The three main themes of the New Life Berlin festival were: Transnational Communities, Artistic Social Responsibility and Participation and Intervention. And Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin matched the structure, themes and artistic content of the festival itself: it was curated but participatory at its core, and it involved on and offline communities in examining artistic responsibility and new modes of existing for art critics. Within this model, the purpose of the programme was four fold; 1) to provide critique on, and documentation of, the festival, 2) to examine the notion of community, 3) to explore the role of criticism in relation to participatory art and 4) to act as professional development programme for new and existing international critical writers.
The Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin blog included all the texts written by the 21 international
writers on the Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin programme, three of whom
experienced the festival online from across Europe and the US. Combined, their
output represents 5 interviews, 3 previews, 27 reviews and 15 opinion pieces
relating to the socially engaged and collaborative art work at the festival and
the practice of critical writing. There were also
two printed publications produced as part of Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin.
The PDF’s of these publications can be emailed to you on request to
opendialogues@gmail.com.
Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin programme:
31 May, 10.30am - 5.30pm Writers’ Workshop
2 June, 2.30pm -5.30pm Writers’ Meeting
5 June, 5pm -7pm Peer Critique
7 June, 5pm -7pm Live Review
7 June, Publication of Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin ‘issue 1’
12 June, 5pm -7pm Peer Critique
14 June, Publication of Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin ‘issue 2’
15 June, 11am - 1pm Plenary Session
7 June Open Dialogues: Live Review :
The Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin Live Review was a showcase of, evaluation for and live critical response to Open Dialogues and New Life Berlin. Special guests included:
Martin Rosengaard and Sixten Kai Neilsen (Wooloo Productions)
Doreen Mende (General Public, Berlin)
Tatjana Fell and Lisa Glauer (Arttransponder, Berlin)
Anonymous Representative (30 Days in New Life Berlin)
The web archive:
The Writers:
The writers on Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin were Anga'aefonu Bain-Vete, Alfredo Cramerotti, Clare Carswell, Alexandria Clark, Mary Kate Connolly, Kathryn Fischer, Eleanor Hadley Kershaw, Christina Irrgang, Joanna Loveday, Cheree Mack, Matthew MacKisack, Carali McCall, Charlotte Morgan, Christin Niehoff, Ann Rapstoff, Valerie Palmer, Carrie Paterson, Kara Rooney, Heiko Schmid, Claire Louise Staunton and Eliza Tan. More details about the writers can be found on the CV section of http://www.wooloo.org/opendialoguesblog/
Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin was facilitated by Rachel Lois Clapham and Mary Paterson, the Directors of Open Dialogues, with assistance from Christina Irrgang (Open Dialogues Associate, Berlin).
All photographs courtesy Open Dialogues : New Life Berlin
