SALT. CLAY. ROCK. Research Assembly at nGbK Berlin

-- scroll down for day-to-day programme --

With contributions by Ana Alenso, András Cséfalvay, Theresa Deichert, Krisztina Erdei, Ende Gelände / Kali, Gorleben Archiv / Gabriele Haas, Green Youth Pécs / Júlia Konkoly-Thege, Max Haiven, Moritz Maria Karl, Péter Molnár, Csilla Nagy & Rita Süveges, Nowhere Kitchen (Pepe Dayaw), PPKK (Schönfeld & Scoufaras), Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, Katarina Šević, Sonya Schönberger, Marike Schreiber, Oxana Timofeeva, Andrea Vetter, Anna Witt, Working Group Image Archive Asse II (Susanne Kriemann, Judith Milz, Lena Reisner) 

In the past months, the SALT. CLAY. ROCK. team and commissioned artists have visited nuclear power plant training centers, waste repositories’ hi-tech multimedia ‘showrooms’, peeked into reactor control rooms, and walked down the dark shafts of former uranium mines and recently built underground storages. They have been to the Gorleben Archive–the living memory of the Wendland resistance, talked to activists about the future of anti-nuclear movements, and listened to the story of the Hungarian village Ófalu, where villagers resisted a waste repository in the 1980s thanks to their self-organization. They learned about the ‘nuclear elite’ of Paks, the underground life of the Morsleben repository and their extravagant Carnival parties, and about the struggles of the tiny village of Bátaapáti to survive and escape depopulation, which was only possible due to a trade-off made to host its repository. They admired the former Wismut SDAG's uranium-glass plate collection, glowing under blacklight in the uranium museum of Bad Schlema, and wondered how to critically reflect on this intriguing materiality.

Between 17-19 November the work group shares the results of their fieldwork in a research display installed in the spaces of nGbK. Researchers, activists, artists and thinkers who are deeply engaged with the politics of nuclear energy and radioactive waste, anti-nuclear movements, and questions around energy futures, are invited to join the assembly, and share their knowledge and insights on these complex, often ambivalent and even polarizing issues in the form of keynotes, conversations, artistic contributions and workshops with all interested.

nGbK work group: Katalin Erdődi, Marc Herbst, Julia Kurz, Virág Major-Kremer, Vincent Schier
Production: Karoline Kerkai, nGbK (Germany), Dina Darabos, Kinga Kovács (Hungary)

Language: English with whisper translation into German (exceptions see program)
Location: nGbK am Alex, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin
Free admission. Accessible with wheelchairs and strollers.

➔ Friday, November 17, 17:00–22:00

Nuclear waste as nuclear cultural heritage, anti-nuclear activism and resistance, connecting past and future struggles

17:00–18:00 
Welcome & introduction to SALT. CLAY. ROCK.
Guided tour by curators and selected artists through the assembly's research display

18:00–19:00 
Keynote by Eglė Rindzevičiūtė (online): Hosts and Hostages of Nuclear Infrastructures: Managing and Containing Nuclear Materialities in the Post-Soviet Space

19:30–21:00 (in German and Hungarian with whisper translation to English)
Conversation led by artist Anna Witt on the pasts and futures of anti-nuclear resistance.
Participants: Ende Gelände / Kali, Gorleben Archiv / Gabriele Haas, Green Youth Pécs / Júlia Konkoly-Thege

21:00–22:00
Listening session with PPKK on nuclear waste, human and post-human metabolism

 

➔ Saturday, November 18, 10:00–21:30

Energy futures and solar politics, imaginaries of the future and the deep time of radioactive waste storage

10:00–13:00 (in English, without translation)
Writing After Their Future: A Sci-Fictioning Workshop with Max Haiven
Please register until 15 November at anmeldung@ngbk.de

13:00–14:00
Nowhere Kitchen: Pepe's Pinoy Pop-up

14:00–15:00
Welcome & introduction to SALT. CLAY. ROCK.
Collective reading of texts written during the sci-fictioning workshop, followed by a guided tour of the research display.

15:00–16:30
Collective conversation with commissioned artists and guests on their research and their artistic approaches to the German and Hungarian sites. 
Participants: Ana Alenso (online), András Cséfalvay, Krisztina Erdei, Csilla Nagy & Rita Süveges, Sonya Schönberger, Marike Schreiber, Working Group Image Archive Asse II (Susanne Kriemann, Judith Milz, Lena Reisner)

17:00–18:00
Radioactive waste and deep time: a geologist’s perspective 
Conversation with the geologist Péter Molnár (online), led by Csilla Nagy & Rita Süveges

18:00–19:00
Nowhere Kitchen: A Migrant Cooking Theatre of Spicy Histories and Collective Eating Ritual of Leftovers led by Pepe Dayaw de Manila

19:00–20:00
Keynote by Oxana Timofeeva: Energy and Intelligence: From Solar to Nuclear.
Followed by a Q&A led by András Cséfalvay

20:00–21:30
Conversation on energy futures and the challenges of the ‘green transition’
Participants: Theresa Deichert, Moritz Maria Karl, Andrea Vetter

 

➔ Sunday, November 19, 12:00–18:00 
Exhibition of the research display