Bridging Distance

Research project

The support of the Federal Cultural Foundation in the “Reload” program enables us to develop new forms of cooperation with our international partners, with which we can bridge the spatial distances and, at best, use them productively. Joint research, experiments on a technical level, try-outs with the respective own audience and joint evaluation of the experiences made are steps on the discourse to be led about relevance in form and content. How do we design the common space where we meet to work? How do we present the work to our audience – digital, analog, mixed media? Although direct communication remains important, we will also increasingly work in and with delayed exchanges (letters, videos). Moreover, working in a transnational context always includes the aspect of multilingualism. How can we develop forms for this, if we are not really in a room, if we do not assume an audience largely belonging to one language, but (in the World Wide Web) a multilingual audience? Relating to and dealing with a completely or partially “invisible/unknown” audience presents us with new questions. How do we create something like a sense of community in digital or partially digital formats, how much address, possibility for dialogue, participation are possible and necessary beyond the boundaries of physical space?

For BRIDGING DISTANCE we are working with selected artists* in Burkina Faso (West Africa) and in Turkey (Istanbul). Our audience will be able to experience the results of this research in one way or another in future projects.

Funded in the Reload program. Grants for independent groups from the German Federal Cultural Foundation.