Air travel is always caught between the need for mobility and environmental protection. Despite good intentions and the shame of flying, many people use the aeroplane, whether out of convenience, habit or the belief that they can do little to change the overall situation. Others do not want to or cannot do without flying. The German-Turkish artist Daniel Theiler takes this theme as the starting point for his exhibition NON STOP in the Berlin project space Raum für Drastische Maßnahmen, which opens with a vernissage on 9 February 2024 from 7 pm. An additional event entitled “Green Flies” will take place on 22 February 2024 as part of the exhibition.
Image above: Daniel Theiler, Panta Rhei
The multimedia exhibition NON-STOP explores the links between air travel, migration and climate (activism) and reflects in a humorous way on how art and resistance shape each other. Iconic moments of climate protest of people sticking themselves to aeroplanes or spraying private jets with paint are depicted in oil paintings.
Auf einmal räumen alle ihr Sparbuch leer, vergessen die Flugscham und fliegen durch die Welt.
Matthias Spohr, Managing Director of Lufthansa Aviation Training
The interactive installation “Self-Portrait 1992-2023” shows all of the artist’s flight tickets from his first family visit to Turkey in 1992 to the present day and offers visitors the opportunity to offset their flight-related carbon footprint. With each donation, the amount of CO2 emissions on a display is reduced until the flights are “neutralised”. 100% of the donation amount is invested in climate protection projects. Part of the installation is a statistical analysis that displays key parameters such as distances, the most frequently used airports and airlines, seats, etc. The data illustrates the flight bias. The data illustrates the artist’s flight biography and, together with objects, sound and video works, creates a humorously threatening scene: aeroplane fins circle like sharks around a breathing life jacket, spit bags give tips on saving the world and a podcast explains what Cem Özdemir, schnapps and a thwarted political career have to do with each other.
The video work Jetbridge Jesus places the personal migration history of the artist’s family in the context of international flight and migration movements and addresses the possibility of a deterritorialised world in which the differences between migrants, refugees and tourists dissolve.
In the end, the work Black Cross poses the question of the long shadow of flight: is it really always the same size, no matter how high or low the aeroplane flies?
Additional event: „Grüner Fliegen“ (> Flying greener)
Thurday, 22. February 2024 at 6 pm
After a presentation of the flight search engine “Grüner Fliegen” by the initiator Philipp von Gablenz, the possibilities and limits of sustainable flying will be discussed under the moderation of Bertolt Meyer (“Agree to Disagree” “People of Science”). References will also be made to the work “Self-Portrait 1992-2023” by the artist Daniel Theiler, for which he is asking visitors to support him with donations to offset his flight CO2. At the end, the practical question will be posed as to which compensation projects the donations should be channelled into.
Daniel Theiler is a German-Turkish visual artist, filmmaker and architect. He was a master student of Nina Fischer in Art and Media at the UdK Berlin. He studied art at the Bauhaus University Weimar with Danica Dakić and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Master of Fine Arts) as well as architecture at the TU Berlin, ETH Zurich and University of Strathclyde Glasgow (Dipl.-Ing.).
WHEN?
Vernissage: Friday, 9. February 2024 from 7:00 pm
Exhibition period: Saturday, 10. February until Saturday, 2. March 2024
WHERE?
Raum für drastische Maßnahmen
Oderstraße 34
10247 Berlin-Friedrichshain
