The project cycle GOSSIP addresses everyday, seemingly banal actions that create, evade, or oppose in:visibilities. Gossip implies the proliferation and falsification of everyday information; and is thereby dismissed as flimsy or illegitimate as much as it is in high demand. In a digitalized world, gossip gains relevance when the circulation of images, content, and information influences political decisions, establishes economic relations or regulates social connections. Gossip creates the public sphere(s) and manipulates (power) relations – and is thus not only an important strategy for maintaining the prevailing orders, but can also be used to undermine them, in the sense of so-called counter-narratives of marginalized groups. If gossip, especially online gossip, is a means of shaping community and the public sphere, how can this means be placed in an institutional context – and thus change, negotiate, interrupt, and critically reflect modes of presentation and narration?

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As the first episode of the IN:VISIBILITIES programme series, GOSSIP uses effects of networking and circulation to retell what appears self-evident on screens and displays: through moments of researching, talking, hosting and showing. The focus is on social norms and attributions such as race, gender identity and class. The programme unfolds as an open research movement: Workshops with students from the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig and the University of Hildesheim will kick off the programme. This is followed by a series of hybrid talks and by evenings in a queer bar hosted by the artist Paul Niedermayer. In September, an exhibition with works by Ana Botezatu, Rindon Johnson, Katarzyna Perlak and Bruno Zhu will open.

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Researching

Institutional Glitches: Instagram Takeover by students of the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. In cooperation with Broken Relations – Infrastruktur und Unterbrechung.

26 – 29 April 2021 / 15 June 2021

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The Speculative Institution: Workshop with students of the University of Hildesheim, Institute for Visual Arts and Art Studies). In cooperation with Fiona McGovern (Junior Professor for Curatorial Practice and Art Education, University of Hildesheim)

18 – 20 June 2021

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Talking

#1 Why Gossip: Marc Siegel (Professor for Film Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz) on gossip, publics und counter-publics.

13 September 2021, 6 p.m., online

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#2 Patterns of (In)Difference: Gossip, Code and Colonised Bodies: Jacqueline Saki Aslan (Sociologist of Education, Artist, Social Worker, Hamburg), Amina Aziz (Journalist, Academic Speaker and Political Educator, Berlin) and Tobias Matzner (Professor for Media, Algorithms and Society, Paderborn University) on gossip as empowerment over discriminatory algorithms.

9 July 2021, 6 p.m., on site and YouTube-Livestream

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#3 Creating Context, Building Communities? Övül Durmuşoğlu (Curator und Writer, Visiting Professor, Graduate School University at Berlin University of the Arts) and Daria Khan (Founder and Curator of Mimosa House, London) on the relation of instituting and institution in the context of community oriented exhibition practices.

9 October 2021, 6 p.m., online

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Hosting

Queer Bar with Paul Niedermayer (Artist, Berlin)

24 July 2021

31 July 2021

28 August 2021

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Showing

GOSSIP

Exhibition with Ana Botezatu, Rindon Johnson, Katarzyna Perlak, Bruno Zhu

Opening: 25 September

26 September – 31 October 2021

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The Gossipers – Hohenlockstedt Edition

Reel Talk with Shirin Barthel & Sunny Pudert
Media partner: KubaParis

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With generous support from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture Schleswig-Holstein and the programme Neustart Kultur of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

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