2023,

DOOM SPA

2023,

2015

Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee

83

Berlin

10589

doomspa.org

Der Projektraum DOOM SPA wurde 2015 von Roseline Rannoch gegründet. DOOM SPA nimmt sich bestehende oder schafft neue Räume und entwickelt in Zusammenarbeit mit befreundeten und ein- geladenen Künstler:- und Kurator:innen ästhetische und diskursive Formate. DOOM SPA verortet sich sowohl digital als auch physisch. Seit 2019 ist DOOM SPA vor allem im Berliner Westen aktiv, aktuell im 13. Stock eines Hochhauses am Wittenbergplatz. DOOM SPA legt Wert auf Gastfreundschaft und betreibt eine Bar. DOOM SPA ist ein Raum für Kunst und ihre Subjekte (Künstler:innen). Widersprüche gilt es auszuhalten. Es gibt keine Widersprüche.

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.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.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.