25.08.2017
Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
A weekend of oceanic performances, installations and panels, presented by the TBA21–Academy in association with the Nationalgalerie - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. From 27 October 2017 at 6 p.m. until 29 October 2017 at 6 a.m.
From 27 until 29 October 2017, TBA21–Academy presents the project Fishing for Islands in association with the Nationalgalerie - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The title is based on a Polynesian creation myth, according to which the archipelagos’ islands were fished out of the sea. Within 1.5 days, i.e. three tide cycles, the project comprises a diverse programme of oceanic activities in the historic hall of the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin.
The programme, curated by Stefanie Hessler and Markus Reymann, begins on Friday, October 27 with an experimental ‘circus’ organized by Chus Martínez. It is followed on Saturday, 28 October by panels and lectures featuring artists, curators, scholars, and other thinkers who engage with oceanic space. Questions of legality and biodiversity will be discussed, as well as the consequences of pollution on ecological balance and traditional methods of protecting the oceans. Throughout the weekend, performative interventions and artists’ installations will open up new perspectives on traditional and mythological dimensions of the oceans, as well as on infrastructure and migration. Among them are the installation Dræbergople (2017) by Tue Greenfort and the video installation Oceans – Dialogues between Ocean Floor and Water Column (2017) by Armin Linke, which shows recordings from scientific studies conducted in the deep sea up to 5000 meters below sea level. The presentation of the video installation is accompanied by a conversation with experts, who will discuss the impact of human activity on the ocean floor. A series of sound performances from artists like Jana Winderen, Peter Zinovieff and Carl Michael von Hausswolff invites visitors on Saturday evening to immerse themselves in the soundscape of the sea until the early hours of the next morning.
“Oceans” by Armin Linke is an official project of the Year of Science 2016*17 – Seas and Oceans, a program of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The project was commissioned and co-produced by Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary –Academy (TBA21), Vienna. The installation was made possible in collaboration with the Edith-Russ-Haus für Media Art.
Additional support by Art Institute, FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel.
Fishing for Islands arose from the programme of TBA21–Academy, which was founded in 2011 as a mobile site for cultural production and hosts artists, scholars, and other thinkers on board the ship Dardanella. The Academy’s expeditions led to some of the most remote regions in the Pacific – Papua New Guinea, French Polynesia, Fiji, and Tonga – as well as to Iceland, North America, and the Caribbean, to name just a few. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the Academy’s programme promotes the responsible treatment of the oceans. Fishing for Islands addresses precisely this issue.
This event is part of a research and exhibition project of the Nationalgalerie, which is supported by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) as part of the ‘Museum Global’ initiative. The project culminates in an exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof from 23 March to 19 August 2018, which will explore the Nationalgalerie’s collection in regard to its international and transcultural ties.
Admission is free.
