Hangar X
Reclaim public space at Tempelhof Airport
In spring/summer 2021, Berlin-based curators Arantxa Ciafrino and Max Weiland are planning a group exhibition titled "Was sonst so los ist" (engl.: “What else is going on”). The exhibition will bring together artistic voices that reflect and represent realities in times of crisis.
The history of our world is marked by crisis situations. It can be in a larger context, such as the world economic crisis in the 1920s on an international level, or the national crisis in Brazil, triggered by the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 and the subsequent threats that this episode represents in a democratic system. With the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, a large part of the world was faced with a border-crossing crisis, which had not occurred for decades.
News channels play a particularly important role in times of crisis. We assume that they will inform us objectively and holistically about important content. Through the bias within reporting, they also influence what we consider "important" and "worthy of recognition". The fact that they act based on financial and political interests seems to go down particularly well in times of need and we seem to forget that we cannot rely exclusively on their statements.
The exhibition derives its name from a show created by Die Tagesschau - Germany’s biggest news outlet. During the peak of the pandemic the channel created a format for social media called “Was sonst so los ist” (What else is going on), intended to highlight world issues and explain them in one sentence. We find the thought of distilling such complex issues into a single sentence to be evasive and silencing to those already underrepresented in the Media. Solidarity of Europe begins with highlighting the experiences of all of its people. Our goal is to be an example of how to better create dialogue regarding these issues.
For this group exhibition, we would like to give international multimedia artists the opportunity to present a piece that deals with critical moments in history that have affected people’s lives, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. The aim is to make visible underrepresented realities that get overshadowed during times of crisis. The aim of the exhibition is to use art to gain a new and individual insight into a topic, to expand our knowledge of events or perhaps even to revise false knowledge. It is our intention as curators to foster artists that present to the public realities not commonly seen or contemplated by the biggest and most important media and informative channels. Through this exhibition, we intend to encourage other artists, curators, art spaces and institutions to reflect and support actions within the art field to be aware and actively respond to a history of oppression and silencing of certain groups of society.
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