*foundationClass - from within the cracks

Artists: Osamah Abouzor, Najwa Ahmed, Ahmad Alali, Anwar Alatrash, Puta Alatrash, Richard Khaldon Al Halah, Rula Ali, Fadi Aljabour, Mayada Alkayal, Sana Al Kurdi, Marwa Almokbel, Aram Al Saed, Mohanad Alsneeh, Akhil Amer, Ulf Aminde, Markues, Reem Awad, Amel Alzakout, Anoush Azizi, Yemisi Babatola, Tewa Barnosa, D’Andrade, Annabel Daou, Mira Debaja, Max Grau, Mohamad Halbouni, Diwali Hasskan, Nadira Husain, Mahmoud Ismail, Azad Ibrahim, Eva Karduck, Katharina Kersten, Serena Khan, Cam-Anh Luong, Roda Mehrez, Hami Mehr​, Dyaa Naim, Marina Naprushkina, Nour Nasreddine, Ayham Omarin, Ramin Parvin, Krishan Rajapakshe, Can Rastovic, Dachil Sado, Miriam Schickler, Batoul Sedawi, Oula Soleman, Hatef Soltani, Yara Sulaiman, Ghaith Tahsen, Aref Torkaman, Vera Varlamova, Noor Yasin

from within the cracks is an audiovisual show, an archive, a construction site, a method, a space of reformulating power relations, born and raised in the togetherness of the *foundationClass collective. A crack is a breaking point, a sign of destruction, but also an undefined space from which opportunities arise. Operating from this space of brokenness that is in but not of the art institution, the members of the *foundationClass collective are very much confronted with absence, impossibility, obstacles—everything that forms part of the mechanisms of structural discrimination.
In the current project the *foundationClass collective decided to turn these power structures upside down, to blow up that concept of limitation and to forbid structural discrimination to continue to marginalize *foundationClass members. Instead, it is turned into a research object, into energy and creative potential.

In a large-scale installation at nGbK, a digital hub for collective learning will be set up. The material of offer includes a collaborative podcast series, an online archive and a digital presentation of artworks on the nGbK website. In this way, the *foundationClass shares working methods, viewpoints and questions resulting from the limitations to collective learning in the analogue social sphere.

In this project, works by the participating artists form the point of departure for collective work. These are new works by *foundationClass as well as reenactments of previous major productions such as “TRUST US” (Maxim Gorki Theater/Herbstsalon), “untoured” (after Europe Festival/Sophiensaele), “The *foundationClass’ non-Cafeteria of the Academy of Misery” (accompanying programme of Berlin Biennale, Akademie der Künste), “WEST” (West Den Haag).

The *foundationClass is both a study programme based at weißensee academy of art berlin and an artist collective. As a study program the *foundationClass seeks to facilitate access to art academies for people who migrated to Germany and who are affected by racism. In its artistic practice the collective fosters inclusive forms of teaching and education and deconstructs the mechanisms of exclusion inherent in white art institutions. In spite of the obstacles posed by the academy, the *foundationClass constitutes a community within it. It creates a social space where knowledge, artistic and design practices are not consumed, but collectively questioned.

On the occasion of the project a book will be published at nGbK publishing house
*foundationClass – the book 
ISBN: 978-3-938515-83-9

nGbK project group: *foundationClass

Financed by the LOTTO-Stiftung Berlin
Supported by the weißensee kunsthochschule berlin