Workshop | becoming neighbours
Neighbouring: Bodies, Spaces, Practices and Other Ways of Being
Visual: Luis Kürschner
What are the foundations on which a neighbourhood can be a place where we all see ourselves? As part of his programme becoming neighbours, the Gropius Bau’s Neighbour in Residence hn. lyonga is hosting a first workshop. It is an open exchange and an active per-formative approach to reclaiming and opening up a space to the absent – and questioning how the permeability of institutional spaces can be made visible.
Bridging the gap between literal neighbouring and the relationship between neighbourhoods as a metaphor, the activities of this collective intervention explores how our encounters are actively structured and produced by our everyday ways of relating.
With Sonja Hohenbild, Pauline Jeya Subha, Charlotte Müller, Markus Posse and Michael Westrich
Sonja Hohenbild is a white interdisciplinary cultural worker. She studied Visual Arts at HBK Braunschweig and UdK Berlin and Communication for Development at Malmö University. For more than two decades, her work has been focused on coloniality and its roots, shaping our societies of today: from philosophy, memory culture and the arts to everyday racism. As part of different groups and in different roles, she tries to approach the representation of what is not to be reproduced: the survey, the foreign designation, the colonial monuments.
Pauline Jeya Subha J S is a Tamil-rooted millennial studying in Potsdam, drawing inspiration from the 6th-century Tamil poet’s quote, “yaadhum oore yaavarum kelir” (All the places on earth are our town). Her life shaped by constant movement under globalisation fuels her search for belonging and exploration of immigrant stories. Rooted in her Tamil heritage, she challenges preconceptions, sparking conversations on identity, culture, and the transformative impacts of colonial capitalism. Residing in a European city, Pauline Jeya Subha J S embraces her Tamil roots to illuminate diverse narratives and provoke reflection on the intricate dynamics of globalisation.
Charlotte Müller was born in Krefeld in 1989 and has lived and worked in Berlin since 2009. After studying Art Education (UdK) and Special Education (HU), she works in the artistic, art education and inclusive education fields. She is expecting her second child in August.
Markus Posse is a performance artist and researcher. After graduating from Performance Studies, he worked as a dramaturg and artistic collaborator at spaces such as Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Theater Dortmund, Mousonturm Frankfurt. Markus Posse is currently finishing his training to become a Dramatherapist. “My work centers around the body as an agent of (micro)violence. I am seeking to develop modes of artistic reflection that enable us to experience and subvert the physical archives within our subconscious. The gestures that really matter – to me – are the ones that we are not yet calling a gesture. This paradox informs my practice. Other than that, I am interested in neurodiversity and the coverage of different kinds of perception within the artistic sector. For this project, I want to find out how divergent ways of perceiving neighborhood can be invited.”
Michael Westrich is a Berlin-based curator with a focus on site-specific projects. He is also working as an ethnographic filmmaker, artistic researcher, lecturer and managing editor. Growing up in the 1980s and 90s in the German border region to the CSSR and Austria, the transformation of political borders and social boundaries shaped his professional path since: he has been working on emerging solidarities, decolonial cosmopolitanisms, and urban transformation. Currently he is the curator at Bauhütte Kreuzberg and member of the Amo-Collective Berlin. Michael Westrich holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of European Ethnology, Humboldt University Berlin.