EXHIBITION: FERNBEZIEHUNGEN
OPENING: 20/11/2024, 19.00 – 21.00
With Lesia Pcholka and Uladzimir Hramovich, Zofia nierodzińska, Alicja Rogalska and Aykan Safoğlu
Curated by Zofia nierodzińska and Stephan Koal
There is a magic and a challenge inherent in long-distance relationships, an eroticising tension of the unfinished and unprotected and the constant challenge of maintaining emotions over large spatial distances.
So close and yet so strange: the exhibition and the accompanying program trace the arc of long-distance relationships from foreignness in a country that is not one’s own, to being de facto a stranger in one’s own body, from normative to non-normative.
The exhibition Fernbeziehungen (Long-Distance Relationships), a collaboration between KVOST and the Lectwo Gallery in Poznan, deals with the theme of migration, especially labour migration, that almost always involves a move from less privileged countries and regions to more industrialized and wealthier countries. Its direction is therefore specific: from east to west, and from south to north.
In Germany as a whole, and in Berlin in particular, the largest groups of migrants come from Turkey and Poland. How does the situation of the so-called ‘guest workers’ from the mid-20th century affect the self-esteem and life chances of their descendants? How does migration, associated with the transition period and then the eastward expansion of the EU, affect the status of migrants.
Featuring artists Lesia Pcholka and Uladzimir Hramovich, Zofia nierodzińska, Alicja Rogalska and Aykan Safoğlu. the exhibition explores how the experience of migration shapes one’s identity and relationships with others. This includes those who have left their country of birth, those who have chosen to stay, and those who have been left behind. By focusing on human relationships and connections, the exhibition does not aim to compare the often very different and personal migration stories that have inspired the artists’ work. Rather, it is about relating how migration experiences structure not only the material, but also the emotional aspects of life in different ways.
Aykan Safoğlu’s work Wiedervereinigung (2022) shows the image of Muzaffer Ertoran’s 1973 workers’ memorial as a large-scale, dissolving puzzle. The monument was intended to commemorate the emigration of millions of migrant workers from Turkey. However, in the years that followed, it was frequently vandalised and the victim of right-wing violence until it was completely demolished in 2016. As a student at the German school abroad, İstanbul Erkek Lisesi, the artist encountered this monument in Tophane Park every day in the 1990s. In Aunt Yellow (2021), the artist looks back on his aunt Zerrin, who moved to West Germany and whom Safoğlu often visited as a teenager. In his essay, Safoğlu describes this unusual seamstress, who could not vote without a German passport. However, she did not let herself be deprived of lending elegance and joie de vivre to the appearance of the people she sewed for.
The film Broniów Song from 2011 is about a contemporary folk song written by Alicja Rogalska together with a local folk music group, the Broniowianki. The rural region of southern Mazovia is known for its rich folk music tradition. The region is also characterized by high unemployment, whereby the words of the song reflect on the worries, hardships and hopes of the villagers, who are exposed to economic crises and social upheaval. Rogalska’s second work Monument to Precarious Workers (2015) shows a public performance involving five workers standing absolutely still in the same work-related poses for several hours. Shot in a spa town popular with tourists, the work refers to precarious work conditions in the hospitality, entertainment and retail business.
The work By Law (2022-24) by Lesia Pcholka and Uladzimir Hramovich symbolizes the difficulties they faced when they had to flee their home country of Belarus for political reasons and wanted to legalise their relationship. Flower petals from the places where they had previously tried unsuccessfully to marry, became symbols of their life as a couple, searching how to find a new family structure.
In her paintings, artist Zofia nierodzińska refers to the story of her father, who emigrated from Poland to the USA. By analysing migration based on family memories and social structures, she presents the phenomenon of emigration as a trans-local network. She researches the art of post-socialist countries and sees her position as a second-generation migrant in the (former) West as crucial to understanding and critically analysing contemporary societies.
The project is supported by the Foundation for German-Polish Cooperation. In cooperation with Deutsch-Polnisches Haus, Prater Galerie and the Belarusian Community RAZAM e.V.
Accompanying program
23.11.2024
3 pm Artist Tour with Lesia Pcholka & Uladzimir Hramovich, Zofia nierodzińska, Alicja Rogalska and Aykan Safoğlu
6 pm PASKUDNIK Performance by Tubi Malcharzik
6:30 pm Blurring Binaries. Silesian Migrant Condition, Fluid Identity and Politics of Shame a discussion with Tubi Malcharzik (they/them / performer and dramaturge), Julia Nitschke (performer and author) and Alina Strzempa (Slavic linguist and cultural scientist), moderated by Paweł Świerczek (dramaturg, performer, producer and (neuro)queer activist).
07.12.2024
6 pm Wedding Party . Pcholka & Hramovich with a performance and music by DJ Dosaaf (Gleb Kovalski)
18.01.2025
3 pm Curator’s Tour with Zofia nierodzińska and finissage of the exhibition