Mediation

What are rules, role models, and (s)heroes all about? The mediation program of the 10th Berlin Biennale creates opportunities for encounter and exchange. Organized in experimental and engaging formats, the mediation program creates a space for processes of learning and unlearning, addresses blind spots, and takes the uncertainties, schisms, and demarcations inherent to describing and categorizing what one sees as its starting point. Artistic and participatory methods are the tools used to foster interaction between participants, works of art, the curatorial team, and exhibiting artists as well as the neighborhoods surrounding the venues.

Guided Tours

PUBLIC GUIDED TOURS

Anna Ehrenstein, Andre Harris, Barbara Campaner, Celina Basra, David Frohnapfel, Heiko Ncube, Jasmeen Adeoshun, Julia Devies, Laureline van den Heuvel, Linda Krüger, Mika H. Ebbesen, Nora-Saîda Hogrefe, Sarah Wenzinger, Ünal Iğde, Zvonimir Kontrec, and Zaki Al-Maboren form the mediation team for the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. As qualified mediators, they create opportunities for diverse audiences to approach contemporary art through collective discussions. At Akademie der Künste, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, and ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics, they engage visitors in dialogue based on a selection of artistic positions.

Public tours are held in German. On the opening weekend (June 9 and 10, 2018), additional tours in English are being offered concurrent with the German-language tours at the Akademie der Künste and KW Institute for Contemporary Art.

Tickets are available online at each exhibition venue. Registration is not required.

Akademie der Künste
Every Saturday, 2 pm
Duration: 90 minutes
5 €, reduced 4 €
(admission not included)

KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Every Sunday, 4 pm
Duration: 90 minutes
5 €, reduced 4 €
(admission not included)

ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics
Every Saturday, 4 pm
Duration: 60 minutes
4 €, reduced 3 €
(admission not included)

Meeting point: Ticket desk at the respective venue


GUIDED TOURS FOR GROUPS
Tours in English and German can be booked online for groups of up to 20 people: www.berlinbiennale.de/mediation

For tours in Arabic, Croatian, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Plain Language (German), Spanish, and Turkish please contact us at:

T +49 (0)30 24 34 59 979
F +49 (0)30 24 34 59 99
visit@berlinbiennale.de

We recommend planning 90 minutes for tours at Akademie der Künste and KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Tours at ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics last approximately 60 minutes.

Prices
60 minutes: 95 €
90 minutes: 140 €
120 minutes: 185 €
Every additional hour: 90 €
(admission not included)

Reduction for Students
60 minutes: 85 €
90 minutes: 120 €
120 minutes: 155 €
Every additional hour: 80 €
(admission not included)

Guided Tours for School Classes and Nursery Schools
60 minutes: 65 €
(admission included, on request)

Meeting Point: ticket desk at the respective venue

GROUP VISITS
Groups of more than 20 people should contact us in advance at visit@berlinbiennale.de or
T +49 (0)30 24 34 59 979.

GROUPS WITH INDIVIDUAL GUIDES
Please note that groups accompanied by their own guide must register at visit@berlinbiennale.de or T +49 (0)30 24 34 59 979 and are required to pay a licensing fee of 35 Euro (max. 20 people including guide).


SELF-GUIDED TOURS

Alles auf einmal geht nicht
Alles auf einmal geht nicht (You can’t do everything at once) provides visitors to the Berlin Biennale insights into the modes of thinking and approaches behind the exhibited artworks in the form of handouts available at ticket desks. These texts present various methods, themes, perspectives, and ideas for interventions or exercises to help viewers engage with the works on view. To create these materials, an artist of the 10th Berlin Biennale (exhibiting at the ZK/U –Center for Art and Urbanistics or at KW Institute for Contemporary Art) worked individually with a student to jointly develop artistic instructions for visitors. The handouts are designed to inspire visitors to test experimental and innovative ways of experiencing art within the exhibition space.

App Scouts
An app is being created as part of the Berlin Biennale that allows visitors to connect with the exhibition through participatory means. Young people with special needs artistically examine the works in the exhibition and comment on them using various media (audio, video, text, image). An app designed around these comments allows the exhibition to be experienced inclusively and from a variety of perspectives, while presenting the work interactively for all visitors—with and without disabilities. App users can play the comments and add their own, thus allowing experiences and individual stories to be shared live in the exhibition space. Tablets with the app are available for use in the exhibition at the Akademie der Künste, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, and ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics.

Workshops

OPEN WORKSHOP FORMATS

Fusion-Club/Für morgen
At the Fusion-Club/Für morgen children and teens take part in one of five different workshops of their choice during each week of the 10th Berlin Biennale. How do we want to and how can we live together in the future—as individuals and in social relationships, locally and globally? How do we want to learn together? These questions form the starting point for the production of participants’ own artistic works in dialogue with the exhibition. Artists working with glass blowing, paper folding, textiles, printing, and drawing assist and supervise participants. Products created in the workshops are then presented and sold at the Fusion Shop in the KW courtyard. Workshops during Berlin’s summer school vacation are held in the mornings and have been conceived as summer break offerings in collaboration with social workers and educators from participating district offices, youth cultural centers, shelters, and schools.


Fusion-Shop
2.7., 8.8., 31.8.2018, noon–2 pm
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, courtyard

Institutions and youth organizations with networks, members, or groups interested in these summer break offerings can find additional information at: fusion-club@berlinbiennale.de


Spaces of Reflection
The Spaces of Reflection project explores audience perception and possibilities for public participation in large-scale contemporary art exhibitions. During a week in August, visitors are invited to attend various workshops held at the KW Studio. Students from Kunsthochschule Weißensee and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin as well as artists and researchers from Athens and Berlin develop different experimental approaches and tools based on their own professional experience. These are then made available to visitors of the 10th Berlin Biennale, tested, and reflected upon together with members of the Spaces of Reflection project group.

18.–25.8.2018, every day during exhibition hours and additionally on Tuesdays 11 am–7 pm
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Studio (front building, 1st floor)
Participation free, in German and English, registration not required

Find the full Spaces of Reflection program here.

Team Spaces of Reflection
Jasmeen Adeoshun, Magdalena Beger, Vivien Emmanouilidou, Sofia Grigoriadou, Maria Janus, Alexia Manzano, Dana Papachristou, Harriet Rabe von Froreich, Giorgos Samantas, Liz Stumpf, Simon Bejerholm Villadsen, Myrto Vratsanou, Silke Wittig


Und was interessiert dich? (And what are you interested in?)
You like listening to the information presented during guided exhibition tours, but what really interests you is rarely addressed? With this group you can jointly research a freely chosen work in the exhibition and create your own form of guided tour. Together we closely examine and unpack the particular point of view expressed in a work of art and then present our results at the end.

The concept was conceived by Leandra Busch as part of the seminar at the Stiftung University of Hildesheim: Curating and Mediating in context of the Berlin Biennale – For whom, why and how.

29.6. and 20.07.2018, 3–7 pm
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Studio (front building, 1st floor)
Participation free with exhibition ticket, in German, registration not required


MEDIATION FORMATS WITH PUBLIC PRESENTATION

(Für) einen Moment
In the project (Für) einen Moment ((For) one moment), artist Marisa Maza develops forms of expressing “unspeakable” experiences using artistic means together with participants—women who have been subject to domestic violence and are now involved in the project offensiv’91 e. V. The project explores potential points of connection between the artworks and themes of the 10th Berlin Biennale and the participants’ biographical experiences with the overriding aim of – at least for one moment – transforming the different experiences of violence and injustices endured by the women.

Presentation: 31.8.2018, 2018, 12 pm
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Studio (front building, 1st floor) and mediation studio (courtyard, right building wing, ground floor)
Admission free, in Arabic, English, German, Romani, and Spanish


HYPNA
HYPNA is dedicated to seeing and experiencing art. Alongside video and audio impulses, objects, and a guest book, the project space invites visitors to the studio at KW for an exchange on art perception. The shift and expansion of one's own perspectives on art are made possible on various sensory levels.

The concept was developed by Nina Diel, Marlene Bart, and Adam Luczak as a part of the seminar Kuratieren und Vermitteln: Für wen, warum und wie am Beispiel der Berlin Biennale(Curation and Mediation: For whom, why, and how, on example from the Berlin Biennale) from the University of Hildesheim.

16., 17., 23. and 24.6.2018, 12–7 pm (break 3–4 pm)
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Studio
Free admission


Laboratório Inhotim
Laboratório Inhotim is a long-term program at the contemporary art center and botanical garden of the Instituto Inhotim in Brumadinho, BR. It aims at assisting students from Brumadinho’s public schools in research, discussion and practice of contemporary art processes.

3.8.2018, 3–4 Uhr
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, courtyard
Free admission

Team Laboratório Inhotim 2018
Yara Castanheira - Head of Education, Inhotim
Gabriela Gasparotto - Educator, Inhotim
Participants of the project Laboratório Inhotim: Carolina Mucelli Gonçalves, Gean Felipe Souza Pereira, Mariana Dias Bessa, Vanessa Cristina Brasil Pereira


Mittlungsradio
For the Mittlungsradio project—an artistic and collaborative format—artist Anton Kats explores and presents the voices and stories of residents at two facilities for senior citizens through workshops, radio interventions, and an installation. Using narrowcast radio, which has a limited transmission range, residents are invited to work with the medium to develop their own mobile, open, and sustainable radio station and thus become a part of the 10th Berlin Biennale program. The Mittlungsradio transmissions reflect on and address themes of the 10th Berlin Biennale such as visibility and alternative knowledge transfer through the eyes of the elderly.

Developed and presented inside and outside of the elderly resource centers, the mobile radio sound system invited the visitors of the Biennale to engage with two radio interventions in the courtyard of KW Institute for Contemporary Art. While the first radio intervention took the form of an open radio studio in the courtyard on June 8, 2018, the second intervention on August 28, 2018 takes the shape of a sonic sculpture and an ambiguous listening space that transmit the outcomes of a six-month-long project developed by Kats and participants.

The project is supported by Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, Stadt Berlin, Bezirkskulturfonds Mitte, Kultur Mitte, and the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art and developed in collaboration with the Fürsorge im Alter Seniorenresidenz Haus Pankow and Seniorenwohnanlage Ulmeneck with support of Ulme 35: Interkulturanstalten Westend e.V.

More information on the Mittlungsradio project page.

Neue Geschichten – Neue Welten
Within the framework of Neue Geschichten – Neue Welten (New Stories—New Worlds), artist Alexia Manzano and mediator Katja Ullmann develop new vocabularies with preschool and elementary school children, inspired by their engagement with the artworks in the 10th Berlin Biennale, and use this as a basis for encouraging the children to create their own narrative accounts of the world. The exhibition spaces, the building, and the route leading to the exhibition from the participating nursery school Kleine Auguststraße and Gustav Falke elementary school are explored. Trust is carefully established between the project participants, the exhibiting artists, and the team of the biennial. The children examine the works of the 10th Berlin Biennale and respond artistically to their perceptions, experiences, and impressions. Aesthetic research approaches—adapted to the early childhood realm—form the basis of the conditions, materials, and methods provided to the children. All processes are to be developed based on the children’s ideas. A large-format publication produced with the children presents their visual and tactile impulses and ideas.

Presentation: 31.8.2018, 12 pm
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Studio (front building, 1st floor) and mediation studio (courtyard, right building wing, ground floor)
Admission free, in German

School Projects

PROJECTS WITH AND IN SCHOOLS

Since September 2017, projects, workshops, and discussions have been held in schools as part of the 10th Berlin Biennale mediation program. Partnerships with educational institutions from Berlin’s various districts have made it possible to explore students’ particular thematic interests during the period leading up to the exhibition. Building on this, specific participatory offerings have been developed for the period of the exhibition that are embedded within the curriculum of the schools.

Intro
Intro is a workshop format that allows students to explore the themes and concepts of the 10th Berlin Biennale and develop, test out, and discuss new narratives using experimental writing and reading techniques. Elements of performance and drawing augment this process and draw on the possibility of exploring different identities. Initial workshops have already taken place and focused on a journey through time by the character Dana, a protagonist in Octavia E. Butler’s 1979 novel Kindred.


Kulturwandertag
The 2018 Kulturwandertag (Cultural exploration day) of the 8th grade from the Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Gymnasium takes place within the framework of the 10th Berlin Biennale. The varied program combines an examination of the exhibition with students’ own artistic activities. At three of the Berlin Biennale’s exhibition venues students take part in workshops dedicated to sound art, photography, creative writing, glass techniques, papermaking, printmaking, textile arts, and drawing. The results are being presented during the school’s courtyard festival.

For questions concerning school projects or to book workshops that are part of We Don’t Need to Know the Way Home or Kulturwandertag, please contact:

Mona Jas
T +49 (0)30 24 34 59 54
F +49 (0)30 24 34 59 99
visit@berlinbiennale.de


Labor Nobel #3
In Labor Nobel #3 (Nobel Laboratory #3), six students and teens from the Alfred Nobel school conducted a weeklong project in the spaces of the Berlin Biennale in January 2018. Working in a team with educators, participatory artistic and educational projects were conceived and realized within the context of the 10th Berlin Biennale. Special emphasis was placed on developing mediation concepts situated between the contrasting interests of individual artistic positions, the participation of those involved, and the 10th Berlin Biennale’s conceptual approaches. As a thematic focus, the concept of unlearning was analyzed and formed, allowing participants to question their own positions. Action painting, perception, learning/unlearning, as well as performance, mask making, and film served as the underpinnings of the workshops, which were carried out with three teams and supervised artistically by a team of professional educators.

General information about Labor Nobel can be found here.


We Don’t Need to Know the Way Home
Alongside the themes and concepts of the 10th Berlin Biennale, mediation methods are being developed for artworks presented in the Berlin Biennale in cooperation with students from the 10th grade elective class and the SESB class (Turkish-German bilingual class) at the Carl von Ossietzky school. During the exhibition, students have the opportunity to conduct their own workshops with other teens from their school and other schools.

Beyond

Berlin Biennale: von mir aus (Berlin Biennale: from where I stand)
How does a biennial work? What does it have to do with us? Where and how am I represented? What is curating, and what does mediation mean? What do the curators intend—do we feel included? We: the kids and teens from a kindergarten, from various schools, and from youth institutions joined by artists from the network of the initiative The Hub. Working in dialogue with protagonists from the 10th Berlin Biennale, we examine the Berlin Biennale in six interrelated artistic labs held in six Berlin districts. The aim is our own artistic production and curation; our very own biennial with and for other kids and teens is being developed, implemented, and anchored structurally throughout Berlin in 2019 and 2020. We are here to test out ideas and initial forms of production.

Further information is available here.


Circus Rebels for Peace
Project presentation of the transcultural project Circus Rebels for Peace, film screening, and talk in collaboration with Upsala Circus St. Petersburg.

Teenagers from Russia, Germany, Syria and Afganistan used different performing arts to explore their attitude towards peace and war and understand whether we can really shape the world we want to live in.

19.8.2018, 2–4 pm
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Studio
Participation free


Kulturelle Rundgänge durch Lichtenberg
Visitors to the 10th Berlin Biennale have the opportunity to visit a typical Berlin neighborhood in Lichtenberg, beyond the exhibition venues, and see it through the eyes of young adults. Kulturelle Rundgänge durch Lichtenberg (Cultural Walks Through Lichtenberg) offers tours free of charge to visitors to the exhibition and presents insights into local milieus, Berlin history, and the perspectives of young Berliners. Cultural tour topics are developed and overseen by students from the Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Gymnasium and the Carl von Ossietzky school in Lichtenberg in cooperation with mediators of the Berlin Biennale.

July 4, 5, and 6, 2018, 2–3:30 pm
Meeting point: KW ticket desk for each tour
Participation free, in English and German, registration not required

Qualifications

Our qualification reflects the interests and concerns of contemporary art practices and unfolds in an alternative teaching and learning environment within the framework of the 10th Berlin Biennale. Offers apply experimental methods within the Berlin Biennale and beyond. Included are the initiation and support of artistic processes in the classroom and lecture hall and in exhibition spaces as well as related reflections.

In further collaborations at university level - such as with the Netzwerk Studienqualität Brandenburg [sqb] or the Bern University of Education - experimental artistic approaches to artistic projects and innovative university didactics are being tested with impulses from the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art.

Prices and duration on request. We are happy to coordinate an appropriate program for your group.