Exhibition art school: HERKUNFT

Exhibition opening:
June 30, 2022, 6 p.m.

Opening hours:
July 1 - 28, 2022
Thu - Sun, 3 - 8 p.m.

HERKUNFT started in the summer semester of 2021 as part of an open and interdisciplinary project seminar of the same name at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. In the seminar we asked about the interrelations and relations of social origin, class, classism, identity constitution, visibility and recognition.

We dealt with autosociobiographical texts and the images, narratives and discourses of the topos "social class" negotiated in them. Here we found texts by authors such as Didier Eribon, Annie Ernaux, Édouard Louis, Pierre Bourdieu, bell hooks, Stuart Hall or Toni Morrison - authors who stand for important works within the framework of autosociobiography as social critique and whose texts analyze the transmitted experiences in the context of the social structures that determine them.

In a workshop with the writer Heike Geißler, we worked on our own autosociobiographical text formats. Our own approach to speech and language was important to us in our research, as was the engagement with examples of media representation of poverty and precarious life. We discussed with the conceptual artist Sven Johne about his exhibition Ostdeutsche Landschaften (East German Landscapes) and with the sociologist of communication and author Natasha A. Kelly about her film Millis Erwachen (Milli's Awakening).

Afterwards, we reflected on our own experiences and already existing artistic working approaches in order to develop further possibilities for action. New approaches and concepts came to the table, where all media and ways of working were welcome. The goal was the development and elaboration of a complex exhibition format by the group.

The exhibition HERKUNFT shows works by 27 students of the Kunsthochschule Kassel. We see ourselves as a group of individuals from different geographical and social backgrounds. The diverse media, individual approaches and artistic working methods show a personal reference in each case, their own attitude to the subject. Using intermedial approaches that include media such as photography, moving image, sound, sculpture or performance, the exhibited works deal with, among other things, experiences of discrimination and homophobia, the history of different migration processes and the influence of geographic and national borders that shape the understanding of one's own identity.

In addition to the exhibition, the symposium "Fractures and Lines - Conversations about Origins" will accompany the tour. With the symposium we would like to create a space for direct exchange. Here, too, it is important for us to think of origins in the plural and to link different perspectives with each other: Where can we find points of contact, continuities, breaks and ambiguities?

Conception and direction of the interdisciplinary seminar Origin as well as the exhibition project Origin: Prof. Peggy Buth and Holger Jenss, artistic collaborator (class Intermediale Fotografie); curatorial support: Sebastian Klemm (Berlin).