2018. Public Performance & Artistic Research. Berlin. GER.
#reclaim_the_culture #archive_as_method #leit_kultur (core culture) #culture_as_process #racism #public_discourse #fluidity
CONTEXT: After the so-called “refugee wave” in 2015 there was a big discussion in Germany about german culture and how it should be protected from the cultural influences of refugees. This debate has been framed with the german term Leit_kultur. The Institute for Leit_Kultur tries to depict and show what people really think about their own culture.
The IfLK (Institute for Leitkultur) used its Mobile Archive to collect more than 250 opinions about LEIT_Kultur in the streets of Berlin and Weimar during the first period of the project.
The collected results of the institute were to be used to get involved in the public discussion about LEIT_Kultur and its consequences for integration and disintegration.
The institute was established to interfere with the discussions and the conflicts around LEIT_Kultur and its consequences for refugees. One of the institute‘s first questions is: Who is entitled to define this common culture?
In its own work, the institute pursues a processual understanding of culture as a result of social practice.
The Institute for LEIT_Kultur was created during the 3rd Berlin Autumn Salon, titled DISINTEGRATION. Also as part of the MFA Public Art and New Artistic Strategies of the Bauhaus University Weimar.
Press:
Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung: Ein Seismograph der Ansichten.
Photos: © Jakob Wirth © Rafaela Konstantinou