Parallel to their exhibition UKNOWN SPACES at New York's United Nations Headquarters, the Berlin-based artist duo
Janina Janke and
Maurice de Martin give a lecture-performance on the social phenomenon of “worlds inside the world,” exploring how the UN’s head offices in Nairobi, Vienna, and New York relate to their respective host communities.
How does the cultural and geographic location of the UN’s offices influence the work of its staff? What impact does the physical presence of the UN have on the local community? And how do UN staff members describe their everyday work? Drawing on over 70 video-interviews with UN staff and members of the host communities, Janke and de Martin create an informal network of images, spoken words, and sounds that probes the intertwinement of individual microcosms and the organizational macrocosm, of the resident organization and the local community.
Using an interview method in which individuals tell their life stories by laying out a "subjective map" with personal objects surrounding them in their work environment, Janke and de Martin created powerful videos of hand gestures that do not only represent the creative potential of the individual, but also show how a plurality of personal abilities always operates behind the general protocol of a global organization. The project UNKNOWN SPACES investigates how these potentials are incorporated into an institutional structure like the UN. To speak with Spinoza: how can the local individual and the global organization create mutually enriching and sustainable ways to promote the “bright passions”, in others words, the collective abilities of a group that outweigh the sum of its parts (1 + 1 > 2)?
The exhibition UNKNOWN SPACES at New York’s United Nations Headquarters and the lecture-performance at the Goethe-Institut New York are made possible by the generous support of the German Mission to the United Nations, the German Federal Foreign Office, and the Goethe-Institut New York.
UNKOWN SPACES is part of the initiative
andere räume — knowledge through art, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
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