Kolonie Wedding – Contemporary Art from Berlin in Romania

Featured Art Genres:

Painting, conceptual art, drawing, installation, mixed media, sculpture, video

Artists:

Inna Artemova, Painting
Jovan Balov, Painting
Jan Bejšovec, fabric images
Tiny Domingos, Video
Archi Galentz, Installation
Pablo Hermann, Painting
Patrick Huber, Drawing
Margarete Huber, Video, Drawing
Elena Ilina, Photo-Collage
Henrik Jacob, Drawing, Clay Dough
Karen Koltermann, Painting, Mixed Media, Video
Anton Laiko, Painting
Ute Lindner, Cyanotype-Video-Installation
Maria Marshall, Painting
Matthias Mayer, Video
Olga Mos, Painting
Karen Stucke, Photography
Kata Unger, Woven Images
Andreas Wolf, Painting
Igor Zaidel, Painting
Vassily Melnichenko, Video

Curators:

Florin Stefan
Igor Zaidel

In the summer of 2020, I. Zaidel visited Cluj-Napoca. During the visit, Mr. Zaidel met and got acquainted with Mr. Florin Stefan. Florin Ștefan (b. 1968) teaches at the Art and Design University in Cluj-Napoca and is the director of Spațiu Intact from Centrul de Interes in Cluj-Napoca. This meeting resulted in the idea of an exchange between Kolonie Wedding and Spațiu Intact from Centrul de Interes.

In 2021, an exhibition of Berliners took place in Cluj in spring and an exhibition of Clujanians in Berlin in autumn.

„Colonia Wedding is an association of free art spaces in Berlin. The artists presented in Cluj are active members of this association or are permanently associated with it, or are guest curators.

Berlin art projects scene.

Berlin is currently one of the art capitals of the world. Apart from the conventional forms of presenting contemporary art in museums or at the 300 to 400 art galleries in Berlin, there are also a large number of other art projects, such as for example Art Producers Galleries projects of temporary art, galleries in the salon, or spaces for art projects. These spaces for art projects have a special role in Berlin. Their number always varies, but it is estimated between 200 and 300, which since 2015 are united in the Association: Network of spaces for free art projects Berlin.
Through the non-bureaucratic and non-commercial character of these art spaces, one can experience spontaneously, take care of and increase national and international communication networks, one can react quickly regardless of the art form, one can organize concerts, public discussions on art themes or of public interest, neighbors can be invited.
The art presented must not be commercialized, must not be accepted by a wide audience, thus determining the realization of various niche projects and leaving a wide space for new, untried artistic events. The art spaces are managed and financed together by the member artists, an institutionalized financial support does not exist in Berlin.
In these art presentation spaces, the objects or actions presented are discussed, opinions are exchanged between artists and guests, stories are told about other exhibitions or events, recommendations, comparisons and criticisms are made. This culture of multilateral discussions in the open scene is very important for art in Berlin, thus developing new ideas for all participants.
In times when the polemic against media and the disappearance of people behind the screens has led to the transformation of the virtual world into a hostile place, the facebook page will only be used to announce art exhibitions or events.
The dialogue takes place directly between the participants on the spot in the free art spaces, they constantly discuss what contemporary art should be and what social importance it can have. Visitors to these contemporary art spaces are neighbors, artists from all over the world, people interested in art and tourists.
Because there are such a large number of artists in Berlin with very diverse positions in art, each with countless acquaintances in the scene both in Berlin as well as nationally and internationally and finally due to the culture of intense discussions in free project spaces, Berlin art has a unique character. The amount of communication networks and their dynamics makes a quantum leap of art.

Colony Wedding

In Berlin Wedding (Gesundbrunnen) in 2001 several spaces for free art projects came together in a non-profit association called Colonia Wedding. After 20 years the Colony consists of 23 spaces for free art projects. In Soldiner Kiez all can be reached on foot. art and politics, others emphasize a particular art form such as visual art or performance art. Openings are regularly held on the last Friday of the month in 10-12 of these spaces, and the artists organize guided tours in person. These spaces can be visited in one evening due to their proximity. This coordination of the openings is probably the most unusual aspect of the colony, possibly this monthly art weekend is probably unique in the world, in such a weekend you can see for example in -one room the bizarre paintings of an artist from Berlin, then a joint exhibition of artists from Sweden and Finland, then visual art from Brazil, an artistic performance from New York and maybe also the comic works of an artist from Israel. As in the spaces intended for these projects, there is a general, very lively discussion about the art presented. You are allowed to speak your mind even if you think it’s rubbish.

Colonia Wedding has been internationally oriented since its establishment, it has members from all over the world and always organizes international exchange projects together. At the same time, the project rooms are also regionally oriented. Participatory events, actions and exhibitions are organized regularly, to which the neighbors are also invited to participate. Another special quality of the Wedding Colony is the continuity of its members, the participation of its spaces, the continuity of exhibitions and artistic events, as well as the continuity in its international orientation The association’s organization is not hierarchical, there is no management, the association’s board is permanently formed by four members of the colony. There was no president or vice president, decisions being taken only by consensus. All the spaces decide their program alone and independently, the association only handles administrative and organizational issues in the interest of everyone, for example the creation and printing of the flyer and maintenance of the common internet page. The association does not influence the individual artistic and curatorial work. Through an extended concept of art we can see Colonia Wedding in its entirety as a complex work of art that transcends the borders of the country and leaves imagination free for new ideas.“

Dr. Anna E. Wilkens

EXPOSITIONS

Sedi Ghadiri‘s films screening

06. 11. 2022
the author’s screening of films by the German-Iranian director and screenwriter Sedi Ghadiri took place.

Sedi Ghadiri is a German-Iranian film director and writer specializing in fictional storytelling. Until 2017 she worked as a freelance editor at BBC in London while also directing a series of short films on the subjects diaspora and displacement. She experimented with analog film, shooting on and hand-developing 8mm and 16mm film, before shifting to conventional narrative film. Her films have been exhibited at many international film festivals, among others at Sheffield Doc Fest and at Victoria & Albert Museum. She is a London Film School graduate and a recipient of Creative Skillset England scholarship and John Brabourne Award. Prior to her film career she studied Middle Eastern Studies at Bonn University, where her MA thesis on Shia Theology and Ideological Activism was published as part of the series Bonner islamw. Hefte (BiH). In order to complete her research she spent several years in Lebanon and Egypt and up to this day maintains a strong tie to fellow artists from both countries.
Since 2018 she resides in Berlin, where she works on her first feature film alongside teaching Acting-for-Camera workshops to acting students.

THE OTHER IN BEIRUT (Documentary, Lebanon, UK 2007) – 4min
Logline: Experimental docu capturing two co-existing childhoods in Beirut divided by class.

BLOODLINES – (Documentary, UK 2016) 12min
Logline: A portrait of three female Muay Thai fighters in different stages of their lives.

DELE – (Documentary, UK 2018) 17:30min
Logline: A portrait of London based Afrobeat musician Dele Sosimi and his band.

CLEMENTINE – (Fiction, UK 2015) 2:40min
Logline: Desire for clementine causes tragedy in a nuns convent.

THE KINGS HAND – (Fiction, UK 2014) 10:30min
Logline: Five absurd scenes of resistance by antiheroes in 20th century Iran.

IMPRESSIONS

Sleep and Death in ancient Greece

Speaker

Anna Satsyk was born in Kyiv in 2002, later moved to Berlin to develop and work in the cultural field and explore the city’s artistic scene. Currently pursuing a combined degree in Art History and Cultural Studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Synopsis

Sleep and dreams in the system of ideas of the Ancient Greeks about the Afterlife.

The comparison of sleep and death is very ancient, its examples can be found in many cultures of different times, but only in ancient Greece did these comparisons get a theoretical justification. The ancient Greeks believed sleep and death are closely related and the reflection of this connection is to be found in all spheres, in mythology, philosophy, and public life.

We will talk about the proximity of sleep and death in mythological terms, discuss how dreams can serve as proof of the afterlife and how the living can receive prophecy from the dead through sleep, to give a general idea of how sleep and dreaming are integrated in the system of Greek ideas about life after death.

Impressions

Lem vs Le Guin

Speaker

Igor Zaidel

Synopsis

Lem vs Le Guin

The lecture was dedicated to two prominent representatives of science fiction, Stanislav Lem and Ursula Le Guin.
In the 20th century, philosophical thought often dressed up as science fiction.
Igor Zaidel told the audience the biographies of two authors whose works had a huge impact on the development of social ideas of the 21st century.
The impetus for the romantic desire to change one’s own biology was given by Le Guin’s famous novel The Right Hand of Darkness.
Many technological changes that have affected society, from mobile communications to artificial intelligence, were foreseen and described by Lem.

Images for the lecture

Threesome

Artist

Miriam Bork
Younis Al Azzawy
Eva-Maria Rölke

Miriam Bork is a costume designer who works with fabric as an artist and sculptor at the same time.
The Iraqi painter Younis Al Azzawy, a virtuoso painter and draftsman, who has been living in Berlin since the early 1980s, processes daring experiences of human existence in his acrylic paintings.
Eva-Maria Rölke – graced the opening with keyboarding.

The paintings of Younis Al Azzawy are full of eroticism and voirism. They trace a reference to Egon Scheli and Luciano Freud with some salon touch and a share of self-irony.

Knitted underwear from Miriam Bork perfectly complemented the exposition, bringing to it either a museum or a forensic flavor.
At the opening, the ironic pathos of the visual was supported by the performance of classical music by pianist Eva-Maria Rölke