Artist and designer Jerszy Seymour (*1968) presents a large-scale social sculpture in Berlin’s Kunstgewerbemuseum, which becomes a stage for performances and encounters in spring. Mutuogenesis seeks new impulses for solidarity-based coexistence, it tests forms of learning and producing in a community with social and ecological justice at its core.

Tying in a year-long process that has made diverse design and artistic productions with young people as well as interventions by international artists, designers and activists possible, the museum space transforms into an multicoloured, immersive environment. A walkable spatial sculpture, constructed using found, scrap and ecologic materials. Object-based and media elements combine to form a large-scale installation that is brought to life with performances, dance sessions, workshops, concerts and raves for a poetic and happy future to come.

How to start again? A living mud pit of new processes, a post-anthropocentric explosion of everyday life? Mutuogenesis is a place where a weird punk underground spirit haunts modernity by the spectre of a mutualism and mutation between our planet and its human and non-human co-inhabitants. Mutuogenesis is an attempt to live differently and be something else, a place where notions of absurdity, horror, humour and comedy become essential tools in the quest for possible dirty utopias.

Jerszy Seymour

Cooperation with Schlesische27

The project is based on Jerszy Seymour's collaboration with young people who, after fleeing their homes and being displaced, find a supportive environment for their stabilisation and education at Berlin’s cultural centre Schlesische27. In the context of artistic and artisanal productions, they prepare for vocational training. Through joint activities, the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin becomes a place of arrival and encounter; by exploring and engaging with the collection, participants can share points of connection with cultural languages and design impulses from their own regions of origin.

Programme 

An extensive programme of workshops, readings and performances forms part of the exhibition. The accompanying programme will be published on www.smb.museum.

Guest Artists

Saâdane Afif (FR), Balzer Balzer (DE), Louis Bindernagel and Laura Laipple (DE), Emanuele Braga (IT), James Bridle (UK), Pierre Bujeau (FR), Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel (FR), Morena Di Molfetta (IT), Theo Dietz (DE), Dirty Art Department (NL), David Dorrell (UK), ERDE Recycling and Obsthof Merten (DE), Felix Egle and Druckausgleich Fixpunkt (DE), Eva-Luise Gent (DE), Christiane Hamacher (CH), L’ile Kemmogne (CM), Selma Laura Köran (DE/TR), Chris Korda (US), LIOS Labs (PL/int.), Ama Luma (FR/CG), Luïza Luz (BR), Macao Collective (IT), Ingrid Meszaros (RO/IT), Amine Mohammed (DE), Timothy Morton (UK), Octave Rimbert-Rivière (FR), Nica Roses (AR), Eurico Sá Fernandes and Wooryun Song (PT/KR), Sven Seeger (DE), Steffen Sennert (DE), Shared Visions (EU), Tomasz Skibicki (DE), Something Fantastic (DE), Hiroo Tanaka (JP), Lydia James Thompson (US), Lisa van Heyden (DE) and the displaced and migrant youth of S27 – Art and Education taking part in the projects „ARRIVO Übungswerkstätten“, „Bildungsmanufaktur“, „landscape.studio“, „Weltschulhaus“ and „Dance_Lab27“

Mutuogenesis is a project by Jerszy Seymour with Schlesische27 and Kunstgewerbemuseum – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media).

A special presentation by the Kunstgewerbemuseum – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in cooperation with S27 – Kunst und Bildung, Verein zur Förderung der Interkulturellen Jugendarbeit e.V.