14 June-17 November, Sewing for Survival. Jewish Refugees in Shanghai 1938-1949

Place & date: tim Augsburg, 14 June - 17 November 2024

Organisers: Kevin Ostoyich (LMU Munich) and tim Augsburg

Venue: tim - State Textil and Industry Museum Augsburg, Provinostraße 46, 86153 Augsburg

Please click here to download the programme and here for further information.

21-29 June exhibition global Munich. in perspective

Vernissage: 21 June, 18:00-22:00, Habibi Kiosk, Münchner Kammerspiele, 

Processes of globalisation, their effects and their constraints affect each of us every day. Still, the media, politics and academia tend to shape what globalisation means to us. Headlines and political spin reduce our perception of it to sound bites, like ‘Millionendorf’ (a village of millions) or ‘Weltstadt mit Herz’ (a global city with a heart).

The Global Munich. In Perspective exhibition starts from the assumption that globalisation means something very different for many of us. Hence, artists Hêlîn Alas, Aydin Alinejad, Jeanno Gaussi, Sofia Dona, Nikolai Gümbel, Narges Kalhor and Franziska Windolf will tell us their stories of globalisation in the city of Munich.

Hêlîn Alas charts and analyses economies and approaches of the art system, with its implicit privileges based on class, origin and gender. In diversity work LIVE (Lenbachhaus), she invites visitors to playfully retrace the intra-institutional contrast between the outward image of the art system, which emphasises diversity, and its internal homogeneity.

Where can I feel at home in a globalised world? In Gis (‘wisp of hair’ in Persian), their short film, screenwriter Aydin Alinejad and screenwriter-director Narges Kalhor tell the story of Faezeh, who is about to return to Iran from Germany.

Jeanno Gaussi’s art deals with mechanisms of remembrance, the search for identity and attendant processes of social and cultural appropriation. In her work entitled Salaam Kâkâ Bilkâ (‘Hello Uncle Bilkâ’) Jeanno Gaussi reflects on the world of global goods and the markets where they’re exchanged, identifying supermarkets as meeting places for various communities in her own experience.

Nikolai Gümbel’s work is characterised by multimedia and highly contextualised pieces. In his video piece Schichten, die wir sehen (Abschnitt I, Ausgrabung und Modell) (The Layers We See (Part I, Excavation and Model), the artist obliquely treats the emergence of Freiham-Nord, a new subdivision in Munich, to investigate the past and future realms of possibility of a seemingly ahistorical, post-global place that, according to the brochures, is supposed to be open to all.

Franziska Windolf’s art deals with the question of how sculpture and the body can take on personal-political meanings and how they move through speech, history and social relations. In her works, she recollects stories of exile in Munich, begging the question whom or what we actually remember.

Moreover, the exhibition will present a video from the site-specific installation APPLAUS by artist Sofia Dona. The work treats the Starnberger wing of the main train station in Munich as a location of arrival. Combining various stories of mobility, Sofia Dona’s work presents the station as a place that incorporates forgotten stories of various actors in the city’s globalisation narrative.

From their diverse perspectives and biographies, these artists cast a critical gaze on gaps in our knowledge about Munich as a locus of globalisation. As part of the What is the City NOW? Festival, we celebrate diverse perspectives on Munich along with the city’s inhabitants and ask: what does globalisation mean to you?

The Festival What is the City NOW? is an initiative by global dis:connect, Münchner Kammerspiele (MK), the TUM Center for Arts and Culture, Habibi Kiosk, balkaNet e.V., Cine Vélo Cité, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, MK:Mitmachen, Refugio Kunstwerkstatt, MK: Musik, Cozy Sound Sytsem, Mittelschule am Gerhart- Hauptmann- Ring, Hochschule München (Faculty of Architecture), EU Horizon Projekt, NEBourhoods: PEARL Creating Cultural Places for Young People in Neuperlach Curated by Martín Valdés-Stauber with Andrea Benze, Elke Bauer, Sophie Eisenried, Mona Feyrer, Julia Lena Maier, Gina Penzkofer, Marvin Scheler, Janina Sieber und Clara Valdés-Stauber, Jakob Weiß

exhibition “travelling back: reframing a 19th-century expedition from Munich to Brazil”

Travelling Back presents a critical perspective on the narratives and collections Bavarian scientists Johann Baptist von Spix (1781–1826) and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868) brought from Brazil to Munich in the 19th century. The exhibition follows their extensive three-year journey across the Brazilian hinterland, including the Amazonian region.

Spanning 14 000 km, this expedition took place from 1817 to 1820 and was later chronicled in the multi-volume publication Reise in Brasilien (Travels in Brazil – 1823), providing a personal account of the scientists' encounters and perceptions of the country's varied landscapes, cultures and wildlife.

During their travels, Spix and Martius interacted with various indigenous groups and gathered numerous ethnographic, botanical and zoological specimens. These materials became foundational for several Bavarian institutions, like the Bavarian State Collections of Zoology and Botany, as well as the Königlich Ethnographische Sammlung, now the Museum Fünf Kontinente, established in 1862. Beyond tangible artifacts, these collections also treat the history of Isabella Miranha and Johann Juri, two indigenous children brought to Munich in 1820, who died tragically soon after their arrival. Unlike the scientists' evident presence in the city's landscape, the history of these children is marked by silences and absences in public memorial spaces.

The exhibition raises crucial questions about the coloniality underpinning the scientific pursuits of the natural-history project between Munich and Brazil in the 19th century. It examines the various displays and interpretations of Spix and Martius's collections from their arrival in Germany to the present, and it sheds light on the dis:connectivities of knowledge production behind these scientific endeavours. The idea is not only to inquire into the public reception of these experiences through a history of the gaze, but also to draw a critical examination through the lenses of present-day dialogues and initiatives. This includes new scientific practices of knowledge restitution, literary interpretations and contemporary perspectives from artists like Micheliny Verunschk (Brazil), Frauke Zabel (Germany), Yolanda Gutiérrez (Germany/ Mexico), Igor Vidor (Brazil), Elaine Pessoa (Brazil) and Gê Viana (Brazil).

November 2023, Meet The Memory Person – a collaborative remembrance project

Meet The Memory Person - a collaborative remembrance project: open studio, workshop and conversation (Venue: FLORIDA Lothringer 13 81667 München, Ein Kunstraum der Stadt München)

Artistic concept: Franziska Windolf

Curation: Mareike Schwarz

8 July, URBAN BODIES PROJECT — MUNICH

14 Aug 22, FILAMENTOUS MAGIC CARPETS at Lenbachhaus, curated by Enis Maci