By further experimenting with new extreme spaces, an exhibition took place inside the catacombs of half-abandoned premises of the former GDR, East Berlin. Here the place is the organizing principle of the exhibition display. Vandaloop collective interacted with the historical building highlighting, thus, the issues of the local community, i.e. the demolition of such buildings in the whole alternative district to build luxury apartments and commercial malls instead.
Taking inspiration from prehistoric rituals in caves, this exhibition connected myth and contemporary culture. Poetics and mysticism in caves – a disorientating feeling, but also condition for the process of self-questioning and revealing of an “answer” ultimately through the encounter with the “oracle” – was echoed in a contemporary environment. We thus invited the visitor to immerse into an ongoing process of becoming, transferred in today’s context so as to meet their contemporary oracle.
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This section of the exhibition deals with the imaginative nature of the creative potential of changing and reconstruction of such a building. Sentences in neon big letters: ‘MEGASTRUCTURES—– the deepest. the longest. the bombastiest. the tastiest.’ are installed on the fassade of the building, expanding thus the architectural and symbolic boundaries of both former GDR building and city.
text-light installation on the walls inside the catacombs / Photo credits : Evgenia Giannopoulou
Most intensive adjectives exclusively describing the future construction allure the viewers to decontextualize or (re)-contextualize their meaning. The idea of this section is to explore the way we all embody these words and not only read them, imagining the future Megastructures. The contrast of an old building ready to collapse and the promising words for the future based on the remains of such a building is conceived as an eccentric, sarcastic and provocative/funny way to re-interpret the futuristic perspective of the ironic history itself as well as today’s tendency to demolish or renovate those buildings. It merges utopian alternatives to create a humorous critique of the discrete histories with functions of public art, exploring how to challenge
capitalism through the radical potential of play as a form of protest and an expression of freedom.
view of audio-visual installation of the ‘aquarium’, inside the catacombs
The opening was accompanied by
Reverse Mode and friends experimenting in the garden of the oracle
Maroulita de Kol, Penelope Gkika, Adam Goodwin, Rieko Okuda, Antti Virtaranta
Work in progress :
trash bags, inside the catacombs
Out of the blue – by Vandaloop collective
photo credits: Vandaloop collective