News Archive

On June 14, 2018 faculty member Marion Detjen took part in the panel “Fußball-WM - Wieviel Patriotismus darf es sein?” organized and broadcast by the German public radio channel WDR5. The panel participants - scholars, researchers and football professionals - discussed nationalism and history in Germany with respect to the 2018 World Cup football matches. 

In her contribution, Detjen focused not only on patriotism in relation to the World Cup, but also on patriotism in general in Germany. She emphasized that the German Willkommenskultur and the recent taking in of over a million refugees are something Germans could be proud of, as much as the German social system, the Mittelstand industry and some other good things that they have been contributing to lately. Nationhood is always constructed, and whether to be proud of it or not depends on the purposes for which it is being constructed, and on the effectiveness and inclusiveness of the construction process. She noted that being proud of Goethe and Bach has, among other things, against it that emigrant writers and artists like Thomas Mann took care of wrenching them from the encroachment by "Germany" once and for all. 

Watch/listen to a recording here 

Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

On June 20, 2018 at 5:00pm BCB’s Professor of Migration Studies Agata Lisiak will give a talk entitled "Poza girl power: dziewczyńskie formy oporu" ["Beyond girl power: forms of girl resistance"] at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. 

Organized by Fundacja Bec Zmiana, Lisiak’s lecture will be part of Dr. Ewa Majewska’s public seminar on feminist counterpublics held at the Faculty of Artes Liberales, University of Warsaw.

Read more about the event

Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

The video & mixed media installation Operation Sunken Sea (The Anti-Control Room) by Egyptian artist and BCB arts instructor Heba Y. Amin was selected for the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, which takes place from June 9 to September 9, 2018 at various venues in Berlin. 

Amin’s project puts forth an alternative geography, that of a supercontinent which merges Africa and Europe and in which the distribution of goods and money happen very differently compared to our contemporary reality.  The project is based on historical European colonial proposals to drain the Mediterranean Sea; the narratives are flipped and proposed from the opposite perspective.

"The project Operation Sunken Sea (The Anti-Control Room) (2018) blurs the lines between history, the present, and the future; between truth, fiction, and megalomania. Amin leaves us with an uneasy feeling of insecurity about the kind of a world we are currently inhabiting—and the world we might wish (or not wish) to inhabit," notes Yvette Mutumba, a member of the Biennale’s curatorial team. 

The following Bard College Berlin students and alumni were involved in the production of the installation:
Studio assistance and concept development: Isabella Lee
Photography Assistance: Matthew Praley
Set crew: Andrea Riba, Arthur Yongebloed

Operation Sunken Sea is on view at the ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics.

More information 
Artforum article

Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

On June 12, 2018 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann gave an interview to the radio station SWR2 on Donald Trump's recent meeting with North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un.

Noting the divisive G7 summit, Vormann commented that Trump took the meeting with Kim as an opportunity to leave a historic mark and to demonstrate his foreign policy skills in light of the upcoming congressional elections. Vormann further asked to what extent is Trump's North Korea strategy a sustainable one, given that his foreign policy agenda lacks an overall vision for the long run. 

Listen to the interview

Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

Guest faculty member and artist April Gertler has recently been awarded the 2018 Project Space and Initiative Prize of the Berlin Senate for the arts project Sonntag, co-founded and co-run with artist Adrian Schiesser. 

Initiated in September 2012, Sonntag is a monthly event which gives “an individual artist a platform to share not only their work, but also their memories and experiences.” The artist exhibits their work in a private apartment, with Gertler and Schiesser preparing each time the artist’s favorite cake. This adds a personal component to the Sunday meetings and creates a connection between the viewers and the artist. Sonntag has worked with 56 artists and besides moving nomadically throughout the city of Berlin, the project has also traveled to 5 other countries. 

The Project Space and Initiative Prize of the Berlin Senate is given annually to 20 project spaces and initiatives run by artists and curators as a reward for their contributions to the Berlin art scene. In 2018 the prize consists of a one time monetary amount of €37,000, which will serve to help Gertler and Schiesser produce a book which will be an overview of the last 6 years of Sonntag. 

Sonntag’s webpage

Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

Bard College Berlin faculty member Marion Detjen published on June 1st, 2018 an article titled "Vielfalt lässt sich nicht kapern" ["Diversity cannot be captured"] in the national weekly newspaper Die Zeit. 

In this article, Detjen gives a condensed historical account of how "diversity" as a value system has been part of the liberal tradition and how it has been interpreted and misinterpreted since the Second World War. She warns of certain abuses of diversity in the attempt to implement and recognize it, and calls for those in power and for the existing power relations to properly acknowledge diversity, pointing to daily life as a good example of putting diversity into practice. 

Link to full piece

Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

Between June 9 and July 9, 2018 Bard College Berlin hosts for the fourth year in a row the Summer Theater Intensive Program, which brings together students from leading North-American theater, music, and arts programs for an immersive month consisting of movement and performance workshops, as well as regular outings to cultural venues in Berlin. 

Led by Jonathan Rosenberg (Artist-in-Residence at Bard College) and Dawn Akemi Saito (performer and Butoh dancer, winner of the Uchimura Prize), the program will welcome this summer new or returning faculty such as Marco Brosolo (sound and visual artist), Eva Burghardt (dancer and choreographer), Julia Hart (theater director), Helgard Haug (Rimini Protokoll), Yuko Kaseki (Butoh dancer), Anna Kohler (performer and director), Henrik Kuhlmann (dramaturge), Ilia Papatheodorou (She She Pop), Gob Squad (arts collective), Aya Soika (BCB arts history faculty), Nina Tecklenburg (Interrobang, Gob Squad, She She Pop), and Christina Wheeler (singer, composer, and sound artist). 

Through the workshops and courses, students will devise and create original theater works and performances, which will be presented at the end of the program. 

Read more: https://berlin.bard.edu/academics/summer-programs/summer-theater-intensive-program/

Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

“RELICS,” the first solo exhibition in Dresden by BCB’s Director of Studio Arts, John von Bergen, opens at the Zentralwerk “Kabinett” Dresden on June 15 and will run through July 15, 2018.  

The starting point of the exhibition is Bergen’s direct interaction with various objects made at or around Zentralwerk (a cluster of former factories and industrial buildings), as well as with the site’s architecture.

As noted in the description, "this exhibition differs from those displays one may come to expect from an archive or a museum, as this is not a survey of objects for historical or educational purpose, nor any celebration of paraphernalia. There is, on the one hand, an interest to explore the potentially ambiguous relationship one may have with artifacts – relationships that may provoke sentiment, curiosity, fetish, or disdain. On the other hand, this unique space, and its uncanny history, becomes the catalyst for absurd intervention."

The result is a "group of site-specific projects that echo their historical transience while energizing the space with yet another, new chapter of production."

The show’s production benefited from the support and help of BCB students Lena Kück (BA 2018), Tiana Marsh (Arts & Society, Spring 2018), Magnus Hendersen (Arts & Society, Spring 2018), Zoe Lambez (BA 2020), Anna Zakelj (BA 2020), and Rafat Alkotaini (BA 2021).

Exhibition opening times:
Opening Reception: Friday, June 15th, from 7pm
Opening Times: Thursday - Sunday from 5 - 8pm, or by appointment: kabinett@zentralwerk.de

Address:
Zentralwerk “Kabinett”, Riesaer Str. 32, 01127 Dresden

Read more here 

Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

On June 15, 2018, BCB faculty and Professor of Migration Studies Agata Lisiak will give a keynote lecture at the University of Surrey.

Titled “A Tale of Two Cities: Notes on Creative Methods in Research on Migrant Mothering”, Lisiak’s lecture will be part of a one-day seminar “Using Creative and Visual Methods in Comparative Research” funded by the International Journal for Social Research Methodology and organized by EuroStudents.

More details about the seminar

Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |