ongoing since 2022
Collaboration between Mika Ebbing and Jule Roehr
Artistic research, lecture performance, floor projection (3h19min)
Since September 7, 2022, Mika Ebbing and Jule Roehr have been going through the files of section 8 in the archive of the University of the Arts Berlin (UdK). Page by page, from folder number "8/1" to "8/686". For the most part, section 8 contains documents from the years 1929-1939, including some earlier and later files, relating to the Vereinigte Staatsschulen für freie und angewandte Kunst, the predecessor institution of today's faculty of Fine Arts at the UdK. So far, about a third of the files have been reviewed.
In the files the rapid transformation of the institution from 1933 onwards can be traced on the basis of administrative procedures. The process of the artistic research in the archive however also focusses on the UdK's subsequent handling of this period in the post-war era until the present day.
What does it mean to deal with documents in their original, physical form? What can be found in the archive at all, what becomes apparent? What has been lost or has escaped documentation? What does an art institution need in order to reflect on it's own history? How can this process of reflection be anchored in the institution in the long term? How can critical perspectives be given space within the institution without co-opting their approaches? What forms of institutional care could emerge as a result?
Exhibition at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
In the group exhibition "Napping in Density" at KW, the process of research was reflected together with the visitors.
The video with a total duration of about 2.5 hours consists of numerous clips, each 1-3 minutes long. The clips are sourced from a video documentation, which always runs parallel to the work in the archive. The sound of turning pages can be heard. The installation is continually modified by books and printouts of texts being placed in the projection or by changing the arrangement of the objects. The clips are interrupted by 10-second black images. For a moment, only the books and papers that are physically in the room and distributed on the projection surface can be seen.
