Fri. 09.06.2023 | 19:00 - 22:00
with: Dana Lorenz
in curatorial collaboration with Katharina Koch and Sylvia Sadzinski
Exhibition
alpha nova & galerie futura
Am Flutgraben 3,12435 Berlin-Treptow
In the solo exhibition Die Hände mit den Füßen fassen (Grasping Hands with Feet), Dana Lorenz explores how biographical experiences, social origins and traumas actively inscribe themselves in the body and leave their traces. The body becomes an infrastructure in its own right.
The artist's own biography forms the starting point for the expansive installation, an assemblage consisting of objects, readymades, photographs and a sound collage, which is expanded by an artist's book with texts, a personal glossary and image archive. Having grown up in a working-class milieu in post-reunification East Berlin, Dana Lorenz devotes herself to experiences of social exclusion and participation, in which moments between shame and resistance become an individual ordeal.
How do social exclusions shape bodies? How do processes of discrimination with regard to class and sexuality, as well as the resulting emotions and affects, manifest themselves in bodies? How is the perception of bodies shaped by our social position?
Sensitively but also humorously, Dana Lorenz negotiates the body as a grasping, touching, holding, biting, fighting, crunching, sticky, gentle, resilient, wafting product of society, which is, however, at the same time also its actor.
The dialogically interrelated works create a spatial installation that bears witness to connections between biographical memories and personal coping strategies, linking them to aesthetics of the early 2000s and the present. Lorenz creates moments of liberation, rebellion and physical unruliness. So-called bad feelings are reinterpreted and make it clear that our real strength is to be found in vulnerability.
Grasping hands with feet thus becomes a queer and feminist infrastructural critique of the body and its structural and temporary environments.
alpha nova & galerie futura is an exhibition and event space in Berlin that has been in existence since 1986. It interweaves culture-producing and culture-mediating practice from a decidedly emancipatory and feminist perspective. The focus is on collaboration with female artists or FLINTA persons. alpha nova & galerie futura creates a space for linking political intervention, theoretical discourse and artistic practice in order to develop critical standpoints for art, science and society. Every year, four to five mostly thematic exhibitions of visual art of all genres are realised in close cooperation with the participating artists and other partners. In addition, (accompanying and expanding) events take place with talks, panel discussions, lectures, film screenings and performances, music and literature. Workshops with different thematic and methodological focuses as well as moderated roundtable discussions for the professional exchange of cultural producers are offered on a regular basis. Advice and support in conception and network development for women and FLINTA in artistic fields are also part of our services. alpha nova & galerie futura has been working for years locally, nationally and internationally with various institutions and individuals in the context of temporary projects. alpha nova & galerie futura is managed by Katharina Koch (since 2012) and Sylvia Sadzinski (since 2019).
Seating: Folding chairs on request
Age groups: Suitable for all ages
Languages: German, English, easy language
no language skills required
Wheelchair users | Strollers: please contact us in advance via mail@alpha-nova-kulturwerkstatt.de
Hearing impaired | deaf people: the artworks in the exhibition can also be experienced visually only
Neurodiversity: the exhibition text is available in easy-to-read language.
Blind people: Parts of the work are also auditorily accessible