IKA lecture series: Ten Informants - Acupuncturing Kisangani
Montag, 19. Mai 2014 - 19:00 Uhr
Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien
Since 2008, architect Baerbel Mueller and artist Faustin Linyekula have been collaborating on the conception and and creation of decentralized spaces for art and urban culture dispersed throughout the city of Kisangani, located in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Spatial strategies and physical interventions have been conceptualized, designed, and partially realized for Studios Kabako, Linyekula's renowned dance/theatre studio and long-term initiative that is promoting artistic and cultural activities in Kisangani. What does it mean to produce art and to generate knowledge from a specific territory?Which parameters need to be considered in order to generate responsive spatial strategies or architecture that can sustain (a network of) new social and artistic spaces? And what do these structures need to look like in order to blur the boundaries between the spatial frame, art, and the everyday? The talk illustrates and questions the ongoing process leading up to decisions on how to contextualize, program, and spatially define Studios Kabakos' decentralized hubs.
Baerbel Mueller is an architect and the founder of nav_s baerbel mueller (navigations in the field of architecture and urban research within diverse cultural contexts), which has focused on projects in Ghana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2002. She studied architecture at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences in Germany, and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where she graduated with honours in 2002. She received several scholarships and awards, such as the Tische scholarship and the Margarethe Schütte-Lihotzky project grant. Baerbel Mueller is an assistant professor at the Institute of Architecture (IoA) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and has been professor at the New Design University in Sankt Pölten, Austria from 2013 to 2014. Between 2002 and 2011, she taught at the studio of Wolf Prix, directing student realization projects and interdisciplinary courses. Since October 2011, she has been the head of the IoA lab [applied] Foreign Affairs, which investigates spatial and cultural phenomena in rural and urban sub-Saharan Africa through research-based workshops and field trips.
Dancer and choreographer, Faustin Linyekula lives and works in Kisangani, located in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. After studying literature and drama in Kisangani, he moved to Nairobi in 1993, and set up Kenya's first contemporary dance company, the Gàara Company, in 1997 with Opiyo Okach. Back in the DR Congo, he created a space dedicated to dance and visual theatre in June 2001 in Kinshasa, providing training programmes, as well as supporting research and creation: the Studios Kabako. Memory, forgetting, and the suppression of memory: in his works, Faustin addresses the legacy of decades of war, terror, fear, and the collapse of the economy for himself, his family, and his friends. Faustin has created twelve pieces with the Studios Kabako. Recent pieces includes his first Solo Le Cargo (2011) and Drums and Digging (2013). Other collaborations include the staging of Racine's Bérénice for the Comédie française (2009), Sans-titre, a duet with Raimund Hoghe (2009) and La Création du Monde 1923-2012 for the Ballet de Lorraine in Nancy (2012).In 2007, Faustin received the Principal Award of the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development. He is an associate artist to the KVS Theater in Brussels and is a founding member of the Akademie der Kunste der Welt in Cologne. Since 2007, Studio Kabako's activities have resettled in Kisangani, and have extended to other artistic fields, including music and cinema/video.
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Zehn Informanten - Der andere Blick auf Ökologie, Nachhaltigkeit, Kulturelles Erbe
Das Zusammenspiel von Ökologie, Nachhaltigkeit und Kulturellem Erbe (ESC) beschreibt ein unserer Baukultur übergeordnetes Bezugssystem. Während die Ökologie die Gesamtheit der Wechselbeziehungen zwischen den Lebewesen untereinander und zu ihrer (auch gebauten) Umwelt umfasst, garantieren Nachhaltigkeit und Kulturelles Erbe die kontinuierliche Entwicklung unterschiedlichster (dynamischer) Wertesysteme. So beschreiben die Themen der Plattform ESC des IKA auch die Koordinaten des architektonischen Entwurfs und die Genealogie des Designs.
Die Vortragsreihe 2013/2014 des IKA versucht, die Potentiale dieser Begriffe in Bezug auf die Architektur, ihre Produktionsbedingungen und möglichen sozio-kulturellen Wirkungskreise von der spezifischen Position des Architekturinstituts einer Kunstakademie her auszuloten. Dazu gehört einerseits eine kritische Hinterfragung der oft einseitig technologischen (Ökologie/Nachhaltigkeit) oder konservierenden (Kulturelles Erbe) Auslegung dieser inflationär verwendeten Begriffe ebenso wie der Versuch ihrer Neupositionierung im Architekturdiskurs.
Zehn Informantinnen und Informanten aus unterschiedlichsten Disziplinen (z.B. Wissenschafts- und Ökologiegeschichte, Synthetische Biologie, Bildende Kunst, Ökologischem Urbanismus, aber auch Klima-Engineering und Architektur bzw. Landschaftskonstruktion) offerieren einen vertieften, einen anderen Blick auf die scheinbar bekannten Thematiken und ubiquitären Begriffe. In der Diversität der dargelegten Positionen spiegelt sich die Komplexität des zur Diskussion stehenden Themenfeldes. Es sollen Fragen provoziert werden, ob, wie und warum die vorgestellten Sicht- und Verfahrensweisen in eine vielschichtig reflektierende architektonische Praxis übersetzt werden können oder sollen - in Richtung einer Architektur, die ihr komplexes Verhältnis zur Natur wie zur konstruierten Umwelt und ihre nicht-statische Position in der (Zeit-)Geschichte zu spiegeln vermag. (Hannes Stiefel)
03/03/14 Franz Oswald
24/03/14 Rachel Armstrong
28/04/14 Mark Smout / Laura Allen
19/05/14 Baerbel Mueller & Faustin Linyekula
02/06/14 Hannes Stiefel