Curatorial Work

Radio Interview, Kompressor Deutschlandfunk mit Massimo Maio, Redaktion Jule Hoffmann
Article Kunst und Krankheit: Fenchel reinigt die Augen in taz. die tageszeitung by Beate Scheder
Interview Ableismus tötet noch immer – über Kunst und das Crip Movement in Reversed Magazine by Mina Schmidt

Linnéa Meiners has been the artistic director of ACUD Galerie from April 2023 until July 2024. ACUD Galerie is the non-commercial exhibition space of ACUD MACHT NEU. Additionally to the own gallery programm, curators and artists are invited to conceive exhibition series and single exhibitions, often in conjunction with performative and discursive formats in the other spaces of the house.

Most of the exhibitions focus on the possibility of new forms of social cooperation and alternative world views in connection to discourses on post-nationalism, decolonisation, post-capitalism, activism, feminism, queerness, embodied practices and multiperspectivity. The exhibition program never stands in isolation, but is accompanied by a participatory framework programm that enhances exchange and discourse.

ACUD Galerie is funded by the Basisförderung der Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt.

Exhibition series with accompanying programme at ACUD Galerie
22 March 2024 until 12 January 2025

“I dwell on hope, because I wish to think about futurity; and hope, I argue, is the emotional modality that permits us to access futurity, par excellence.”
José Esteban Muñoz

In current times shaped by late capitalist crises, pandemics, wars and climate catastrophe overshadow the future. It is challenging not to succumb to these circumstances, constraints and inequalities – let alone imagine progressive, sustainable and socially-equal futures together, hope for them and participate in their materialisation.

Echoing Futures – On practices of radical imagination includes six exhibitions and an accompanying programme. The exhibition series at ACUD Galerie intends to create space for learning, practising, hoping and entering into a trustful dialogue about possible futures – building on contemporary and past realities that cannot be forgotten nor denied. The series aims to meditate on radical imagination as a deeply-rooted and constantly growing vision. In order to imagine new worlds, habituated patterns must be interrupted, possibilities unearthed and experiences shared.

What happens when we unite and engage in radical imagination? Is it possible to accept our differences and to begin a dialogue about possible courses of action and different positions? How can we not solely strive for light and order, but also explore darkness and embrace chaos, disorder and emptiness? How can we share knowledge considerately in virtual space? How can virtual space allow us to remember and communicate with each other as equals? How do we raise our voices and let them swell in order to fight for visibility? What possible worlds accept us as we are? What if healing is no longer a necessity? What if mythological narratives are read and retold again in queer ways?

Installative, visual, virtual, and performative works will be made available in German, English and German sign language. World-building games will let visitors consciously delve into the exhibitions, create their own worlds and playfully explore immersive space.

At ACUD Galerie, a time of educated hope and practised radical imagination will find its beginning. Alternative perspectives will be explored, artistic solutions developed and the participation and collaboration of different voices and experiences welcomed.

Let us imagine radical futures that are not threatening, but offer access to transformation and becoming in solidarity.

Participants
Sophia Bulgakova, Tianzhuo Chen, Magdalena Emmerig, Maja Chiara Faber, Dimitris Gketsis, Julia Grüßing, František Hanousek & Jakub Hájek, hypereikon, Konyl Sir, Chiu Laozh, Jung Min Lee, Lebendige Gebärden, ONEIRIC SPACE, Nnenna Onuoha, Lia Perjovschi, Svetlana Romanova, Sickness Affinity Group, Sondi, Natália Sýkorová, Stanislav Zábrodský and more

Team
Artistic direction: Linnéa Meiners
Curation: Alžběta Čermáková, Gabriela Matuszewska and Linnéa Meiners
Press: Franciska JC Schmitt
Production: Miriam Döring
Exhibition design: Torsten Oetken
Social Media: Gabriela Matuszewska

Artwork by hypereikon

Supported by the multi-sector funding programme of the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion

Chapter 1:
There has to be smth in the room
March 22 – April 28, 2024
Opening: Thur., March 21, 2024, 6 – 10 pm

Chapter 3:
Олоҕум хараҥа суолугар уһуктар мин эрэлим сарсыҥҥы күҥҥэ – On My Life’s Dark Path My Hope for Tomorrow Appears
June 21 – July 21, 2024
Opening: Thur., June 20, 2024, 6 – 10 pm

Chapter 5:
October 18 – November 17, 2024
Opening: Thur., October 17, 2024, 6 – 10 pm

Chapter 2:
Algorithmic Monuments
May 10 – June 9, 2024
Opening: Thur., May 9, 2024, 6 – 10 pm

Chapter 4:
September 6 – October 6, 2024

Opening: Thur., September 5, 2024, 6 – 10 pm

Chapter 6:
November 29, 2024 – January 12, 2025
Opening: Thur., November 28, 2024, 6 – 10 pm

BERLIN BRITZENALE 4

Antje Majewski & Paula Oltmann, Barbara Gamper, Collective Disaster, David Horvitz, Fadi Aljabour, HakkaMoon, Julia Frankenberg, Kim Bode, Lacy Barry, MELT (Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paehr), Silvia Noronha, Xiaopeng Zhou

Urbaner Waldgarten Britz
25.08 – 27.08.2023

Curatorial text by Christof Zwiener and Linnéa Meiners

The BERLIN BRITZENALE has continuously evolved from the microcosm of a single lot in an allotment garden site Morgentau e.V. on Blaschkoallee since 2016. After three multifaceted, site-specific exhibitions, the BERLIN BRITZENALE is taking on the challenge of a new concept.

This year, the art festival is cooperating with a contemporary and visionary allotment garden concept: with the Urban Forest Garden Britz, an exciting location for artistic exploration has been found for the fourth BERLIN BRITZENALE. The Urban Forest Garden is currently in the process of emerging and becoming and imitates patterns and conditions found in nature and ecosystems. In the future, 60 allotment gardens and an area for communal gardening will be created here.

After the third BRITZENALE, the need came up to reflect on how an art festival can develop sustainably without striving for quantitative growth. These reflections justified the deliberate move to this location within the Neukölln district of Britz, which is exploring a novel model of gardening and thus looking to the future in a timely way.

Urban food forests consist of many layers. They are composed of fungi and roots, herbs, vegetable plants, berry bushes and shady fruit and nut trees, which are grown and harvested together on a long-term basis. The concept of the forest garden within urban gardening fulfills ecological functions such as soil protection, climate adaptation and promotion of biodiversity. The fourth BERLIN BRITZENALE observes the specific processes of the complex development of the forest garden in order to artistically understand, highlight and become a part of it.

The twelve invited artists deal with the queerfeminist potential of mycelium, ephemeral sculptures created for insects, DIY techniques of composting, sounding landscapes, dance in connection with the earth, artistic experiences of gardening and enjoyment, with icy squirts, the loud silence of bats, with the colourful, compostable extravagance of mushrooms, fictional tales of worlds in solidarity, with found materials serving as archives and myths about bogs and swamps.

In times of immense effects of human-made climate change, the fourth BERLIN BRITZENALE is taking up the challenges at this forward-looking location not to exclusively tackle the topic of gardens and gardening itself. Rather, this serious situation raises the inescapable question of the possibilities of sustainable art production. What does sustainability mean to us? For whom does it mean something quite different?

We ask ourselves these questions in many conversations, explorations and research between all participants. This opens up important and current discourses around climate justice, accessibility of art and climate projects as well as progressive visions of the future, which can be experienced here and now at the three-day BRITZENALE.

The worlds we build in this way are created on the ground of the past. Let us together find new ways in which we not only care for each other, but also encounter nonhuman life with care and empathy. We are far from having learned and invite you to envision, discuss, enjoy and explore, to think and grow together into the future in this place.

Exhibition series, 2020 – 2022
Curated by Linnéa Meiners and Jorinde Splettstößer

In the two-year programme at Galerie im Turm, art work is understood as a praxis of solidarity, of taking part in collectively building a different future. In six exhibitions, positions are shown that question established notions of work, and that unmaintain patriarchal, colonial, and capitalist principles.