Interview with Hajra Haider
Berlin Art Week 2015
Hajra Haider is a curator, writer and a core team member of the Tentative Collective. Her focus lies in generating experimental and educational occasions for alternate discourses in contemporary art practice navigating socio political and cultural structures embedded in the transitory urban landscape. She has curated shows in galleries and museums nationally and internationally and has worked as the curator of IVS Gallery, Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. She has and is working in collaboration with German artists and galleries. She is based in Karachi, Pakistan.
The Berlin Art Week took place for the fourth time from 15th to 20th September 2015.Its a platform bringing together artists, galleries and institutions in a unique cutting edge setting. Berlin possesses both a national and international attraction as a venue where art is produced, group and individual positions are presented as well as spectacular exhibitions leaving their mark on the face of the city. Contemporary art has always played an important role in Berlin. The favorable conditions for art production and the potential that Berlin offers with its museums, collections, galleries, and project spaces are highly attractive for art lovers.
It’s a global platform for curators, art journalists, gallery owners, professors, artists, cultural people and people related to arts.
22 people were selected by the German Foreign office for the visitor´s program from all over the world and were sent to the Berlin Art Week. Hajra Haider was nominated from Pakistan-South Asia region and shares her experience of diversity, exploration and art in Berlin.
Hajra Haider is a curator, writer and a core team member of the Tentative Collective. Her focus lies in generating experimental and educational occasions for alternate discourses in contemporary art practice navigating socio political and cultural structures embedded in the transitory urban landscape. She has curated shows in galleries and museums nationally and internationally and has worked as the curator of IVS Gallery, Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. She has and is working in collaboration with German artists and galleries. She is based in Karachi, Pakistan.
We asked about her experience at Berlin Art Week.
Hajra:
Berlin is a hub of cultural diversity and home to creative practices spanning across all forms of art. A large percentage of the population is migrants, even Germans who have relocated from other cities in Germany. As we were told 2% of the inhabitants of Berlin belong to the creative field, which makes it buzz with creative energy. Especially at the time of the Berlin Art Week, one really has to priorities the exhibitions and talk forums to visit, as the number of events taking place is impossible to cover.
My experience started from the hotel, where I met the other participants of the visitors program. Art professionals from 21 countries around the world initiated a global exchange. There was so much diversity and energy within the group that even if we did not visit any of the exhibits there was enough to occupy us via sharing and learning about each other’s practices.
Experiencing the art week together in such a group made it all the more stimulating and enthralling, as each visit ended up in an engaging and thoughtful discussion. The program was quite selective covering a diverse range of exhibitions and talk forums, giving us a glimpse and idea of the different kind of institutional formats functioning in Berlin, which included state supported institutions, museums, project spaces, artists’ studios, residencies models, gallery models; the entire range and giving us an insight into the art network. The state support for the art and culture is commendable.
Within a really short time span the program provided us with an overview of the Berlin Art Scene. There is a lot left to be explored still but it has left us with a basic understanding of the structures and a few connections to build upon.
We asked Hajra about the Perception of Pakistani Art in Germany, to which she replied:
Art from Pakistan has been regularly featured in Germany, more so in the past few years. Bani Abidi represented Pakistan in Documenta which is one of the most prestigious art events in the world, held in Kassel, Germany. Imran Qureshi, from Lahore, Pakistan received the Deutsche Bank’s highly esteemed award of the ‘Artist of the year’. This was followed by a grand solo exhibition by the artist at the Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle. Five artists from Pakistan were part of the main exhibition at the Berlin Biennale 2014.
These are just a few examples of the representation of art from Pakistan in Germany, which received accolades and were highly acclaimed. With an active and regular presence, art from Pakistan has made a mark in Germany.
The international and dynamic nature of Berlin is conducive for artists in providing numerous avenues and opportunities for collaborations and exhibitions.
We further asked her, what are the possibilities of collaboration in Germany?
Hajra:
I feel that the possibilities are endless; they just need to be explored. Both artists and institutions from Germany and Pakistan are eager and willing to collaborate and venture into exploring connections between the two countries, which have connected us in the past (directly or indirectly) and connect us now.
The varied institutional models in Berlin serve as an example and inspiration for the budding art scene in Pakistan. With the interest of the institutions and support of the Goethe Institute and the German mission I see quite a few opportunities of productive collaborations coming up in the future.
She also gave us some highlights of the Berlin Art Week:
The Berlin Art Week’s highlights included besides the art fairs abc art berlin contemporary and Positions Berlin, also the exhibitions of the joint project STADT/BILD (Image of a City) at Berlinische Galerie, Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Neue Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and exhibitions of works by Cindy Sherman, Paul McCarthy, Alicja Kwade and the Archive René Block. The programme also featured several individual projects and performances, as well as artist conversations and forums, like the panel discussions of Talking Galleries hosted by Chris Dercon and Chus Martínez.
The number of international guests and collectors to the city in particular increased this year, enjoying the temporary collaboration of galleries and project spaces, museums and art fairs as well as numerous individual events. An average of five different exhibitions and events were visited by each participant.
Also, the best show that she enjoyed was ´Redemption Jokes` at NGBK, Berlin.
nGbk according to her is an inspirational space. It is one of the largest art societies which has a unique structure allowing anyone interested to become a member and enables them to participate in the decision making processes of the exhibitions, publications and research projects hosted by the society. The program for the year is determined through a discussion and collective voting process by its members. Each project is a team effort, developed in an interdisciplinary project group usually a group of five individuals, some of whom are selected by the society. nGbk is a rare model, which constantly revises and innovates new modes of collaboration and collective participation.
Redemption Jokes
It was about investigating the relationship between humour and criticism. It depicted explicitly critical strategies of humour, their aesthetic grammars and artistic realizations. In collaboration with the cultural producers, artists, activists and visitors, tactics of joyful resistance, strategies of (self-) ironic ripostes and ecstatic failure are experienced and reinterpreted. Unreadability and ambiguity are arguments against manipulation and for a production of non-knowledge. The project seeks to explore the connection between humour and critique as a cultural practice, as an anti-disciplinary model of knowledge production.
Visit of Tomás Saraceno Studio
Visiting Saraceno`s studio was one of the highlights of the program. Studio is too humble a word for this three story building which functions like an art laboratory where multiple ideas are in incubation at different stages and experts from various disciplines work towards a common goal. Saraceno is an institution in himself. His oeuvre could be seen as an ongoing research, informed by the worlds of art, architecture, natural sciences and engineering; his floating sculptures and interactive installations propose and explore new, sustainable ways of inhabiting and sensing the environment towards an aerosolar becoming.
Nearing the close of our visit to Tomás Saraceno’s studio, he offered an apt metaphor that summed up the working environment of his office. For the past couple of years, Saraceno and his team have been producing a series of spider web works that consider the geometry and mastery of arachnid built-environments. They had allocated a special area of their studio to the spiders, who would work tirelessly to build their webs. Saraceno aimed to re-create these structures, replicating nature through intricate 3D scans, and including a bio-acoustic sound element to the final installation. The spiders, Saraceno remarked, were as proficient as a team that it was difficult to tell who was organizing whom. He likened the process to the way his own studio functions: each member of the team has an indispensable job for which they are responsible, and which ensures the full-functioning of the team as a whole.
Nationalgalerie Museum
The Nationalgalerie contains a veritable cosmos of art that spans from 1800 to recent works fresh from the studio. Whoever steps foot into its exhibitions simultaneously becomes more intimately acquainted with the city, for its works are housed and displayed at a variety of sites and in a variety of architectural landmarks spread across the city of Berlin.
There was this project involving ice blocks to make models, the whole idea behind it was that the work was never the same every minute, since it starts melting, then they rebuilt. This show was for 2-3 days and was a massive project. It changes the perceptions for other institutions of these new possibilities. The whole idea of museum and collections and exhibitions of preserving and restoring, keeping things intact, it challenges all of those notions.
Berlin is not only Germany’s most important centre for galleries and art production, it also continues to convince with its innovation and creativity. Berlin Art Week attracts an international audience and collectors, art dealers, and buyers to the city. With more than 2,600 active companies within the Berlin art world generating a turnover of 700 million Euros, the art market has become an important economic factor: and this trend will strengthen in future. Berlin Art Week reflects the city’s great variety as an art centre. Top-notch excellence and underground meet at eye level. The fourth Berlin Art Week ended as a huge success: 100,000 guests visited the exhibitions across the country and other countries, the prize award ceremonies, and happenings, viewings of private collections, gallery openings and project spaces.