Navigating Collective Landscapes

Seminar / 2024–2025 / HfK Bremen

A seminar co-led with Ximena Gutiérrez Toro at the University of the Arts Bremen, exploring collaboration with self-organized migrant community art spaces between Berlin and Bremen.

The transition from individuality to collectivity is an integral part of artistic practice. This process leads to the formation of new landscapes that blur the boundaries between individual arts and fields of knowledge. We collaborate and take on multiple roles — from artist to researcher, from curator to activist — navigating through collective landscapes.

Collectivity involves different methods of sharing and ways of co-making. Such co-making adapts to changing contexts and leaves space for collaborative experimentation. This is how collective spaces emerge, creating an environment for participatory thinking and transformations.

The seminar was organised as a series of site visits and discussions with self-organised art spaces powered by migrants and local communities:

• Frauen machen Druck (Berlin)
• Nachbarschaft Moabit (Berlin)
• Circa 106 (Bremen)
• Kultur im Bunker (Bremen)

Guided by the principles of collaborative knowledge, we examined diverse artistic landscapes through the lens of decolonial and feminist approaches. Informed by the critical literature of Adrienne Mareen Brown, Katja García-Antón, and Helmut Draxler, we analysed collectivity both locally and globally. The seminar emphasised non-hierarchical dialogue, collective experimentation, and the practice of building partnerships between artistic practices and community frameworks.

Timetable: 
Bremen
26 Oct 2024 — Day 1: Sewing Theory, Bremen
27 Oct 2024 — Day 2: Visiting spaces in Bremen
Berlin
9 Nov 2024 — Day 3: Visiting spaces in Berlin
10 Nov 2024 — Day 4: Back to our collective fabric