Building Peripheries

Research/ network - artistic residency

‘Building Peripheries’ is an artistic and structural research project that reacts to the necessity of dismantling the profoundly colonial structures within the discourses of the (performing) arts between Germany and the context of Eastern, Central Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Reclaiming the concept of the ‘Periphery’, the project wants to question existing concepts of ‘East’ and ‘West’ and to imagine new forms of sustainable transcultural practices.

Especially in the course of Russia’s ongoing brutal war against the Ukrainian nation, we – as a group of Polish, German, and Ukrainian artists and culture makers – see the need to support our Ukrainian colleagues and also to think about structures that make a lasting contribution to transcultural cooperation between German and Eastern European artists. We see not only a lack of places, initiatives, and structures within the performing arts that are dedicated to art and culture from and with Eastern, Central Eastern, and Southeastern Europe in Germany; the lack of cultural and sustainable artistic exchange is, in our understanding, also one of the symptoms of German and Western hegemony, towards the so-called ‘post-soviet states’.

During the residency at Libken e.V., an artspace in the rural countryside northeast of Berlin located in an former socialist ‘Plattenbau’, we will exchange views on possible practices, networks, and platforms in an open group research process. What opportunities are there for Eastern European artists in Germany and vice versa? How can we create stronger and more sustainable transcultural artistic practices? Which concrete structures and networks can support these processes?

In addition to mapping existing structures, ‘Building Peripheries’ is thus also a platform for the exchange of experiences and – also speculative – artistic practices. Aiming at reaching beyond existing networks and models of cooperation between Germany and the countries of Eastern and Central Eastern Europe, we would like to open a utopian space for the development of sustainable structures, transcultural networks, and practices between Germany and artists and institutions in Eastern and Central Eastern Europe.

Project by: Jan-Tage Kühling, Philipp Goll, Paulina Miu Kühling, Agnieszka Róż, Tereza Yakovyna, Ola Zielińska

Funded by Fonds Darstellende Künste in the frame of #takeheart/ Neustart Kultur

Supportet by Libken e.V.

                                                                                                                     Photos by Tereza Yakovyna