ABA Newsletter

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Air Berlin Alexanderplatz

 

WORKSHOP

What Does it Mean to Curate a System?

Bookstop | 30 March, [removed]–[removed]
Marijn Bril

Set against the backdrop of the GDR’s former State Central Administration for Statistics, Haus der Statistik in Berlin, this workshop explores the role of diagrams and communication models in curatorial practice. At its core, curating is a relational act. Drawing on the theories of Beatrice von Bismarck and Bruno Latour, curating can be understood as the creation of dynamic networks of agents—connecting artists, cultural workers, audiences, objects, and concepts within shifting spatial, social, and discursive contexts.

How might systems theory—with its focus on input, output, and feedback—inform the construction of these curatorial networks?

This workshop begins with key readings and theories from cybernetics, media studies, and art history, providing a conceptual foundation. From there, we will engage in diagramming exercises to visualize and articulate curatorial networks. These diagrams will serve as tools for discussion, helping us to imagine curatorial structures as cybernetic systems—emerging, evolving, and interacting with various agents over time.

No prior experience with diagramming or systems theory is required.
This workshop is free of charge, but capacity is limited – sign up by emailing ABA Bookstop
Haus der Statistik
Otto-Braun-Straße 70–72
10178 Berlin

This workshop is part of Marijn Bril’s residency, supported by Mondriaan Fonds.

 

Image: Diagram created with Lucid GPT, visualizing Beatrice von Bismarck’s concept of curating as a constellation

Not Yet

Frizz Gallery
20 March–5 May

The upcoming exhibition at Frizz Gallery titled Not Yet continues to explore the ephemeral nature of what emerges or is discovered within the void of a space, emphasizing its transient presence and transformation, followed by a previous show titled Fog, curated by Eloise Sweetman and Aleksander Komarov.

The works, present for only a time, engage with duration—both in their appearance and disappearance, in their representation, and in the dialogue they create between space and environment. They allude to forms of communication—within the temporal and spatial frame, and through the window to the outside world.

 

The exhibition unfolds in sequences, each work manifesting the space’s [removed];Not Yet runs from 20 March to 5 May.

First to enter the exhibition at Frizz Gallery is a process based work by Susanne Kriemann, Dyeing till the water runs clean. The work will be on view 20–27 [removed];
 

Frizz Gallery
Friedrichstraße 23a
10969 Berlin

Image
Susanne Kriemann, “Canopy, canopy”, exhibition view Elymus Repens, curated by Lucile Bouvard, Bar Babette, Berlin 2018

 

RECENTLY / CURRENTLY

ABA BOOKSTOP

Locus Amoenus /
Liebliche Orte

Bookstop | 8 March
Olga Hohmann, Lukas Kesler & AIB

On Saturday, March 8, we hosted a reading and the presentation of Kehle, a new artwork, alongside the launch of the second chapter of a small booklet titled Die Verkehrsregeln der Sonne which is a preview of a book that will be published end of this year by Accidental Interest Books (AIB). This publication, now available at AIB and Bookstop, includes a map for a self-guided walk—Kapitel 02—which starts at Otto-Braun-Straße close to Alexanderplatz, spans [removed] km and takes approximately 60 minutes.

Published by Accidental Interest Books, featuring a text by Olga Hohmann and a sculpture by Lukas Kesler, a video by Cajus Kesler and images by Amelie Amei Kahn-Ackermann.

Thank you for this lovely collaboration and see you soon!

Lukas Kesler and Olga Hohmann have been going on walks. And they will keep going. Together. Alone. Finding and hiding things or thoughts in plain [removed] collected talks from those walks will find their way into writing and eventually a book with Accidental Interest Books, a micro-scale publishing endeavour run by Bruno Jacoby and Johanna Schäfer.

 

EXHIBITION
At your fingertips 
I see my moving lips or not?

uqbar | 9–30 March
Sylvia Henrich

 

ABA is delighted to present Sylvia Henrich’s exhibition for EMOP Berlin 2025 at Uqbar.

I doubt, I am no longer sure: Did I see that or did I dream it? What did I see? Is there still a referent or is it just a sampling of ‘dusted’ images?

New technologies are rapidly changing the images of our world. We have to constantly relearn how to read and decipher them and come to terms with how power relations are constantly shifting. Bound to their fluid materiality, digital images can be intercepted, copied or modified at lightning speed at any time. Even the ‘original’ code of an image is not a static entity. Similar to a musical score, it is constantly reinterpreted by various technical devices and temporarily performed on their surfaces.

In the continuation of Sylvia Henrich’s exhibition for EMOP Berlin 2023, an array of images and their production methods once again enter into dialogue —subjectivity meets [removed];

Just as Sabine Weier writes, through a ‘umstürzlerischen Umgang mit technischen Verfahren’ (subversive approach to technical processes), the artist creates collisions that reveal underlying structures and open up new spaces of imagination

Opening hours: Fr [removed]–[removed], Sa [removed]–[removed]
Or by appointment: 01577 / 189 7275

uqbar 
Schwedenstraße 16
13357 Berlin

ABA BLOGS
Curating Systems,
Systems of the Curatorial

Marijn Bril

 

The world we live in operates according to visible and invisible systems—natural as well as human-made mechanisms that allow for phenomena to unfold in particular rhythms, or at times, end up in disarray. As a curator with a background in media studies, I am fascinated by these circuits of meaning. What does it mean to curate a system? 

***

 

As part of her research process, Marijn is looking to connect with artists, curators, writers, researchers, and cultural workers in Berlin and beyond who are exploring systems and networks in their practice. You can reach her at ABA Blogs is a space our residents, curators, artists are welcomed to populate with textual and visual inputs during their stay in Berlin. The blog entries can be found on our website

ABA BLOGS
Fog

Aleksander Komarov

 

Standing outside, I lift my phone, trying to capture the installation. But as I frame the shot, my reflection becomes part of the composition, merging with a passerby. In that frozen moment, the image is not just documentation but an eerie form of communication—one presence layered over another, time briefly suspended. Adjusting the lens of a phone camera, I wait for the right moment to press button. The fatigue of trying to maintain stillness, to keep my body and the hand holding the phone from moving, feels like a game—where even the slightest movement, even a breath, results in “elimination”.

 

***

An excerpt from Aleksander Komarov’s blog Fog, click here to read the full version.
 

Current ABA Residents

Marijn Bril (NL) | Jan–Apr 2024
Salah Sahar (SD) | Sep 2024–Nov 2025

 

Check for updates and resident blogs on our website.
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Air Berlin Alexanderplatz [removed]