Interweavings and Materialities

Artisanal techniques and craft processes remain central to cultural labour at large and are highlighted in the exhibition And Berlin Will Always Need You. Moderated by the show’s co-curator, Natasha Ginwala, the discussion Interweavings and Materialities invites the exhibiting artists Alice Creischer, Andreas Siekmann and Willem de Rooij, as well as the curator and textiles expert Rike Frank, and the researcher and curator Paz Guevara, to consider questions of collective authorship, cultural economy, and the role of abstraction in handcraft.

The restaurant Beba at Gropius Bau will be open following the talk until 22:30, drinks and snacks will be available.

Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann are artists whose projects since the 1990s have explored the political shifts engendered by globalisation. In And Berlin Will Always Need You their installation Las trabajadoras de Brukman, 2004–2006, was made in collaboration with the Brukman workers and provides insight into labour conditions in the garment industry and cultural activism in Argentina.

Rike Frank is a curator and writer whose practice particularly explores the role of textiles in contemporary art and art history. Her long term research and exhibition project Textiles: Open Letter was a key point of reference during the research for the exhibition And Berlin Will Always Need You.

Natasha Ginwala is the co-curator of the exhibition And Berlin Will Always Need You. In addition to her work at the Gropius Bau, she is the artistic director of the interdisciplinary festival Colomboscope in Sri Lanka and together with Defne Ayas the artistic director of the forthcoming Gwangju Biennale 2020.

Paz Guevara is a curator, researcher and author, currently working on the long-term project Kanon-Fragen at the HKW. She co-curated the Latin American Pavilion at the 55. and 54. Venice Biennales. Guevara facilitated Olaf Holzapfel’s collaboration with the indigenous Wichi community, resulting in the woven Chaguar paintings that are currently on display at Gropius Bau

Willem de Rooij's works examine the contextualisation, interpretation and production of images. His three large-format woven pieces in the exhibition were developed in collaboration with Ulla Schünemann at the Henni Jaensch-Zeymer hand weaving mill in Geltow. De Rooij is professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt since 2006. He co-founded BPA // Berlin Program for Artists in 2016.