E-WERK Luckenwalde, Germany, 2024
Festival Introduction Text
Inspired by author and art critic Martin Herbert’s collection of essays Tell Them I Said No (2016, Sternberg Press), the programme will consider the implications of resistance, what radical models of self-sufficiency look like, the political connotations of counterculture (or cancel culture), who has the privilege to say no, and artistic vulnerability. The event will take place across E-WERK’s 25,000 metre square site, including the historic Turbine Hall, the adjacent Bauhaus Stadtbad and E-WERK’s outdoor geodesic dome, and will include concerts, performances, panel discussions and sauna sessions. Asad Raza and Prem Krishnamurthy have consulted with E-WERK, providing creative and dramaturgical suggestions for the two day event. Prem Krishnamurthy of Department of Transformation will help guide the event with karaoke on both days.
Contributing artists, thinkers and performers include Lamis Ammar, Sascia Bailer, Mirthe Berentsen, Candice Breitz, Eglė Budvytytė in collaboration with Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome, JJJJJerome Ellis, Hettie Judah, Prem Krishnamurthy, Zoë Claire Miller, Eve Stainton & Florence Peake, Nástio Mosquito, Asad Raza, Lauryn Youden, Abbas Zahedi, SERAFINE1369, Pussy Riot, Fatoş Üstek and Melanie Jame Wolf.
On Friday, May 3, 2024 (4–11pm) the programme will include an introduction by Curator Katharina Worf; dragging workshop by Eglė Budvytytė in collaboration with Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome (both days); performances Practice 1 by Eve Stainton and Florence Peake; you’re seeping into my bloodstream by Lauryn Youden; a conversation between curator Fatoş Üstek and artists Florence Peake, Abbas Zahedi and Melanie Jame Wolf. The evening will culminate with a performance The Promise of Their Body by Melanie Jame Wolf.
On Saturday, May 4, 2024 (11am–11pm) the programme will include performances by JJJJJerome Ellis, Riot Days by Pussy Riot and STEMM & Rose by Abbas Zahedi; a discussion between Candice Breitz, Lamis Ammar and Zoë Claire Miller on withholding labour as a strategy towards transformation; sound work by Nástio Mosquito; a soil workshop with Asad Raza; tour with Bernd Schmiedl (former E-WERK production manager) and Prem Krishnamurthy of Department of Transformation; a conversation and workshop with Hettie Judah, Sascia Bailer and Mirthe Berentsen on resilience for parents in the artworld; a performance IV by SERAFINE1369 and an in-conversation between artist Asad Raza and E-WERK Co-Directors Helen Turner and Pablo Wendel on alternative models of self-sufficiency.
The programme, which spans both day and night time events, has been co-curated by Katharina Worf, Curator, E-WERK Luckenwalde, and Helen Turner, Chief Curator and Artistic Director, E-WERK Luckenwalde.
Performance Documentation
On a somber afternoon, the space of the Stadtbad, the former municipal swimming pool of Luckenwalde, became a resonating chamber for a poignant vocal performance by interdisciplinary artist Abbas Zahedi. Titled Rose and STEMM, the affecting spoken word piece performed by the artist, accompanied by a misty atmosphere, solicited images of displacement and feelings of homesickness, pointing to the question of artistic belonging in the tokenizing and heavily commodified art market. In his spoken flow, Zahedi reflected on the unrelatability of migrants’ experiences and the lack of space for visiblized suffering by Arabs and Muslims in Western formally democratic systems. His speech, trembling but assertive, often returned to the image of lemons as catalysts of grief, leaving the audience rapt in states of empathy and reflection.
—Dalia Maini, for Arts of The Working Class, May 28 2024 source
Tell me What you Want What you Really Really Want: A conversation
Press and Reviews
- The Drop Out: On how E-Werk in Luckenwalde opened a much needed space to process emotions and foster political agency in Germany, Dalia Maini for Arts of The Working Class, May 2024 source
- Inside E-WERK Luckenwalde’s ‘Tell Them I Said No’, an art festival at Berlin’s former power station, Will Jennings for Wallpaper*, May 2024 source
Further information about the festival can be found on E-WERK’s website source
Abbas Zahedi // عباس زاهدی // abbzah.com 