SALT.CLAY.ROCK.: Finissage

Saturday, February 8, 2025, 2pm
Stadtwerkstatt

Collective Ways of Disagreeing

open format with participatory role-play and screenings

with Aleksandra Saša Jeremić, Charlotte Kremberg, Silvio Kull, Patrick Neugebauer, Eileen Raddatz, Philip Rudzinski, Valerija Rutz, Ricarda Scheringer, Anna Witt

The performative role-playing game Collective Ways of Disagreeing is inspired by the idea of an action camp and is based on a research engagement in and beyond the Gorleben Archive with the anti-nuclear movement in the Wendland region. It explores forms of civil resistance against the planned construction of a nuclear repository and reprocessing plant near Gorleben. Through various stations, participants and visitors are invited to experiment with performative scenarios that explore aspects of self-organization and collectivization. The role-playing game focuses on skills for collective action and conflict management, which are central to resistance movements. Our central question is: How can we conceptualize the sense of agency of a collective body, and how can we translate its possibilities from an abstract idea into a physical experience?

 

Sunday, February 9, 2025, 11 am

Climate-neutral Brunch

As part of nGbK’s participation in the Zero Fund—an initiative by the German Federal Cultural Foundation (KSB) to support cultural institutions in developing sustainable production practices—SALT. CLAY. ROCK has committed to exploring the possibilities of climate-neutral production in its ambitious two-year transnational research project. We have equally committed to reflecting on our learning process by creating a guideline for climate-neutral production. Given the complexity and context-sensitive nature of this process, condensing it into a 10-point guideline felt inadequate. Instead, we compiled our insights and reflections into what we call a CO2 Logbook. In the framework of a brunch, we will present this logbook and share some highlights, successes and challenges from our process. We also invite you to join the discussion about its implications of this learning for nGbK as we work towards developing and implementing long-term sustainability strategies.

 

Details and Registration

If you’d like to join, please register at anmeldung@ngbk.deby February 6th.
We kindly ask all participants to bring something climate-neutral to eat for a yummy breakfast and to travel to the event by public transport or bicycle.

 

Sunday, February 9, 2025, 2pm

Umweltsonntag

Guided tour in dialogue with Anna Witt and Marike Schreiber / Wasserempfang [water reception] and conversation with Marike Schreiber, Reinhard Dalchow and Björn Kröger.

The last public event of SALT. CLAY. ROCK during the finissage will revive the format of the Umweltsonntag (Environmental Sunday) - a series of events hosted by a group of environmental activist in the 1980ies in Brandenburg. The Umweltsonntag will bring into dialogue environmental activism from the former East and former West and will include a guided tour through the exhibition.

Anna Witt's two-part video installation “Dance on the Volcano” takes its starting point in Wendland, where the community of Gorleben became a symbol of the anti-nuclear movement and one of the focal points of the debate on the use of nuclear energy in the Federal Republic of Germany. For SALT. CLAY. ROCK. Anna Witt investigates how collective forms of protest have inscribed themselves into the bodies and biographies of activists and their families over generations, for which she conducted research in the Gorleben Archive, among other places.

For SALT. CLAY. ROCK., the artist Marike Schreiber was interested in the entanglements of the Rheinsberg nuclear power plant, the first nuclear power plant in the GDR, with the surrounding Stechlin nature reserve and connects the two through Lake Stechlin. The lake played a key role as the “cooling plant” of the power plant and has been studied by researchers since the late 19th century until today. On September 8, Marike and the SALT. CLAY. ROCK. working group invited visitors to an artist led field trip to the aforementioned locations.

Together with Marike Schreiber and her guests, the format of the Umweltsonntag (Environmental Sunday) will be revived and an invitation extended to gather for a water reception at the mobile bar/sculpture designed by Marike Schreiber. The reception refers to the “Umweltsonntage” series of events co-initiated by the pastor Reinhard Dalchow, in the 1980s, which called for an open debate on the protection of the environment and the consequences of energy production in the GDR. At the first meeting, attention was drawn to the importance of clean drinking water with a “water reception” in the church. Another guest is Björn Kröger. The palaeontologist and curator at the Finnish Museum of Natural History in Helsinki grew up on Lake Stechlin in the Mark Brandenburg. His first job was as a machinist for nuclear power plants. Today he researches changes in ecosystems on large and small temporal scales and specializes in the evolution of prehistoric cephalopods. He will soon be publishing a book chapter on “The Deep Time of Death” in the “Handbook of Queer Death Studies” at Routledge and a book on Lake Stechlin at Matthes & Seitz Verlag.