The Maxim Gorki Theater presents the festival The Curator’s Suitcase, part of the Young Curators Academy of the 5th Berlin Autumn Salon, from April 6th to 24th 2022 at STUDIO Я. The festival programme includes readings, talks, performances, workshops and film screenings. The seven young curators from different countries will offer a series of events with a wide range of themes: Feminism, political activism, postcolonial studies, climate crisis, digital technology, art production and memory.
Image above: Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, © Hoang-Son Doan
The Curator’s Suitcase takes the suitcase – real or metaphorical – as a starting point to discuss international collaboration, planetary networks and the baggage we carry as curators from one project to another. Some suitcases are real: the suitcases brought to transformative collaborations or the suitcases taken into exile. Others are metaphorical: the baggage of the extractivist, racist, patriarchal and classist world we would like to leave behind. The audience that has already followed the Young Curators Academy during the Berlin Autumn Salon is familiar with our broad definition of curation.
Curators activate their communities intersectionally and are at the same time writers, art-makers, scientific and historical researchers and producers at the intersection of art and activism. The seven curators participating in this programme all fall under this broader definition. Over the course of three weeks, they will unpack their own strategies of resistance and share working contexts. Visitors are invited to participate in lectures, performances, workshops, film screenings, games and talks.
With the curators Tara Al-Dughaither, Aouefa Amoussouvi, Jade Barget, Maria Cynkier, Giuliana Kiersz, Shaunak Mahbubani, Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Nirlyn Seijas
Artistic Director Keng Sen Ong
Curatorial assistance Anne Diestelkamp
Production Management Lucia Leyser
Design Foyer Alissa Kolbusch, Mila Mazic
Set design Pia Grüter, Alissa Kolbusch, Mila Mazic
Assistant set designers Alice Faucher, Marco Michelle, Una Jankov
PROGRAMME
WEEK 1
Wednesday, April 6th 2022, 5:30 pm | Studio
By Keng Sen Ong
Curating and World-Building
Lecture
Thursday, April 7th 2022, 5:30 pm | Studio
By Maria Cynkier
Planetary Worlding. Cybernetic Weaving. Interspecies Kinship
Lecture
Friday, April 8th 2022, 5:30 | Studio
By Shaunak Mahbubani
How Many Gestures Does It Take to /Make/ A—Line?
Lecture Performance
Saturday, April 9th 2022, 1:00 – 4:00 pm | Tea room
Von Maria Cynkier
Earth Attacks! Live Action Role Play
Workshop
Saturday, April 9th 2022, 5:30 pm | Studio
Curated by Shaunak Mahbubani
A L I G N M E N T S
Artists talk
Saturday, April 9th 2022, 8:00 pm | Studio
By Aouefa Amoussouvi
In collaboration with Satch Hoyt
207 Years Ago I Would Have Been Standing In the Amphitheater
Lecture Ritual
Sunday, April 10th 2022, 2:00 pm | Studio
Curated by Shaunak Mahbubani
With Vidisha-Fadesha
i am with you — are you with me?
Performance
Sunday, April 10th 2022, 4:00 pm | Studio
By Maria Cynkier
With Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley
Video Games as Activism. Archiving as World-building.
Artists talk
WEEK 2
Thursday, April 14th 2022, 5:30 pm | Studio
By Nirlyn Seijas
Incarnated Historiographies
Lecture
Friday, April 15th 2022, 17:30 pm | Studio
By Tara Al-Dughaither
Who the F*** Cares to Listen?
Lecture Performance
Saturday, April 16th 2022, 1:00 – 4:00 pm | Tea room
By Aouefa Amoussouvi
In collaboration with Gabriela Torres-Ferrer
Pixelated Cumulonimbus Bring No Rain: Digital Materiality & Imperialism
Group reading
Saturday, April 16th 2022, 5:30 pm | Studio
By Nirlyn Seijas
Collective Dancing to Stay Alive: On the Feminist Need of Gathering
Lecture Performance
Saturday, April 16th 2022, 8:00 pm | Studio
By Tara Al-Dughaither
Encountering the Deeply Rooted
Film Screening and talk
Sunday, April 17th 2022, 2:00 pm | Studio
By Nirlyn Seijas
The Latina Grandmas’ Oracle
Performance
Sunday, April 17th 2022, 4:00 – 5:30 pm | Studio
By Tara Al-Dughaither
Sung Tensions and Tangents
Workshop
WEEK 3
Thursday, April 21st 2022, 5:30 | Studio
By Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi
In collaboration with Jade Barget and Fabian Saul
They breathe, the celestials. to drift
Performative Screening
Friday, April 22nd 2022, 5:30 pm | Studio
By Giuliana Kiersz
If Something Like This Exists, an essay, a poem, a concert
Lecture Performance
Saturday, April 23rd 2022, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm | Tea room
By Giuliana Kiersz
If Something Like This Exists, writing gathering
Workshop
Saturday, April 23rd 2022, 3:00 – 5:00 pm | Tea room
By Aouefa Amoussouvi
In collaboration with Flo Razoux
Red is the New Blue: A Fluorescent Encounter to Rethink Menstruations
Workshop
Saturday, April 23rd 2022, 5:30 | Studio
By Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi
In collaboration with Jade Barget and Nile Koetting
They breathe, the celestials. to depart (Evacuation Picnic +)
Performance
Sunday, April 24th 2022 11:00 am – 1:00 pm | Tea room
By Giuliana Kiersz
If Something Like This Exists, writing gathering
Workshop
Sunday, April 24th 2022, 2:00 pm | Studio
By Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi
In collaboration with Jade Barget and Eduardo Williams
They breathe, the celestials. to wander (The Human Surge)
Film Screening and talk
Detailed programme on the Gorki Website
All events are in English
Registration required
WHEN?
Wednesday, April 6th – Sunday, April 24th, 2022
WHERE?
Maxim Gorki Theater – Studio and Tea room
Hinter dem Gießhaus 2
10117 Berlin
COST?
Admission free
