Voices from global dis:connect: Four New Fellow Interviews
We’re excited to announce the release of four new interview videos now available on our YouTube channel. In these conversations, former fellows at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect share insights into their research, artistic projects, and personal journeys. Each interview offers a unique perspective on global dis:connections across disciplines and geographies.
Frances Steel
Professor of History at the University of Otago, Frances Steel discusses her project on the history of refrigeration and its role in shaping the colonial Pacific’s food trade. Her research uncovers how frozen meat and dairy exports helped transform New Zealand — and to a lesser extent, Australia — into the “farm of the empire.”
👉 Watch the interview
Nadia von Maltzahn
Principal investigator of the ERC project Lebanon’s Art World at Home and Abroad (LAWHA), based at the Orient-Institut Beirut, Nadia explores the circulation of artists and artworks from Lebanon since 1943. In the interview, she reflects on her academic path and her book-in-progress at global dis:connect.
👉 Watch the interview
Yolanda Gutiérrez
Choreographer, video artist, curator, and producer Yolanda Gutiérrez shares her creative journey and the evolution of her Urban Bodies Project Munich. Her work explores the intersections of body, space, and migration through collaborative performance.
👉 Watch the interview
Shane Boyle
Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, Shane Boyle introduces his research on artistic responses to global logistics. At global dis:connect, he investigates how artists use tactics like blockade and sabotage to confront the infrastructures of global trade and extractivism.
👉 Watch the interview
On Tuesday, 12 November 2024 (7:00 - 8:30 p.m.) the LMU’s public lecture series adressed the complex topic of “
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 
Cathrine Bublatzky