art-lab 2024 // Project phase 1: 14-28 april
International research laboratory für artists

OPEN CALL

Busy building bridges to Mariupol!

An international encounter lab as a crossover of genres: at art-lab, around 20 artists with different cultural identities and creative specialisms are embarking on an intensive phase of artistic research and exchange. Together with our cooperation partners from Platform TU Mariupol in Ukraine and international speakers from academic disciplines, we are exploring the exciting and ambivalent topic of "guilt & shame". Are you interested in interdisciplinary work and exciting new encounters? Then we look forward to receiving your application!

As a transcultural collective, bridgeworks works annually or over the course of a year in changing constellations with artists from different places in the world and from different cultural contexts. Together with Platform TU Mariupol, we are embarking on a full year of Ukrainian-German cultural exchange in 2024.

guilt & shame

With the topic "guilt & shame", we are approaching a deeply human taboo area and a private-political grey zone. We build bridges from supposedly big philosophical and political questions to the biographical, personal stories of the participating artists. When do we as individuals or collectives feel shame and guilt? What moral, personal, political and psychological aspects underlie this? And where does the "gap" between knowing awareness and active behaviour come from?

the art-lab

The exploration of the topic and the participants' own artistic signature will be moderated in the art-lab by bridgeworks and TU Mariupol. Experts from various scientific disciplines (e.g. sociology, politics, psychology) will put the topic into new contexts with their input.

The art-lab aims to expand the participants' network and impart transcultural competences and interdisciplinary skills. As a production-independent space, it opens up the opportunity to engage in an intensive exchange and research process together with international artists. The process involves local multipliers and knowledge transfer formats - and can culminate in a public showing, depending on the decision of the participants.  

The art-lab is designed as a two-week concept (two weeks in Berlin, two weeks at the location of our cooperation partners) and takes place in English.

We believe that knowledge can only be gained through dialogue and that this can create artistic added value and a starting point for joint artistic processes and projects.

networks and people involved

bridgeworks

We are a transcultural artists' collective with a network character. We initiate and realise international artistic cooperation projects. Through various network and dialogue formats, through our artistic productions and the associated discussions, we build bridges - internationally, nationally and through the arts. Since 2017, we have been connecting over 300 artists and creatives from Germany and around the world: artists, musicians, dancers, theatre makers, authors, performers and media creators whose fundamental way of thinking is characterised by cosmopolitanism and with whom we are committed to cross-border and equal cooperation in a constant struggle in the spirit of fair cooperation.

tu mariupol

The TU Mariupol network was founded in 2016 in Mariupol, the easternmost city in Ukraine, by people who fled the war and use cultural activities to fight against it. The initiative promotes human rights and freedom through culture and contemporary art. The focus is on critical thinking on topics such as gender inequality, discrimination, right-wing radicalism, paternalism, refugees and totalitarian propaganda.

Already before 24 February 2022, we held talks with Diana Berg, founder of the TU Mariupol cultural centre. Together, we developed initial ideas on what German-Ukrainian cooperation could look like. We are all aware of the events that will take place from the end of February 2022. The Ukrainian artists are currently in various locations in Ukraine, in neighbouring countries and in Germany. TU Mariupol on Instagram

artistic direction tandem 2024

Diana Berg is a curator, activist and artist. She was instrumental in organising the Donetsk protest movement in Ukraine and fled to Mariupol in 2014 when her hometown was occupied by Russia. Two years later, she founded Platform TU, the centre for social change and the promotion of human freedoms through art and culture, and worked as a curator of the space until Russia attacked the city. She survived the siege and moved to Kiev. In 2019, she was honoured by the Ukrainian parliament with the State Medal for Services to the Ukrainian People. In July 2022, she coordinated the Ukrainian programme at Documenta 15 in Kassel.

Felix Banholzer is a director, performer and cultural manager. He plays a key curatorial and artistic role in all of the organisation's projects. He is a founding member and active on the board of bridgeworks. He studied acting at the Staatliche Schauspielschule Stuttgart, theatre directing at the Erasmushogeschool Brussel and cultural and media management at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. Since 2013, he has been working as a freelance theatre maker and artist with a focus on transcultural projects in various constellations and genres. (Among others: "WHAT THE FUCK!", "fiction&just&fication", "paralyse", "...you me and the end of everything", "refugee walk", "wohnen.unter.glas").