchive: wer bleibt wo is the first exhibition of the municipal Prater Galerie in 14 years. Prater has existed as a place for culture, art and lively exchange between various scenes since 1852, including contemporary art exhibitions from 1967 to 2007. Preparations are currently underway for the gallery’s reopening. While construction work continues, Prater Galerie will be hosted by further institutions and places in Berlin. The exhibition gegenarchive: wer bleibt wo is kindly hosted by ACUD Galerie and is organised by Sonja Hornung with the curatorial advice of Lena Johanna Reisner.

gegenarchive: wer bleibt wo hosted by ACUD MACHT NEU

The first exhibition of Prater Galerie addresses the urban environment, asking the question: What does it mean when a municipal gallery reopens after more than ten years in one of the most gentrified areas of post-socialist Berlin?  

Artists living in Berlin from three generations investigate the neighbourhood and the wider East Berlin area. They draw attention to often-forgotten or overlooked events, experiences and narratives that have shaped urban spaces and people's lives since the years before the fall of the Wall and into our own time. gegenarchive: wer bleibt wo examines urban transformations and ruptures, viewing the city as a living archive into which countless structural and everyday actions that influence who and what belongs where are inscribed. It gives space to voices that push against the dominant archive, and are accountable to those places and groups that resist the gentrification code of “expensive, elitist, white”.

gegenarchive: wer bleibt wo – expanded by an accompanying program – hopes to contribute towards shifting and consolidating conversations, constellations, and imaginaries of urban activisms. The question “Who does the city belong to?” is expanded by a further question: “…and who takes care of it?”

Between remembering, enduring, and continuing to fight

Artistic works refer to personal experiences with processes of urban change, for example ‘Lücken lesen’ (“Reading gaps”) by Karla Sachse, who has long lived and worked in Prenzlauer Berg. In Sachse's work, ACUD Galerie becomes the starting point for a shared “reading journey” along Kastanienallee and its side streets. The artist has placed seven empty picture frames in seven places in urban space that remain significant to her. Seven corresponding frames laden with text and photographic material are to be found in the exhibition space. They invite the visitor to leave the space and “read gaps” onsite: What happens when the last gaps in our streets are closed? What gain, how much loss is involved? Are gaps in the law needed to preserve open spaces in the city? When do gaps in memory open up about the origins and methods of eliminating gaps? 

Throughout the duration of the exhibition, Kieztreffen Pankow, which organises against displacement and gentrification in the neighbourhood, will use the exhibition space as a place to meet. Here, networking and information exchange take place around a number of issues, including the municipal right to preemptively buy housing during private sales, the termination of owner-occupied tenancies, high vacancy rates, and the pending abolition of municipal subsidies for social housing in the district. 

After 1990: The first rent increases in East Berlin

The exhibition looks back to the period of extreme insecurity in East Germany after the fall of the Wall, which hit former contract workers from Vietnam, Angola, Cuba and Mozambique particularly hard. Even before GDR citizens had to struggle with unemployment and rising rents after the fall of the Wall, former contract workers were confronted with steep rent increases in their accommodation. Precarious living conditions and everyday and structural forms of racism against these groups went hand in hand. As part of the supporting program to the exhibition, there will also be a talk and film screening with Hoài Thu Loos and Aymi Trần from the socio-cultural and educational women’s centre Vinaphunu, which was founded in 1991 in Prenzlauer Berg by former contract workers seeking mutual support in the context of exclusion and racism – including in the search for housing.

Artist duo Jinran Ha and Johanna Käthe Michel take a closer look at a specific site where the effects of the former contract workers' agreement between the GDR and countries such as Vietnam still reverberate today. The nail salon as a small business model enabled many ex-contract workers to secure their livelihoods in the period of upheaval after 1990. In the digital work ‘Dialogue of the Objects / Komische Fragmente’, industrially manufactured objects used in nail studios are given a voice. They chat with each other “innocently” in Vietnamese, German and English and become entangled in racist prejudices and sexist role attributions. In addressing these, the artists raise direct questions about the relationship between belonging and space: Which people are welcomed into which urban spaces in which roles, and why? In a second digital work entitled ‘Manicure Conference Modellage’, the artist duo allows exhibition visitors to digitally maneuver furniture in the space of the nail studio and interact with a new seating arrangement – this time according to principles of solidarity. 

Program of events

gegenarchive: wer bleibt wo is accompanied by an extensive program of events that includes performances, readings, and an urban walk.

Sun, 21/11/2021, 3–4pm | Exhibition tour
Sat, 27/11/2021, 2–4pm | Talk and film screening | with Hoài Thu Loos and Aymi Trần | Vinaphunu, Schönfließerstr. 7, 10439 Berlin
Sat, 27/11/2021, 5–7pm | Open neighbourhood meeting | with Kieztreffen Pankow
Sat, 04/12/2021, 2–4pm | Lücken Lesen | Urban walk | by Karla Sachse

Sat, 15/01/2022, 6–8:30pm | Viet Duc Stories | Short film screenings and discussion | with the filmmakers Duc Ngo Ngoc, Trang Nguyen and others | Moderation: Angelika Nguyen
Sat, 22/01/2022, 3–5pm | Die Orte leben | Performance, conversation, festival | by Wanda Dubrau
Sat, 29/01/2022, 3–4pm | Exhibition tour
Sat, 29/01/2022, 5–7pm | Open neighbourhood meeting | with Kieztreffen Pankow
Sun, 30/01/2022, from 3pm | Finissage | with a performance by Phạm Minh Đức and Kerstin Möller

gegenarchive: wer bleibt wo?

Where: Veteranenstraße 21, 10119 Berlin 

When: Vernissage: November 19, 2021, 6–9pm, performance by Nguyễn + Transitory from 7:30pm

Exhibition dates: November 20, 2021 – January 30, 2022

Opening hours: Weds–Sun, 12–7pm 

Press preview: Friday, November 19 2021, 11:00am

Finissage: Sunday, January 30, 2022, from 3pm with a performance by Phạm Minh Đức and Kerstin Möller

Wanda Dubrau | Mascha Fehse & Valentina Karga | Pantea Lachin | Jinran Ha & Johanna Käthe Michel |  Angelika Nguyen | Nguyễn Phương Thanh | Andrea Pichl | Phạm Minh Đức | Karla Sachse | Daniele Tognozzi

Organised by Sonja Hornung with the curatorial advice of Lena Johanna Reisner