Rennen, Weißensee nach der Fernsehturm

Winner: Lynda Iman Ait Amer Meziane

Finding it a competitive situation to get into even a good student show, me and my gardening collegue Lynda Iman Amir took the stance of selection through Natural Selection, exhibition of the fittest. In the spirit of countryfair exhibitions, we both arranged a small sample presentation of our crop and raced the 5 kilometres to the site. Ironically being number one, I lost and had to take my exhibit back home with me.

Preporation and start of the race.

Racing through Berlin.

Stratagies dont work. Number 2 up the stairs. Number 1 in the elevator, still losing.

Arriving in time for the opening, Lynda recieved full reconition , a certificate and badge.

Losing exhibit breaks down at the entrance to the exhibition.

Ground Force

There’s this TV show called ‘Ground Force’.

Carrying on from the ‘ Woher bekomme ich ein Tonne Erde?’ project, me and another student for the Weißensee Kunsthochschule, Lynda Iman Amer, transformed our studio garden. The transformation experience was somewhat like the TV I used to watch as a kid, ‘Ground force’. The idea of taking a space and transforming it into a place to grow stuff is certainly not an estranged concept to Berlin.

Using all of the Knowledge we gained form people along the way we were ablt to feed our studio for the whole summer. ending in an October Pizza fest from using the Pizza Oven built that summer by another student, Elio.

The bountyfull crop.

 

There’s only one ‘I’ in Winner

It started with a Tri-Solo exhibition.

The project space hosted three solo exhibitions of International artists in the same space at the same time, resulting in the artists having to compete directly for space and exhibition style. With the three of us being very different in style this made for somewhat of a hectic environment. The theme worked superbly however with my Winner series. The idea also sprung from our experience of artist CV’s where the collection of Solo Exhibtions and Group Exhibitons statistics are imperative to professional artistic development.

Tri-Solo Exhibition Views…

Erde?

How to grow a garden knowing nothing.

Ask your neighbours! Using our exhibition space, visable to the neighbourhood I successfully began a studio garden. It all began with a question, using the space to ask folk I don’t know, I could ask advice directly. Using the space as a greenhouse, the locals could watch the progress.

The direct but anonymous contact with the people outside the space was an intresting experience. Similar to anonymously giving people a portrait of themselves.

 

Zu Nutzen

Theres this space in Weissensee.

Theres this space in Weissensee. It stands part of the Art school but Ironically is barely used. The space highlights the professional needs of young artists in Berlin to be seen in the right places. A space with no contacts, no scene is useless. With the amount of property development scandolising Berlin, this space higlights the need to be in the right place at the right time.

Unfortunatly ‘for use’ is not a common sign found outside of property. Could such a shift make people look view the idea of property and space differently?

The Presidents Collection

200 Slogans on 200 T-shirts. The PR of Politions is comical. The distrubing part however is it works.

Slogans give the opportunity to say it all in few words, a summary of the beliefs held by an individual or group, . Sometimes these slogans catch on and are thrown worldwide, giving people to opportunity to wear a t-shirt and show the world thier opinion. People like to let others know their affliations and not least on a t-shirt.

It is also disturbing how often political or subcultural slogans and imagery are riped-off for commercial gain, ‘The Presidents Collections’ could easily be the next big h&m hit.

In this project 200 paper t-shirts were made with slogans from the year 1800 untill present penciled on. This collection makes vast a sea of PR attempts to change the world.

Highlighting the Winning and Losing slogans is important in the race to be the best. Each real size t-shirt bears the winner or loser in its tag. Politics is a game and the rules are someone wins and someone loses.

See more on the project blog here.

Guess Who

6 Secret Portraits, made and exhibited in Mauer Park.

Hidden in boxes of stuff are 6 portraits made and exhibited in secret at Mauer Park Floh Markt, Berlin. These folk are not part of the chic crowd which gathers at the Market each Sunday, looking cool and being seen, but those rummaging religiously each week on the hunt for a good bargain. By exhibiting the drawings I made secretly of these people, within the boxes of stuff, the idea of finding yourself whilst finding a bargain becomes a real  possibility. A portrait is priceless to the portraitee but to others much less. What if you found a ready made portrait of yourself , knowing someone somewhere has studied your every detail but you know not who.

So many abandoned portrait photos float around the stalls of the floh markt, in this event the buyers and sellers are added to the mix. I too let my work go to this sea making a decision to give rather than take.The form of the portrait is important in Mauer park, so many portraits of anonymous people can be found and bought, as a quirky souvenir or to jazz up some hip vintage cafe joint.

Both the stand holder and players were unaware of this project at the time of making.