Dialogue Series: In Transit
Autumn 2020 – Spring 2021
ANCB, in collaboration with the ZEIT-Stiftung, invites protagonists from literature, sociology, arts and civil society for a conversation, a reading or a performance about land and territory, the concepts of ownership and translocation, protection and borders. Some participants will also share their personal experience with exile, transit, inclusion and exclusion, longing and belonging, adding a special voice to these global, challenging and pressing themes.
This series is part of ANCB's long-term programme Borders and Territories: Identity in Place, discussing the spatial consequences of geopolitical, socio-cultural, economic and ecological aspects of home, displacement, migration and identity in a transdisciplinary dialogue. It also represents a continuation of the project Transit Spaces in collaboration with the ZEIT-Stiftung.
DIALOGUES
Tuesday, 3 November 2020
#1 Gazmend Kapllani, Writer and Journalist, Chicago
The Albanian-born author and scholar reads excerpts from his bestselling novel A Short Border Handbook and talks about his experience with borders and what 'home' means for him.
In addition, Antonis Antoniadis reads from the German version of Gazmend Kapllani's book, with the German title Unentbehrliches Handbuch zum Umgang mit Grenzen, published this year by Edition Converso.
Tuesday, 17 November 2020
#2 Tanja Maljartschuk, Writer and Winner of the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis 2018, Vienna (in German)
Ukrainian-born and Vienna-based author Tanja Maljartschuk reads excerpts from her work and talks about life in the in-between. Tanja Maljartschuk was born in Ivano-Frankivsk in Ukraine and studied Ukrainian Philology at the Prykarpattia National University before working as a television journalist in Kiev for several years. Since 2011, she has been living in Austria. Her most recent publication in German is the novel Blauwal der Erinnerung (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2019). While the original texts were written in Ukrainian, Tanja Maljartschuk will read from the German translation, followed by statements on the following questions: What does home mean to you? Can you also feel that you have arrived in the 'in-between'? You looked for Ukrainian traces abroad - what did you find and how did these traces overcome borders?
Tuesday, 1 December 2020
#3 Joar Nango, Artist and Architect, Tromsø in conversation with Axel Wieder, Director of Bergen Kunsthall
Norwegian-Sámi artist and architect Joar Nango talks with Axel Wieder about indigenous identity and decolonialisation, movements across borders and creating places with possibilities for improvisation. The dialogue is tying in with the Festival Exhibition 2020 that presented Joar Nango at Bergen Kunsthall to great media acclaim. For the first time, a Sámi artist was selected for this prestigious annual exhibition of Norwegian artists. The Sámi are an indigenous people of Europe – a concept, Europeans tend to associate solely with their collective colonial legacy on other continents. Initially trained as an architect, Nango investigates traditions and experiences from his cultural background in Northern Norway, characterised by flexibility, pragmatism and adaptation to nature. His artistic practice explores the boundaries between design, architecture, philosophy and visual arts, with an emphasis on indigenous identity, climate issues and marginalisation of ethnic groups. Current projects include a large-scale commission for the opening of the new National Museum in Oslo and a collaboration with ArkDes in Stockholm.
Tuesday, 15 December 2020
#4 Screening of the feature film Giraffe (2019) with an introduction by director Anna Sofie Hartmann and a word of welcome by HE Susanne Hyldelund, Danish Ambassador to Germany.
The film screening (streaming available until 16 Dec. 2020) is accompanied by an interview with Anna Sofie Hartmann. The filmmaker talks about the dialectic between construction and destruction in Giraffe, the non-hierarchical relationship between centre and periphery in its narrative and how spaces inspire her films. A word of welcome by the Danish Ambassador to Germany, HE Susanne Hyldelund, marks the close of the Danish-German cultural friendship year 2020 commemorating the centenary of the referendum in the German-Danish border region and thus the democratic and permanent resolution of the border issue between the two countries.
Tuesday, 12 January 2021
#5 Tine Luk Meganck, Assistant Professor at the Vrij Universiteit Brussel, in conversation with Benjamin Tallis, Policy Officer for Civilian Crisis Management, The European Centre of Excellence for Civilian Crisis Management (CoE), Berlin
In three dialogues within the In Transit series, Benjamin Tallis and his guests will look at how spaces of connectivity and community have been imagined, constructed and governed – and how they are being contested. Tine Luk Meganck and Benjamin Tallis will take the work of 16th century Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder as a starting point to discuss new approaches to understanding connectivity through cultural, material and visual politics and the connection between people and 'their' places – as well as who is being seen as out of place there. The conversation will provide new insights into the ways that landscapes have connected peoples and joined places together as spaces of governance.
Tuesday, 26 January 2021
#6 Philip Gumuchdjian, Director Gumuchdjian Architects, London in conversation with Benjamin Tallis, Policy Officer for Civilian Crisis Management, The European Centre of Excellence for Civilian Crisis Management (CoE), Berlin.
In three dialogues within the In Transit series, Benjamin Tallis and his guests look at the connection between people and 'their' places and how it affects our sense of belonging and community in terms of inclusion and exclusion. In the second of these dialogues, architect Philip Gumuchdjian and Benjamin Tallis will talk about home as a place where people are appreciated, the resurgence of the local in pandemic times and architecture’s responsibility to facilitate community and a more bespoke utilisation of public space by creating platforms of possibilities that engage the passer-by.
Tuesday, 9 February 2021
#7 Karoline Postel-Vinay, Director of Research, Sciences Po, Paris in conversation with Benjamin Tallis, Policy Officer for Civilian Crisis Management, The European Centre of Excellence for Civilian Crisis Management (CoE), Berlin
In three dialogues within the In Transit series, Benjamin Tallis and his guests look at the connection between people and 'their' places and how it affects our sense of belonging and community in terms of inclusion and exclusion. In this third edition, Postel-Vinay and Tallis discuss home as a quest and a privilege, the contestation of public space from the edgelands and the left-behinds, and the possibilities of reshaping narratives to reinvent the city and rediscover the local in times of Covid-19.
Tuesday, 2 March 2021
#8 Marie von Manteuffel, Humanitarian Advocacy Officer, Médecins Sans Frontières Germany, Berlin
Marie von Manteuffel talks with Dunya Bouchi from ANCB about MSF's work with refugees on the EU borders, in particular in the camps on the Greek islands, and the challenge to generate the political will to improve the plight of the refugees, but also about the strength, resilience and creativity they display amidst the devastation.
Photos shown in the video © MSF, Dora Vangi, Valeska Cordier, H.W. Wallace
In collaboration with:ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, Hamburg
Supported by:
Austrian Cultural Forum Berlin
Norwegian Embassy, Berlin
Danish Embassy, Berlin
