in conversation with life artist, food activist and social worker from Armenia, Mischa Badasyan.

Mischa began his artistic journey by posing as a nude model at an art academy in Dresden. Over the last ten years, he has done long-term performances and site-specific actions, led educational workshops and worked in a food activist collective, just to name a few. 

Most recently, Mischa put himself in a metal net filled with kilos of rescued bread and stood at a square in Zurich, to inform people about the terrible humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Listen here: https://linktr.ee/kitchenconversations

curator: Joanna Sokołowska
exhibition duration: 16 Nov–13 Jan 2024
opening: 16 Nov 23 (Thursday), 6 p.m.
tour led by artist and curator: 23 Nov 23 (Thursday), 6 p.m.

Arm and Protect is an exhibition about the exploitation and reclaiming of the body by persons forced into women’s social roles. However, in Ala Savashevich’s series of new works, no bodies are directly visible. The artist confronts the traces of forces that seemingly operate “beyond the periphery of the skin”[1]: in global and local markets, in offices and fields, at the assembly line, in services, families, schools, churches. Dispersed and omnipresent for generations, they break backs and bend necks. They suck out vital forces and take away life itself. They enforce repetitive gestures or unnatural stillness. They prohibit the expression of emotions and the pursuit of one’s needs, teaching instead how to conform to the needs of others. But up to a point.

To conclude the exhibition Hope swapping, fixed by this year’s KVOST scholarship recipient and Claus Michaletz awardee, Larisa Sitar, KVOST invites you to a performance by the artist Finja Sander and music by Matti Gajek.

About

Finja Sander chooses the medium of performance as a recurring constant in her works. She looks for breaks and ambivalences in the everyday, for disregarded automatisms that she picks out, isolates and brings into new contexts within multi-part processes. Currently, the artist is deeply engaged with the concept of a memorial, embedded in her artistic research on German memory culture and monument history. Her own body serves as an initiating catalyst, a sort of seismograph.

Her performances have been showcased in various venues, including the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne (2023), Barlach Museums, Güstrow (2023), the Skulpturen Triennale in Bingen (2023), the Museum for Photography, Berlin (2021), and the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2021). Sander completed her studies in Fine Arts at the Berlin University of the Arts in the summer of 2022, as a master student of Valérie Favre. She is this year’s recipient of the UdK Berlin Art Award. 

Matti Gajek produces and performs electronic music under the pseudonym Gajek. From an East German perspective, Gajek inscribes himself into the progressive mythos of “Krautrock” and Western modernity. He shifts the focus onto a side of German (musical) history marked by the material traces of the Cold War.

The musician draws from evolving textures of high-energy digital production. Vibrant rhythms, strings, and synthesizers, along with endless chains of pitch shifters and ring modulators, create an oscillating atmosphere in combination with penetrating lyrical compositions. His music has been played in various venues, including Trauma Bar and Kino, Berghain, and Printworks London, among others.

The Cultural Foundation Rostock eV and the Hanseatic and university city of Rostock are awarding the Rostock Art Prize for the 17th time this year. This is once again made possible thanks to the generous support of PROVINZIAL insurance. The aim of the prize is to recognize and promote artists who live in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania or whose biography and work has a connection to the region. The genre should change every year. For 2023, the art prize will be offered for object art for the first time. The exhibition of works by the nominees provides an overview of their artistic work. The artists chose their work themselves.

The jury nominated the following four candidates from the group of 41 applicants:

Susanne Gabler (Wismar)
Bernd Kommnick (Neubrandenburg)
Artist group Schaum (Alexandra Lotz and Tim Kellner, Rostock)
Marike Schreiber (Wesenberg)

The award ceremony will take place on Saturday, December 2nd, 2023 from 4 p.m. in the Plastic Hall of the Kunsthalle Rostock.

The project stands for a self-questioning of the Kunsthalle Rostock about the history of the Baltic Sea Biennales. Designed as a review, it looks at current discourses and perspectives. Review, a term from the software industry, refers to the examination of contents, forms, processes and development phases. Inspired by this, 15 keywords were drawn from the 15 Rostock Biennales. They can be found in different formats in the project: an exhibition with artists from the Baltic Sea region, a global view in VIEW Havana Biennale and a cooperation with the University of Greifswald and Scandlines ferries with Scanlines. PREVIEW Biennale of the Baltic Sea Youth presents an international student project. Satellite exhibitions in Rostock’s urban space show photographic positions in the Kunstverein zu Rostock and paintings from Lithuania, among others, in the Goldwerk Gallery. The ART CONFERENCE from 19th to 21st of January 2024 discusses the Baltic Sea Biennales and evaluates the review.

Artists
Maciej Aleksandrowicz, PL / Karolina Bregula, PL / Lotte Buch, D (MV) / Elizabet Cerviño, CU / AK Dolven, NO / Anett Frontzek, D / Kasper Lecnim & Irmina / Rusicka, PL / José Manuel Mesías, CU / Ingrid Ogenstedt, SE/D / Rene Peña, CU / Agnieszka Polska & Witek Orski, PL / Jimmy Pulli, FIN / Lars Ramberg, NO/D / Marta Romankiv, PL/UA / Artist group SCHAUM, D (MV) / Ramona Seyfarth, D (MV) / Trine Søndergaard, DK / Jakob Kudsk Steensen, DK / Kestutis Svirnelis, LT/D / Amanda Ziemele, LV / Hermann Glöckner, DDR / Birgit Jensen, D / Leonards Laganovskis, LV / Mindaugas Navakas, LT / Willi Sitte, GDR/D / Osmo Valtonen, FIN / Willy Wolff, GDR / Prof. Rozbeh Asmani / Stella Capretto / Elias Peschke / Lena Friemel / Laura Schöning, D (Caspar David Friedrich Institute of the University of Greifswald) / Espen Eichhöfer / Andrea Gjestvang / Patrick Hinz / Hans-Christian Schink / Edgar Zippel, D (Kunstverein zu Rostock) / Arvydas Kašauskas / Rūta Eidukaitytė / Aleksandras Vozbinas (Goldwerk Galerie) Funding

 in conversations with film producer from Belarus, Leonid Kalitenya

From October 10 to October 13, 2023, the Belarusian Filmmakers’ Network jointly with SMartDE conducted a conference for young Belarusian directors and producers in Berlin. The event was dedicated to the socialization and professional integration of freelance Belarusian filmmakers in the German and EU film industries.

During the podcast, Leonid talks about his work as a film producer and his involvement in various projects aimed at bringing independent Belarusian cinema to international audiences, as well as supporting the filmmakers – many of whom have been living in exile since May 2020.

In conversations with multidisciplinary artists from the Republic of Kalmykia, Victoria Sarangova

Patrycja discovered the work of Victoria in a group show ‘Өмә’ in Kunstraum Kreuzberg Berlin. The show spoke about collective self-help practices of various ethnic groups living inside Russia today.

During the podcast conversation Victoria shares her two long term projects; ‘Motherland’ – where she traces the history of her Kalmyk acceptors and ‘Archaeology of Progress’ – where she takes a critical look at the idea of progress as something equally positive for all members of our society. 

https://linktr.ee/kitchenconversations

“Dunkel Therapy” is a pilot project of Kunsthalle Bratislava in collaboration with the NEXT – Advanced Music Festival, which uses the exhibition space A Black Box for darkness and sound therapy. Gradually during the year, we welcome eight Slovak music labels and their producers to the exhibition space – A Black Box. At the last session, on 17 October at 18:00, our guests will be Slávo Krekovič from NEXT Festival Records and Michal Marcinčin from label

Nomad Sky Diaries / Sky Burial productions, who is also a founder of the festival Hradby Samoty.

In contemporary art, the space called “black box” is commonly used as an exhibition space for video art, in the theatre for various performances and in the club scene as a space for a dance party. A series of “listening sessions” in complete darkness, in the space where we usually have the opportunity to see visual works, gives space to quality experimental Slovak music labels that have recently been subtly earning their place on the world music map. The “Dunkel Therapy” project wants to bring the visitors an intense experience of listening to music, sounds or field recordings by suppressing all other senses except hearing. In total darkness, visitors can perceive things that we miss in the light and at a concert full of visual sensations. At “Dunkel Therapy” it is possible to sit, lie, stand, or listen and feel the music in any comfortable position.

Nomad Sky Diaries / Sky Burial productions

The label was established back in 2011. It is focusing primarily on noise, black metal, power electronics, dark ambient, industrial, drone, dungeon synth, experimental, jazzcore and extreme music. Its releases come in small editions. So far it has made more than 100 releases in various formats such as cassettes, LPs, CDs, or USB. A few musicians from their catalogue to mention: Magadan, Porenut, Sklo, Burial Hex, Horologium, My Live Evil, Metrom, Zmyrna, Vyšehrad, Halucigani, Krolok, 900piesek, Drén, Napalmed, or compilations as Hluková Sekce.  The label also tends to cooperate with interesting visual artists such as Nenad Branković, Matúš Ďurčík, Jakub Svetlík, Filip Smrž, Michal Nagypál, Jozef Tušan, Ján Bátorek, Jaroslav Diviš, Marek Menke, Stanislav Greždo, Stanislav Kostka, Martin Karvay and more.

nomadskydiaries-skyburial.bandcamp.com/

NEXT Festival Records:

NEXT Festival Records existence started in 2020, the year of 20th anniversary of NEXT festival. Alongside live recordings, mostly from the festival itself, it also initiates new records with focus on new sounds from Central and Eastern Europe or beyond.

So far, the label released records: AMM, David Toop & Avsluta, Miroslav Tóth, eRikm & dj sniff, Palmovka, ÉLG, Mats Gustafsson & Christof Kurzmann, Shibuya Motors and Stavros Papadopulos.

https://nextfestival.sk/records/https://nextfestival.sk/records/
https://nextfestival.bandcamp.com/music

Curated by: Jelisaveta Rapaić

A moment inA moment in time, a few years back, circa 2017, all the women around me started pursuing either boxing or pole dance; consciously or not, those choices were political – emancipating and, as most of them describe, liberating. Speaking from today’s perspective as we are closing the exhibition The rotten smell is you, and this moment in time might have been the softest and most effortless entry of the fourth wave discourse into the mainstream. We can’t say that these topics penetrated all the hermetic bubbles with this movement, but they did saturate it.

In the spirit of saturating thoughts, small movements, and temporary farewells, we gather once again around the imaginary table in the feminist household with a few additions, to unpack what might have been left unsaid.

We cordially invite you for an evening of closing events accompanying the exhibition The rotten smell is you on Sunday 15th of October at 18h in A Window at the Kunsthalle Bratislava and V Klub, on the ground floor of the main building. The evening will start with a guided tour led by the exhibition’s curator Jelisaveta Rapaić at 18h, followed by a performance entitled Pole Dance, a performative lecture… by Aja Janković at 19h, and a discussion starting at 19:15h with Nikola Balberčáková, Markéta Garai, Sophia Giovannitti, Paula Gogola, Dominika Jašeková (Odyseus) & Pennie Key reflecting on the topics of sex work, art, boxing, transness, pole dancing, hyperfeminity and many more…