25 February 2022

What Matters – work presentation by the JUNGE AKADEMIE
29 fellows show their current work

Exhibition and performances, Hanseatenweg
13 March – 10 April 2022
12 March 2022 from 6 pm: opening programme

“What Matters” is both the question and the statement of this year’s work presentation by the JUNGE AKADEMIE, the international artist-in-residence programme of the Akademie der Künste. In an exhibition and a varied programme, 29 fellows from all art sections of the Akademie will present sound and video installations, films, photographs, sculptures, paintings and performances. The works were executed during residencies at the Akademie’s studios in the Hansaviertel in Berlin and at Villa Serpentara in Olevano, Italy. “What Matters” focuses on the artists’ personal approaches; what unites them is their urge to bear artistic witness, their poetic resistance and their imagining of sustainable futures in the face of global tipping points – be they climatic or political. After two years of the pandemic and the associated restrictions, “What Matters” is the JUNGE AKADEMIE’s most comprehensive presentation of work to date.

Outside the Akademie building on Hanseatenweg, Sasha Kurmaz is installing one of the Orthodox chapels that can be found in many places in Ukraine between blocks of flats or next to shopping centres as post-Soviet religious architecture: provisional sacred spaces in old wagons, trucks, cabins or kiosks.His work The Temple of the Transfiguration refers to the role of the Orthodox Church in the Ukraine conflict with Russia in recent years and today, as well as the manipulation of religion for the commercialisation of public space. In her space-filling film installation Beyond the Now, Christin Berg comments on a time full of paradoxes. In her series of photographs, Nida Mehboob’s contribution Shadow Lives draws attention to the discrimination of the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan. At the opening, Prix Goncourt 2021 winner Mohamed Mbougar Sarr is presenting a sound-lecture performance on the poetic dimension of prophecy. Nazanin Noori’s new work APOLOGY is a lyrical drama in two acts presented as a clinical stage space and audio play.

Participating fellows
Christin Berg, Ferhat Bouda, Yvon Chabrowski, Farhad Delaram, Tony Elieh, Olivier Foulon, Annette Frick, Simone Haug, Miguel Hilari, Ruth Kaaserer, Meena Kandasamy, Sasha Kurmaz, Fabian Lippert, Friederike Meese, Nida Mehboob, Ada Mukhína, Moritz Nitsche, Nazanin Noori, Jennifer O’Donnell, Sophia Pompéry, Mykola Ridnyi, Lucie Sahner, Mia Sanchez, Fabià Santcovsky, Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Anna Slobodnik, Aled Smith, Undine Sommer and Philipp Valente
Curatorial fellow: Arkadij Koscheew


Programme

Saturday, 12 March 2022, from 6 pm
Exhibition opening
Performances and discussions with the fellows, Clara Herrmann, director of the JUNGE AKADEMIE, and Akademie members Arnold Dreyblatt, Nele Hertling, Kathrin Röggla, etc.
Detailed programme here

Wednesday, 16 March 2022, 7 pm
News from Home. Short Films of the American Continent
Films and discussion with Thomas Heise, Miguel Hilari (curator)
Further information here

Saturday, 9 April 2022
Closing event


Exhibition details
What Matters – work presentation by the JUNGE AKADEMIE
Duration: 13 March – 10 April 2022, Tue – Sun, 11 am – 7 pm
Guided tours on Thursdays, 5 pm
Free admission
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin
Tel. (030) 200 57-2000, info@adk.de
Further information on the exhibition here

Information on the JUNGE AKADEMIE and the fellowship programmes:
https://www.adk.de/en/academy/young-academy/

Press images for download here
The fellows are in Berlin and are available for interviews.

Press contacts
Brigitte Heilmann, heilmann@adk.de, Tel. (030) 200 57-1513
Mareike Wenzlau, wenzlau@adk.de, Tel. (030) 200 57-1565