2014,

ausland

projekt archiv e. V.

2018, 2016, 2014,

2002

Lychener Straße

60

Berlin

10437

ausland-berlin.de

Ignaz Schick, Kompositionen, Ansicht Setup /Equipment, 2019, Foto: Cristina Marx / Photomusix

John Butcher, Liz Allbee, Marta Zapparoli, Konzert 2019, Foto: Cristina Marx / Photomusix

Daniela Fromberg & Stefan Roigk, Unfamiliar Home, Klanginstallation, 2018, Foto: Fromberg & Roigk

Gitarren-Ensemble, Kompositionen von J. Kudirka, J. Reidy, E. Wong, 2019, Foto: Cristina Marx / Photomusix

The word “project space” is almost misleading to me. Projects do not have to take place in spaces. Radio shows, Instagram takeovers, and outdoor screenings are also projects. To focus on the aspect of space itself is to take a narrow view of what could – and is – happening in Berlin at the moment. The ideal project space would come with a budget for production and overhead costs. Ideally, also the curators ought to get paid.The commercialization of the contemporary art scene in the last decade has created alienation and dissociation from the audience. The social filters at the established exhibition spaces, the sterilization of methods of presentation, and over-professionalism have created an image and perception of inaccessibility. In that respect, project spaces and art initiatives that resist these dynamics and strive for keeping direct social contact maintain the political potential of artistic practice. We don’t promote the conventional star system in selecting the artists we are collaborating with; we don’t pursue a hierarchical method by employing an omnipotent curator; we value the critical content and formal experimentalism of the artworks rather than the conditions of their presentation, and we don’t sell any artworks in our space; we don’t invest our energy in commercial speculation. We put an emphasis on the collective and on the social. We keep contact with our immediate neighborhood (in Neukölln), and we prioritize the knowledge about and the cultural accumulation of a particular geography. Hence, we engage in a counter-position against the dominant dynamics that have shaped the field of the contemporary art scene in the last decade. The pandemic condition has also been a drastic element that forced actors in the field to reconsider methods of presentation and social contact.In Berlin wurden ja schon gute und wichtige Akzente gesetzt, jedoch sollte dieses Bewusstsein auch auf Bundesebene mehr durchschlagen und ein Gesamtkonzept zur Unterstützung der Kultur in Angriff genommen werden.