I am showing a new site-specific installation
Archive of Gestures: Circling
at:
Planetary Peasants
Agriculture, Art, Revolution
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle (Saale)
Friedemann-Bach-Platz 5
06108 Halle (Saale)
Opening: 22.5.2025, from 4 pm
>https://planetarische-bauern.werkleitz.de/en/planetarische-bauern-programm
23.05.2025 — 14.09.2025
ABOUT THE SITE SPECIFIC INSTALLATION
The installation traces a circular path through the upheavals and revolutions of 1989/90, moving backwards and forwards in time as it explores the embodied nature of revolt and protest. In one video, two friends circle around Tahrir Square in Cairo in 2012, a year after the uprising began. After a revolution, everything is different – yet it can feel just the same, as if in a perfect loop. Surveillance footage taken by East German security forces on Halle’s Market Square on 9 October 1989 follows. The artist, then 15, was passing by, but didn’t dare get off the tram. A slideshow moves between 1989 and 2011, weaving together revolutionary gestures, dances and geometries, and entering into dialogue with selected works from Kunstmuseum Moritzburg presented as part of the installation. The Archive of Gestures captures the embodied experience of a moment of powerful yet incomplete emancipation – one that eludes dominant narratives of the ‘fall of the Wall’.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
In 2025, the end of the German Peasants’ War marks its 500th anniversary. This serves as the occasion for a contemporary artistic exploration. Based on the conditions and unresolved questions of the historical events, the project examines the state of globalized agriculture, the realities of farmers’ lives today, and the relevance of the demands made in 1525.
Könnern train station “alles allen” [“everything to everyone”], photo: © Werkleitz 2022
The exhibition “Planetary Peasants”, a collaboration between the Kulturstiftung Sachsen-Anhalt and Werkleitz, presents 30 contemporary artistic positions at Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle (Saale). Internationally active artists and collectives are invited to develop new works during a residency in Saxony-Anhalt or to expand existing works site-specifically. Their projects explore the production conditions and emancipatory potential of today’s agricultural practices while addressing societal issues and challenges that led to the Peasants’ War 500 years ago—many of which remain relevant in different societies worldwide today.
