In
Events, exhibition & art events, Voices from gd:c
On November 19, we open our film series “Dis:connection: Cinema and Globalization” with the impressive documentary Plastic Fantastic by Isa Willinger at Werkstattkino Munich.
Plastic is everywhere — in rivers and oceans, in the air, the soil, and even in our bodies. There are 500 times more plastic particles in the oceans than stars in our galaxy. Despite this growing crisis, the giants of the plastic industry continue to expand production, even though recycling hardly works.
Plastic Fantastic follows a diverse group of protagonists — including representatives of the plastic industry, scientists, and activists — to explore the often-overlooked sides of the global plastic crisis. Environmental lawyer Steven Feit reveals how plastics have become a key growth strategy for the oil industry in the 21st century. In Louisiana, retired teacher Sharon Lavigne fights tirelessly against pollution and environmental racism in her hometown, home to one of the world’s largest plastic production sites. Oceanographer Sarah Jeanne Royer exposes the devastating effects of microplastics along Hawaii’s coasts, while Kenyan photojournalist James Wakibia uses the power of images to raise awareness about single-use plastics in his country. In Hamburg, chemist and inventor Michael Braungart envisions a world without plastic waste and demonstrates what a truly circular economy could look like.
After the screening, there will be an artist talk with filmmaker Isa Willinger and our fellow Elizabeth DeLoughrey.
Language: English and German with English subtitles
Date: November 19, 2025, 17:00
Venue: Werkstattkino, Fraunhoferstraße 9, 80469 Munich
We have a quota of 14 tickets reserved for fellows and staff members. Once this quota is used up, additional tickets can be purchased at the cinema box office for 6 euros.
Please register here. Continue Reading
19 November, Plastic Fantastic at Werkstatt Kino
On November 19, we open our film series “Dis:connection: Cinema and Globalization” with the impressive documentary Plastic Fantastic by Isa Willinger at Werkstattkino Munich.
Plastic is everywhere — in rivers and oceans, in the air, the soil, and even in our bodies. There are 500 times more plastic particles in the oceans than stars in our galaxy. Despite this growing crisis, the giants of the plastic industry continue to expand production, even though recycling hardly works.
Plastic Fantastic follows a diverse group of protagonists — including representatives of the plastic industry, scientists, and activists — to explore the often-overlooked sides of the global plastic crisis. Environmental lawyer Steven Feit reveals how plastics have become a key growth strategy for the oil industry in the 21st century. In Louisiana, retired teacher Sharon Lavigne fights tirelessly against pollution and environmental racism in her hometown, home to one of the world’s largest plastic production sites. Oceanographer Sarah Jeanne Royer exposes the devastating effects of microplastics along Hawaii’s coasts, while Kenyan photojournalist James Wakibia uses the power of images to raise awareness about single-use plastics in his country. In Hamburg, chemist and inventor Michael Braungart envisions a world without plastic waste and demonstrates what a truly circular economy could look like.
After the screening, there will be an artist talk with filmmaker Isa Willinger and our fellow Elizabeth DeLoughrey.
Language: English and German with English subtitles
Date: November 19, 2025, 17:00
Venue: Werkstattkino, Fraunhoferstraße 9, 80469 Munich
We have a quota of 14 tickets reserved for fellows and staff members. Once this quota is used up, additional tickets can be purchased at the cinema box office for 6 euros.
Please register here. Continue Reading
28 October 2025
In March Jie-Hyun Lim commenced his term as a fellow at global dis:connect. Welcome.
Jie-Hyun Lim holds the CIPSH Chair of Global Easts and is a founding director of the Critical Global Studies Institute at Sogang University.
At gd:c Jie-Hyun will work on multilingual versions of victimhood nationalism as a conceptual tool to illustrate competing memories of victimhood in the postwar Vergangenheitsbewältigung across Europe and East Asia. 
Our associated fellow Kevin Ostoyich is celebrating a major achievement: The documentary film Gary’s Letter, which he helped inspire, recently premiered in Cuxhaven and has already been selected as a semi-finalist at the New York Indie Shorts Awards. Even more exciting, the film has won the L’Eclisse Award at the Blow-Up International Arthouse Film Festival in Chicago, USA. 🎉
The film tells the moving story of Gary Sternberg, who was born into a Jewish family in Nazi Germany, fled to Shanghai in 1940, and later built a new life in the United States. Decades later, he discovers stumbling stones (Stolpersteine) bearing his parents’ names in front of his childhood home in Cuxhaven. This unexpected discovery leads him to reach out to the house’s current residents, rekindling a connection to the country he left behind so many years ago.
The film originated from a conversation between Kevin Ostoyich and the director, who has spent years exploring her own family’s history. Gary’s Letter is a powerful testament to memory, reconciliation, and the forging of new connections across generations.
Additionally, Kevin Ostoyich has just published a new article about Gary with the Spungen Foundation. You can read it here: 
Artist Talk: Roma-non-Roma: in:visibilities and dis:connections
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas (artist in residence, gd:c) in conversation with Sophie Eisenried (art cooperation, gd:c), Anna Fenia Schneider (curator, Haus der Kunst) and Wojciech Szymański (fellow, gd:c)
With an introduction by Burcu Dogramaci (director, gd:c)
The artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas and the curator Wojciech Szymański will present some selected works and projects, including the project History of Art/History of Violence: From the Belle Èpoque to the Genocide, which they are pursuing at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect.
Afterwards, Anna Fenia Schneider and Sophie Eisenried will talk with Małgorzata Mirga-Tas and Wojciech Szymański. The panel is dedicated to the lack of knowledge about the lives, networks and spaces of Sinti:zze and Roma:nja in Munich and what role art and research can play in making this gap(s) visible.
Location: Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect, Library, Maria-Theresia-Straße 21, 81675 Munich
Time: Monday, December 9, 2024, 7:00 p.m., registration by December 6, 2024 
