In German grammar, the article determines the gender, number, and case of a noun. The dictionary says “das Wissen” (knowledge) can only be used in the singular and with a neuter article, implying the idea of a neutral canon. A canon that differentiates between right and wrong. Something to be assimilated, memorized, and then reproduced when needed. People with multiple belongings, longings, and varied horizons of experience know more than that; they embody and live their knowledges (die Wissen) of different situations and environments. They inhabit multiple selves and can feel through them simultaneously as a result of having had to continuously learn how knowledge is bound to place, situation, and context. Their lived experience tells them that what is right and wrong cannot be answered in the same way everywhere, with every person, and in every moment. Knowledges manifest physically. They are inscribed, sometimes reconciling and sometimes antagonistically, but always present.

The show die Wissen is the second part of the TAXISPALAIS trilogy on togetherness tackling the overarching question of how we can discuss and practice discourses of multiple belongings more adequately in Western Europe. 

Curated by Setareh Shahbazi and Nina Tabassomi

Redeem رديم acts upon a collaborative desire to amplify and deepen an already existing exchange between cultural workers who lived and worked in Lebanon before the country spiraled into its current economic and political void. Many of these conversations have already come a long way. redeem رديم aims to build a support structure through which they can be widely heard and inspired by each other. To that end, it supplies both runway and refuge for artistic positions via workshops, podcasts and a series of events. 

A conversation through sounds and voices – with contributions by Ray Kaczynski with musicians André Bartetzki, Hendrik Krüger and writer Anja Tuckerman & Dalia Neis (FITH/Dali Muru & the Polyphonic Swarm) with Eleni Poulou (Nohe Noshe, The Fall, Bomb Sniffing Dogs) and Andreas Rheise (Kreidler) – Moderated by Antonia Alampi

#1 Sharp Bodies - Blunt Minds, with Yalda Younes (dancer and choreographer): conversation of 4 feet and metal objects
#2 Resilience, An ornamental exchange with painter Ann-Kristin Hamm
#3 I Scream, You Scream, a lockdown collaboration with Saadi

Looking at the characteristics of the Trickster – a mythological figure, appearing in varying personifications in tales from around the world – we explore how these apply to the needs, requirements and social ecologies of our constantly shifting contemporary contexts.

Invited lecturers:
Nida Ghouse, writer and curator (Berlin/Mumbai), Franziska Pierwoss, artist and researcher (Berlin) and Haytham El-Wardany, writer and translator (Berlin/Cairo)

The workshop focused on the formation of the “I” in writing. To preserve the unity of the first person, writing relies on genres and conventions—fiction, poetry, and the essay all inhabit a particular and relatively well defined “I”.  Translation, on the other hand, unsettles the authorial “I”. It involves collaboration: the translator becomes author and the author translator.

Whether with words or images, the work of Mirene Arsanios, Alex Cuff, Setareh Shahbazi and Sam Wilder engages translation as a means of introducing foreignness within the self, rather than translating otherness to others.

Mirene Arsanios and Setareh Shahbazi continued a conversation that began on their neighboring balconies in Beirut. The thoughts ranged from practical questions to the unexpected and imaginary: What can be said about gravity, bones, parents and chinese dumplings?

Using the self-portrait in its wide-ranging meaning as a tool for communication, we worked on the tricky relationship between socio-political responsibilty and the personal, emotional and aestetic process that creative production requires.

I am glad that things have changed. All efforts toward ridding oneself of the historical past and acquiring new family members have been rewarded. This new sequencing of verb tenses was the material expression of her private epiphanies. Now photographs were just photographs: a piece of paper that could be pleated replaced and slipped into a pocket.

Mirene Arsanios for Spectral Days