how is the weather?




We often start talking about weather when it seems like we have nothing to talk about at all.But could this apparent daily topic of conversation refer to a complex interconnection of codes and metaphors between human beings in social interactions ? Can one experience insecurity, fear, hope, joy or sadness through reflecting on weather? Can it reflect our individual perspectives and visions towards the world?
Starting conversation about the weather is considered normal and safe everywhere, whereas talking about politics can be highly unsafe in some countries.
The restriction of smalltalk to weather can thus be a barometer of individual and political freedom.︎
The Little Red book, Ink, paper, various size2018 
   


I’m Not Who You Think I’m Not #13 The *foundationClass’ non-Cafeteria of the Academy of Misery  


Art academies reproduce mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. Who is teaching, what is being taught, and who is accepted are not contingent on assumed “talent” but on the subjective assessment skills of those in power and therefore on individual and indisputable criteria. The autonomy of the arts as well as teaching thus legitimizes the contradictions inherent to the institution.

The artists of the *foundationClass do not use the obstacles engendered by this deplorable state in order to just point or blank out the institution’s contradictions. Instead, they use them as a point of departure for their collective artistic practice and to formulate demands for inclusive forms of teaching and education. Akin to the kitchen table, the art academy’s cafeteria is a space where conspiratorial, heretical, unobjective, impertinent, and amateur opinions are articulated, validated, and dismantled for their own sake, rather than for the purpose of knowledge production.

Operating from a space of brokenness that is within, but not of, the academy and that is neither for nor against it, the *foundationClass invites you to join the non-Cafeteria of the Academy of Misery at Akademie der Künste in order to enter into study—a mode of thinking with others that is separate from the thinking the institution requires of you. This prepares us to be embedded in what Fred Moten and Stefano Harney call “the with and for.”[...]

Photo:  Can Mileva Rastovic, 2018
Language: English
*foundationClass artists:
Anwar Alatrash, Batoul Sedawi, Cam-Anh Luong, Diwali Hasskan, Eva Karduck, Fadi Aljabour, Hatef Soltani, Katharina Kersten, Mayada Alkayal, Miriam Schickler, Mohamad Halbouni, Ramin Parvin, Reem Awad, Ulf Aminde

Part of 10.Berlin Bienale 
5.7.2018
Akademie der Künste
Clubraum
Hanseatenweg 10
10557 Berlin