Uncertain States Artistic Strategies in States of Emergency 

In times of uncertainty, art and culture become free spaces to transform cultural differences and political conflicts. “Uncertain States”, the Academy’s main autumn programme, opens up a space of artistic resistance to the loss of cultural memory, and to violence and xenophobia.

This artistic research, which relates the present dramatic situation of refugees to the historical experience of flight and exile between 1933 and 1945, focuses on the fragility of individual and societal conditions triggered by wars, poverty and terrorism. Selected objects and documents from the Academy archives of, among others, Walter Benjamin, Valeska Gert, Heinrich Mann and Kurt Tucholsky, find their equivalent in the current experiences of crisis and flight reflected in 35 contemporary artistic positions, including works by Francis Alÿs, Ayşe Erkmen, Mona Hatoum, Isaac Julien and Arkadi Zaides.

The series of lectures and events locate political issues on migration and cultural identity within the context of artistic positions. The impulses provided by the “Uncertain States” programme aim to create an open thinking space.

Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.