Artistic solidarity at ZK/U Berlin // Magic carpets and the fact finding committee #03
The ZK/U – Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik is excited to introduce the artists and the programme as part of the second year of Magic Carpets – an international cultural platform. The platform connects thirteen art institutions in their concern to empower and support young, upcoming artists and curators in their mobility. The invited artists are working on the theme of artistic solidarity in collaboration with ZK/U Berlin.
Under the direction of Lotta Schäfer, and in cooperation with two partners from the Magic Carpets platform, the Center of Contemporary Art – Tbilisi and Latitudi – Rome, ZK/U Berlin has invited the artists Zura Tsofurashvili and Elena Mazzi to join them in Berlin. In the frame of their residencies they will inquire into the question how artists and cultural workers can strengthen, organize, and enrich solidarity movements with new perspectives. Together with the ZK/U Fact Finding Committee: SolidarityÑ they will investigate how solidary art or artistic solidarity could function, and how this politicization influences conscious actions and claims of validity in the cultural sector.
This week, on the 26th and the 28th of March, two events take place at ZK/U Berlin in which the research results and artistic projects of Zura Tsofurashvili and the Fact Finding Committee will be presented. We warmly invite you to both occasions, and would greatly appreciate any form of media coverage in your network. Detailed information on the events can be found below.
Zura Tsofurashvili (1992 in Tiflis, Georgia) studied at the Theological Academy in Tiflis from 2011 until 2015. After that he continued his studies at the Center of Contemporary Art – Tbilisi. In 2017 he founded the educational platform ‘Parallel Class’ together with a group of other artists, residing in a public school. Since 2018 he is a member of the artist collective ‘InChina’. The focus of Tsofurashvili’s work lies on ideal, virtual and material spaces that function as platforms for the collection, accumulation and exchange of knowledge. The central aspect of his artistic work is the inquiry into and further development of existing educational systems.
Zura Tsofurashvili will exhibit his works during the OPENHAUS on the 28th of March. Elena Mazzi will present her results on the 16th of April, as part the next Fact Find Committee, which concerns itself with the theme of ‘Precarization/Self-exploitation’.
Zura Tsofurashvili and Elena Mazzi’s residencies are part of the Magic Carpets project, and are co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe Programme. The project is directed by the Kaunas Biennale. ZK/U’s Fact Finding Committee project is sponsored by the Berlin Senate for Culture and Europe.
DATES
March 26th, 2019, 7 p.m., Fact Finding Committee #03, ZK/U Berlin
The ZK/U Fact Finding Committee links local discourses to the global practices of its international residents, and thereby helps the international community to identify and categorize Berlin’s shortcomings. For this purpose, ZK/U Berlin has set up a series of temporary committees to research issues of public interest in Berlin’s urban society. The next event by Fact Finding Committee #03 takes place on the 26th of March at 7 p.m. in ZK/U Berlin, and concerns itself with the theme ‘Spaces’. The evening will be conducted by activists of the Reclaim Club Culture alliance. Results will be presented in a final report at the next OPENHAUS PLUS on May 23rd.
Free entry
March 28th, OPENHAUS, 7-10 p.m., ZK/U Berlin
This month’s OPENHAUS will show a range of Berlin- and site-specific works and documentations. A performative lecture as well as artist talks introduce a variety of social contexts. Furthermore, we will attempt to redefine the spatial perception of a museum. Participants in March: Byungseo Yoo, Cesar Cornejo, Pierpaolo Curini, Helen King, Mano Leyrado, Noa Heyne, Zura Tsofurashvili (Magic Carpets).
Programme
7-10.30 p.m.: open studios, installations & food
8 p.m.: guided tour
9 p.m.: presentation by Zura Tsofurashvili
Free entry
Further information
Zura Tsofurashvili: https://www.zku-berlin.org/fellows/471/
Elena Mazzi: https://www.zku-berlin.org/fellows/475/
Magic Carpets: https://www.zku-berlin.org/projects/magic-carpets/
ZK/U Fact Finding Committee:
https://www.zku-berlin.org/projects/zku-untersuchungsausschuss-fact-finding-comitee/
OPENHAUS: https://www.zku-berlin.org/formats/openhaus/