Events
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5.7.2018 | Akademie der Künste (Hanseatenweg), Berlin

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

Performance

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."

In support of equal access to art academies for those who have migrated or fled to Germany, the *foundationClass tries to create a social space where everyone’s resources are acknowledged and validated and where new formats of skill sharing and knowledge transfer can be developed. Ultimately, the *foundationClass wants to question the norms, conventions, and habitus of art institutions and the industry as a whole. The *foundationClass is located at weißensee academy of art berlin.

*foundationClass members

  • Anwar Alatrash
  • Batoul Sedawi
  • Cam-Anh Luong
  • Dachil Sado
  • Diwali Hasskan
  • Eva Karduck
  • Fadi Aljabour
  • Hatef Soltani
  • Katharina Kersten
  • Mayada Alkayal
  • Miriam Schickler
  • Mohamad Halbouni
  • Ramin Parvin
  • Reem Awad
  • Ulf Aminde