2023,

alpha nova & galerie futura

2023,

1986

Am Flutgraben

3

Berlin

12435

www.galeriefutura.de

alpha nova & galerie futura ist ein seit 1986 bestehender Ausstellungs- und Veranstaltungsort in Berlin, der aus einer dezidiert emanzipatorischen und feministischen Perspektive kulturproduzierende und kulturvermittelnde Praxis verschränkt. Der Schwerpunkt liegt in der Zusammenarbeit mit Künstlerinnen bzw. FLINTA-Personen*. alpha nova & galerie futura schafft einen Raum für die Verknüpfung von politischer Intervention und künstlerischer Praxis, um daraus kritische Standpunkte für Kunst, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft zu entwickeln.

It always feels quite special when an institution catches the zeitgeist of a moment. Project spaces have a lot more freedom in this sense, and they can truly, sincerely, reflect a moment or a movement as it is happening. They are essential to a critically active arts scene. Perhaps the orientation of project spaces has been forced to shift towards something more self-sustainable – but that might not be a bad thing.It’s hard to look back on the last ten years and not get distracted by Co-Vid and the massive interruption that has caused in all aspects of life. But generally, Berlin is getting more expensive, no news there: There are less store fronts perhaps to rent for a project space than there used to be. Facebook is no longer used as an announcement tool. Do young people still flock to Berlin?Answering this question seems to be the most difficult and an endless process for me because I have to ruminate on the past decade or so in which I have gone through Berlin as a female artist, a Korean artist, the founder and chief of an Asian contemporary art platform, and a mother. Since the very beginning, I have been interested in seeking a kind of universal identity, spanning the various backgrounds of Berlin-based contemporary artists in order to examine the question of identity as it is often perceived from the outside: according to gender, nationality, and cultural milieu. So I have created a space where the dichotomous logics about those issues could be discussed, proceeding with many projects. Above all, I had dreamt of creating a self-supporting space, based on an independent profit model. Recognizing limitations in workforce, culture, and the market of the art scene, however, I have experienced some moments of great suffering. But what has enabled me to endure those moments of suffering was not money but people, so that I would answer sincerely that a project space no longer means a physical space for me. It is a non-physical space, comprising people like artists, users and agents, or sometimes a network.