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I'm glad that everyone showed up today A couple of words So I have organized that we don't have to stand in queue meaning what's going to happen in a second is that everyone from May is going to come together and we're going to walk to this entrance and they know that we are one group together You will get your bags checked I hope nobody has any glass bottles If so you can leave them outside now And then we're going to pick up my colleague Nils And then we're going to make our way upstairs and that's when the actual tour is going to start But until then there's a little bit of logistics I hope that we will get through it smoothly OK then let's go Assembled here together Fantastic OK now I can say it again in peace Thank you very much for coming today I'm glad that we're doing this with the May community And as I have briefly mentioned my name is Alungo and I am graduating right now from UDK And this is Nils He's a lecturer at UDK And we're going to start off by basically we want to introduce everyone Right We would like to hear also who you are briefly And then we're going to start the part where Nils is going to give an insight into what UDK is as an institution what his position is also in the school and also how we met actually As I said my name is Alungo and I will be hosting today Yeah Welcome everybody We are at the Academy of Kunst at UDK And today with me we're going to have this wonderful tour carried on from one of the main artists and one of the best emerging artists from the school and one of the lecturers that we will go through every piece and every corner of UDK And we get the unique perspective of two main representatives of this institution We as may you know we carry on conversation and we are trying every day to create a space where meaningful stories are shared And this is what we're going to do also today Since we really value the work that we have been doing we think to record this conversation to create an archive that values and honours the work that we do and the perspective that comes along with that for the future because we think that it matters We matter Thank you Thank you Thank you Hi everyone I just want to add a few things about this concert So this is inspired like since the very early stage from Joseph Beuys that the social sculpture So that the art is the catalyst and the conversation is the medium And the conversation is the outcome So we will be essentially during the symposium part of the work through our shared and the shared experience Because every like art is a language because it's an authentic form of communication because it comes from your emotional experience and it cannot be wrong or right It's just what it is And we believe it matters right now more than ever because right now everything can be fake And art is perhaps the last form of authentic communication that can make us still feel a human collective So thank you very much and enjoy the experience Oh yeah I thought we wanted to start off by hearing everyone's name quickly if that's Yeah just so we can also get a feel for who's in the room today and is honouring the space and our time So as I said my name is Alungo Nils Blau Mattia Vanessa Anja Karl Andrea I'm Igor I'm Carlo Sebastian Adam Jan Melissa Ipek Timur Michael Rocio Oliver Kiki Claire And Jan Wonderful Thank you very much That was like almost music actually For sure Yeah so I'm gonna give over to Nils Yeah Welcome everybody to the UDK Rundgang of 2026 I am Nils Blau and I work here as a teaching assistant in the sculpture class of Professor 2021 Ever since then I've been in various teaching facilities and have gathered a bunch of experience in the matter And I was also here as the drawing workshop organiser for a year And now as I said I am the teaching assistant in the class Konrad We are here today during the Rundgang which is a very special event that happens annually It doesn't only take place over here in the UDK Faculty of Fine Arts but across all UDK faculties So we have everything from music to design to performance art and context And once a year we are here and everything comes together and comes to fruition It's a very special event because it opens the doors of the UDK to the public which is not a common occurrence You have all of these experiences and energies that are put into the works the positions over here which only get to be seen once a year by everyone else And coming in here for the three days that the Rundgang takes place it's easily forgotten how much energy gets put into the actual preparation for it considering also that we are in fact a very small building with not a lot of space when it comes to working facilities Then also the fact that consequentially every year there's more and also less and less that go So we have to deal a lot with crowding over here And it might not come across when looking into all of the rooms Also downstairs the alumni presentations are over here from Alungu the limited space that's available And it's a lot of props to be given to all of the students who work here and the phenomenal work that they have accomplished to make all of their positions presentable to you for these three days of the year And I'm also very happy to be a part of this whole event and everything that comes around with it because it's something very unique And I always have the feeling when coming into this building also I mean now it's very different because it's super full and very hard to walk around something that everyone has to get used to when they're here But also the times when the doors aren't open to the public all of the things that are going on over here the exciting positions everything that's being created over here And this drive is something that needs to be recognized And yes I'm very happy to be here Maybe quickly I'll also say something about the way that works the Rundgang So it is of course primarily an opportunity for the people who are doing their graduation over here to present their final works everything that has come out of the five plus years of studying over here Usually the alumni they have their exhibition in the front hall which is where you were when you entered But because like I said limited space a lot of people also move into different classrooms or also the assembly hall over here where exhibitions can take place And it's a lot to try and figure out where all of the people are to be placed And then apart from the alumni there's also the possibility for each of the classes to exhibit during the Rundgang and also show the process this of what's going on over here This might be from the first semester onwards when they just started working in this field It might also be already in the third or fourth or fifth or 10th semester And you see a continuous development of the people and the work that they do over here And it's an opportunity for them And it's something that I hope you can all appreciate and also look forward to looking at all of the rooms and all of the works that are presented Maybe pick your favorites and follow them and see maybe what it'll be like next year Maybe you don't like the works then anymore but maybe they're even better Who knows Yes and I think I've talked enough Unless there's any more questions then I would give the word over to Alungo at this point Thank you Nils No worries As Nils was mentioning there is the moment of graduation happening at the same time So it's not only the open doors but it's actually also the graduation of myself and my colleagues in this room for example And as we have planned our today's event it is basically we would like to focus on the graduation piece that I'm presenting And if we feel like there's still enough capacities and enough energies that we can also look at some of the other positions in this very specific room And afterwards we invite everyone for the symposium which is going to take place in a room that is very close to here but not this one where it's going to be basically just the May community coming together Because you see there's still people coming in every now and then I hope it's not going to be too disruptive But this is just the open days and it's beautiful that everyone can come in But I would like to now invite everyone to start gathering around the middle sculpture Yeah enjoy How everyone can understand what it tastes like and what it feels like Because I mean if I tell you now to close your eyes and think about what it would taste like if you were to eat a piece of chocolate you will be able to recognize that very feeling on your tongue And there's this corporal sensation that happens within you And this is sort of one of the main reasons why I enjoy working with food based materials Because the accessibility is just a lot higher than it is for example with metals or other materials that people have no apparent relationship to it And the other aspect is that there is a non permanence in it So anything food related will either perish or it will rot away or it will dissolve over time And this is one of the second main reasons why I enjoy working with food based materials And earlier projects were for example made out of chocolate or sugar and gelatin And for my graduation piece called State of Affairs I'm showing a sculpture made out of salt So what we're seeing in front of us is a rendering of the German Reichstagsgebäude Some of you may recognize it Some of you may not And if you may not recognize that that's actually not your fault at all because this is a very skewed kind of rendering of it So clearly as there is an actual architectural counterpart in this work it would be easy to say this work would be scaled proportionally But it is not So if you're looking at the dome for example it is a lot bigger than the actual dome is in the real building And also with the front pieces like the spikes they're all scaled upwards So everything that is closer to the highest point is scaled upwards And at the same time there is a sort of squishing happening So the sides are a lot shorter than the actual sides of the building And for me it was important to of course ask the question what relationship architecture and sculpture can hold But as I am not an architect but I'm an artist it was for me important to leave the idea of the model behind So it always will be a model as this is a smaller version of something that exists in real life But more importantly I go into the materiality and what kind of feelings but also associations a material can make up from And as this is made out of salt I think most people know what salt tastes like But maybe not everyone can imagine what almost 400 kilograms of salt might taste like And while I was working on this project during the development and working with the salt I went through different kinds of salt So this material actually comes from a southwestern German salt mine And they sent me all sorts of different salts And while I was preparing for this development of this work I realized I would like to have a material that has a very very almost like blinding whiteness to it that is so extremely cold and white that it seems almost like it's blinding you And in my research I saw that for example sea salt would not be a good match for this because sea salt as some of you may have seen is somewhat more yellow and a bit more grayish as well And the salt that I have chosen in the end is Siedersalz So Siedersalz is a specific procedure where they basically drill into the salt mines and pump water into it And the water gets salty Then they pump it back upwards And it's being filtered cleaned and dried at the same time through vacuuming So this process also makes sure that it's very very bright in its color But at the same time the crystalline structure is a lot more ordered than it is for example when it were to be sea salt which has different kinds of crystal structures And if you look at the sculpture you will see that it doesn't have any of the or not a lot of the markers that the actual building has But it's more almost like a silhouette or like a contour of the building And I think for me it was interesting to sort of be able to show something that has a representational value without going in depth with the details and all of the different you know there's like the flags of course that are missing There's also the different columns that are missing and all sorts of other things But for me it was actually more interesting to see that it's basically the contour that holds it together And there is actually also an inhabitant I call it inside of this building If you would like to peek into the left side of it you will see it I was working on the sculpture A lot of insects were very very attracted to this material And I have basically two ideas why that might be One of them is just like any other being they need salt So you know that salt is circulating through all of our bodily fluids It's circulating through blood through tears through sweat but also through urine And some people who may are familiar with domesticated animals like farm animals they have these big salt stones And that's because they are requiring salt but they cannot get it from the industrial feed that they get for example So this is one of my ideas why I think there was so many insects being attracted to the work But the other idea was maybe because it's so bright and reflective they thought it was light And they thought that the whiteness was attracting them But yeah I mean basically during the working process I removed all of the insects at all times But this one I have left inside because this one died a week ago And it's not that I didn't have enough time to remove it but I think it's actually there's usually almost like a gentle gesture within the very heavy and very almost brutal esque kind of sculptures that I make And this time I think the moth is definitely one of the gestures that I think is also showing what kind of energy and property this material has I mean the salt is drying out the moth And it's now preserved basically And that's something that also drew me salt which is almost the technical aspects of this material being something that is always drawing moisture but is used for preserving things And part of the questions that I enjoy opening up with this work is also what is worth preserving And what are we trying to preserve And who's benefiting from preserving things And that's one of the few different associations and ideas I enjoyed opening up with this specific piece And I feel like the work itself is so loaded because of the symbolism that I'm using And this is partially because there's an earlier work that I've made a couple of years ago that was a very large candle in the colors of the German national flag And I as someone who was only able to start voting a couple of years ago think it's interesting to really look at these symbols of national self representation and also what kind of feelings can arise when being confronted with these notions and ideas And towards my graduation I thought this would be the perfect moment to come back to one of those very loaded symbols and bring it together with a material that has so many different kinds of associations and feelings that are opening up with that I'm glad I'm able to share it with all of URiKA everyone with you today And yeah I think that's what I would like to share for now about the work Place the soul together and to not make it you know fall And usually I do casts actually So yeah when I am molding sculptures it usually is because I'm preparing a positive that I later then create a mold out of it and cast later on But this time for my graduation I thought it would be more interesting and more challenging for me to create a modeled piece So this is modeled salt that I had mixed with a starch like a potato starch as a binding agent and with water to create like a modeling paste basically And there is an under construction inside of it I know that would have been the next question probably Because when I was mathematically organizing the work I realized that if it were to be full material it would be 2 7 tons And already the school was saying it would be maybe a little bit problematic with how many kilos one spot can carry actually So that's why I built an under construction And that's modeled on top with the salt paste And have you ever tried those other binding agents Yeah I have tried a lot of different binding agents But for me it was interesting to find a binding agent that would be like odorless that would have no different color and that dries pretty quickly So in the beginning when I was working on a project I bought a lot of salt from the nearby supermarkets and started just making these little tests by adding all sorts of different starches and all sorts of different like sticky materials basically binding agents And I would compare them and say Okay this one started to go a bit yellow maybe or this one is taking too long to dry And this way I basically ended up with potato starch But at the same time there is a little bit of a funny linguistic joke as well with like Germany and potatoes Thank you Thank you I will see you So I'm wondering what emotion do you now feel looking at this finished piece of art would you say Not difficult at all I'm sure I think there usually is an initial sort of like feeling that goes into producing a sculpture or like how I produce my sculpture to start with And I do often work with a single feeling that often is in the realm of more negative feelings actually And when I conceptualize this sculpture specific I've realized that I feel stuck and I feel frustrated And I think while working on this project these feelings definitely kept on arising Also because the material is very in German you say widerspenstig so very difficult to handle And when I was working on it I didn't use any gloves which in the beginning was okay But the longer I started working on it the more cuts and like bruise not bruises but like yeah little cuts I had on my hand because of the salt literally drawing the moisture out of my skin And I was talking to someone who is from my class And she was mentioning that she has neurodermatitis the skin thing And she was saying I could never work with this material because of how aggressive it is And I think aggression is definitely part of the conceptual coming together of this piece as well But to answer now looking at it I think I'm mostly but that has less to do with the sculpture itself but the circumstances relief that I'm graduating Of course But it's very interesting hearing the story of this because I would say it's pretty recognizable But then maybe I can only speak for myself But yeah this clear frustration of kind of wondering what's going on I'm quite interested in the cultural arts music nightlife aspect and to see how quickly things have shifted And just they're really not they seem to be showing all their cards on the table You know there's this idea of like oh we want to support the city Again cultural art aspect helping people out But then all we're seeing is malls being built big skyscrapers with you know these huge tech companies And yeah it's a bit frustrating you know where you see certain people are clearly being prioritized I would say So I can I'm getting some of the emotion at least the way you described it And yeah there is something weirdly I'm trying to think of the right word when something is just so without color And yeah it's clearly very powerful and built you know there's definitely something to it So yeah you definitely got me thinking Thank you Thank you for sharing your thoughts Next question So you mentioned that when scaling down this shape you did not maintain the proportionality of the dimensions of the main structure So the question is is it due to the properties of the material So you had to do it because you could not make the shape because maybe for the consistency or the stickiness of the material Or was it a decision that you made from the beginning and said no I just want to make the shape For me it came to sort of creating this balancing act between architecture and sculpture Because I feel like if I would have made it in a life like proportional sizing that the sort of desire to want to relate it to the actual building would be way too big And it still happens While I had wonderful conversations people would often say oh but this is missing And ah okay but there is a lump And I think these are all the sculptural elements that make this sculpture to be And I think it will never escape the actual building and the fact that it has a real life counterpart But when I was conceptualizing it I wanted to make it almost a little bit I mean janky looking like a little bit oddly shaped I mean you can see that with the surfaces some of them have like these bumps and lumps And if you look at the bottom side of it there is like almost chip pieces And it's not smooth at all It almost could look provisional in a way where it's just like like that Also a related question in terms of material If I look at this the first thing comes to my mind is snow Of course you have thought about that Does it bother you Do you think it's a good thing Or is it not Or how would you what is your feeling about the fact that it looks like snow So when I developed the work like nine months ago I realized that I think when I envision what frustration might physically embody and look like the idea of ice and snow definitely came to my mind And there is a work that was being developed at the same time that had components of water and components of ice in it So I think that when I was talking about frustration just now the word feeling frozen is definitely in the same kind of development Because I think just like we now heard with the different changes happening and people feeling overwhelmed by it I think being frozen might be one of those feelings that can come up as well when feeling overwhelmed And quite frankly I felt frozen And I felt overwhelmed And I think I'm definitely playing into these ideas of snow with this piece as well I have one last question if I may You said that you used mostly food based material You had made something out of chocolate Would you be unhappy if I ate your work Not necessarily no I think it's interesting because the sheer size of the sculptures makes it very difficult to ingest the material But all of them are food safe So all of them can be potentially eaten And even though it is not the primarily incentive behind the food based materials I do think it's important that there is I would say an ecological aspect in the work as well I mean technically someone asked me how it would be if we were to put this in a field full of cows And they would just have maybe one year until it's completely gone But I think I would first of all find it funny because my professor actually ate from the sculpture So my professor Christina she asked me two weeks before graduation like hey this is all food safe right And I said yeah And she goes and just licks it And I'm like oh OK cool yeah I guess I have a lot of trust in her But which part did she go for She went for actually this corner over here Yeah Next question First of all thank you so much for your tour And I think my question also already has been answered quite a bit especially in regards to the question of the material resembling snow My question would be why you insisted on the color white or why the color white was important in this work Yeah So I often work in series actually like in more specific color series Earlier series of mine were a lot of red sculptures that I made And then I transitioned into black pieces And the next thing I wanted to work on was the color of white because there's also this refusal of the color to convey depth And I thought that was conceptually really interesting that even though the little windows for example that I dremeled in are multiple centimeters deep it doesn't convey because of how much the light is reflecting back and it doesn't convey any depth because of that So that's one of the reasons why I thought it was interesting to work in the color But I mean there definitely is also the question of maybe national homogeneity in this work as well that I am very much leaning into as well Yeah fair Thank you very much Thank you So you mentioned that salt is really difficult to work with sculpturally And I know you said that part of this more blobby soft appearance is like conceptual and like the intention I wonder if you've also tried making more angular like flat surfaces and how you would go about it if that's what you decided to do for this one Is it possible is it feasible to make something look really flat and architectural with this It would be possible to make the planes flat It just is a lot of effort And it's not that I was shying away from that specific effort It's more that I thought it was interesting indeed to have the different textures that are still very visible in the different parts of the sculpture But also the almost like hand ish made ness of it So in some parts you will recognize maybe some tools have been used like some spatulas for example And in some parts you will almost see my fingerprints having been digged into the material But often I do like to work with material that has the property to be made smooth So I think I definitely feel drawn to smoothness actually And that's why I also like castings That's why I make casts of things But this time I thought it was especially with the conceptual under background more important to bring out the difficultness of the material and not to be the master of it in the end but rather say it does what it is doing actually But you can also make blocks can't you not I mean with the table salt you can have natural blocks that are super smooth This is steel salt so I suppose it's also ionic crystal But do you know if you could have that super smooth that comes from the structure of the crystal surfaces I think because there's binding agent in it it would be even easier than without binding agent So something that would be possible with this sculpture for example is that if I were to take a sandpaper it would be possible to make it to a point where it's almost powdery and very very smooth But as said I think for me it was actually more interesting to bring out the roughness of that texture Next question So thank you again for your presentation I was thinking because I read that you also mentioned that you work a lot with food in your work And I was wondering maybe you already said it briefly what's your relationship and why did you decide to base your work and your character as an artist on the choice of working with food if there's any emotional relationship with it or something like this That's actually a really funny question because I feel like even though it's so much at the core of my practice not a lot of people actually have asked me this question If there's some kind of insight that brought me to food what I think I enjoy most is indeed the accessibility to it So I think you can maybe imagine that making art is expensive to be honest And it's difficult to always have access to the materials that you maybe want to work with And when I started working with food based materials I realized there is a bigger accessibility on my side as the artist But there's also a bigger accessibility from the side of the viewers So as briefly mentioned in the beginning there is this possibility for everyone to connect to this because you just know what it is like and what it tastes like But something that I think I have only understood a little bit later in my practice is that my father when he came to Germany he came to study food engineering And we don't talk much about this not at all But maybe I wonder if there is something behind it that I was surrounded by it and it may have left an impression on me And I think that almost feels like that could be part of my interest in just working with food because I could have also become a baker you know I could have also become a baker I could have also become a chef maybe But I think I enjoy working with it as a substance and as a material rather than the consuming part of it That's why I thought the question about eating the sculpture was kind of funny because these sculptures feel like they could be eaten but they always are refusing to be eaten because it's just physically not possible And I think there is definitely maybe like a familial background for my dad coming in to play with this I think my joy that I have with bringing accessibility to the artwork that I'm making but also it's a lot of fun actually Like it actually is a lot of fun And I think if not creating any fun for whoever's producing it I think yeah I mean creating art at least for me should be also fun Thank you so much I think it's super interesting that each person that in touch with your work can I really find a connection Because I mean salt for me can have some sort of associations that can be different for you and everything So it's super nice And I just wanted to ask if you first decide the sculpture and then the material or you first decide the material and then the shape of the sculpture So how I usually work is that there is definitely a very clear visual that I'm following And sometimes I work in it in almost like a haunting way that there's this idea that just keeps on resurfacing until it wants to be brought into a physical presence And it was kind of similar this time But I think the feeling that came from how the very specific state of being I was in was so strong that I realized OK what is the symbol behind that feeling I'm feeling right now And I think creating something that is representational for politics state power and all of these things brought me to first thinking about what kind of shape I'm creating and then going into the material research and then coming to salt later on Thank you so much Thank you One question more OK I have one last question that I forgot to ask before I was wondering if also because that was my first thought as soon as I recognized it was the Reichstag if you got in any way inspired by what Christo made when he covered it So yeah that was a little bit also my question Because the idea there is always to unveil what's hidden and occluded And so since I hear similar feelings about your connection to the food and the material and then the idea behind the visual that you say you have room to see where it's going and then to unveil it and to this frustration And so yeah I was wondering if you were inspired in any way or there was any connection to it since it's kind of I don't know if it's that popular here but it's one of the art moments at least I associate to the Reichstag I feel like when I was developing this work there were a lot of different kinds of influences that came to be when I was working on this And this is the first time also while working on a sculpture that I was actively discussing the work while it was being produced And that's something I am probably not going to do because I don't have conversations about also the different kinds of feelings that arise when I was talking about the work and also maybe you would think you would become more clear in the messaging when you're discussing it with other people But I realized that the more I was discussing it in the process the further I was straying away from what it was supposed to be And in the end in the last months working at the sculpture I said no more conversations and no more influences And afterwards of course I am now also discussing this work with all of you But I realized that for me the best way to develop a work is just keep it as close as possible within me And I think that's also just what I can do as an artist like express the thing that I know of and that I can really feel within my own body and bring it into a physical form So do you think there is something also that we should feel to sort of unveil when we look at that Like it should connect with us or I think that's me at Adam's question but I was curious how you imagined interaction with that since it's not supposed to be either and it's not supposed to So when I was creating the planes for the floor there definitely was a wish to keep a distance not only physically but also maybe one might say emotionally to the work And you can also see that the exhibition visitors are walking on the perimeter of the work but not coming too close to the work So in the end the perimeter did what I initially planned on doing with it But the interaction part I think comes from the visual actually So something that I wanted to convey is the almost like wish to want to touch it because of the different structures that you can see And also I think I would like to incite curiosity in the people Because when I tell people that this is 375 kilograms of salt I think people immediately would want to grab it and touch it and maybe even feel how rough the texture is But this time there is no active interactive part But with some other sculptures and installation there definitely were some interactive parts with it Thank you Thank you Thank you very much Thank you OK My name is Marijke Hello Marijke So my voice is OK well confusion So my question is Xatans sculptures promise stability while quietly carrying change inside them What can feel stable even while it's changing Change is the only constant I mean yeah I don't know what else to say Maybe only that it goes back to ancient Greek like Heraclitus one of my favorite philosophers Like this thing with the change and you never can step twice in the same river and stuff like that Yeah that's it OK Question answer I don't know any more questions I don't know where to find the question actually You find it in the app You say your name first and then you read the question You answer the question Was the mic right there Yeah my name is Sebastian And my question is at the Rundgang Alungo Xatan turns discomfort into something visible instead of avoided When is discomfort worth noticing Yeah I can imagine many possibilities One is discomfort is always challenging and asking you to maybe go deeper or take the next step Or it's the question of maybe going somewhere else I'm just wondering like the question with the turns discomfort into something visible Because for me it was not so strongly in the artwork there But yeah it was What you thought seeing the artwork Yeah this whiteness I mean she told about the scratches and everything but you don't see it in the artwork So it's more like the information that we got afterwards in the artwork itself I didn't feel any discomfort Should I I mean to me the surface structure could show it I mean the surface was really like rough Not every place but it also looked intentional So if you know it's also salt you would feel that it's yes it's a bit could cause discomfort But if you think of snow for example you wouldn't Yeah sure Yeah Thank you My name is Amir The question is either exact same or very similar question Alungo Zatan makes discomfort visible through materials that seem calm at first Can discomfort sometimes be worse noticing So as I said very similar question And my answer is discomfort you will notice you like it or not It's the most noticeable thing anyways And It's the strongest drive that is out there I mean there's no question that negative reinforcement is stronger than positive reinforcement You always just want to avoid discomfort And that's also sometimes why your body your physical body or your psyche makes you feel discomfort or uncomfortable because then it moves you in some direction So because this is too obvious that discomfort will be noticeable within ourselves I suppose the question means noticing it in other places or other people And then of course it's less trivial but my answer would be yes it's still worth noticing because that's also what brings people closer So most often when people for example feel not heard or they say oh you're not listening basically what they mean is that you do not understand my discomfort And it takes genuine effort and understanding to be able to see problems difficulties and discomforts of life in other people And once you develop an eye for it it would be also received very well I think that's also what makes us human Being able that's what is called compassion I would say Being compassionate means that you're able to see the difficulties and discomforts and the suffering that other people go through It doesn't necessarily have to be very visible There are scenarios in which that you can see for example homeless people yes has a difficult life But you should not really reduce it to that very obvious sort of difficulty that comes with the unbearable weight of life So noticing of it would be helpful and bring people closer together Thank you for the talk My name is Vanessa and the question is her work calls attraction and resistance together in the same object Where do you notice attraction and resistance at the same time It could be around the place idea or habit It's a difficult question The first thing that comes to my mind is that I'm reading a book about the relationship and the importance of hate And it's a feeling I agree it's always misunderstood but I see an importance in it It's by Michele Amulja who is an influential Italian contemporary writer It's about understanding that hate is as important as any other feeling but that there is a social taboo around And this is when you start hating then people will sometimes ask to say something negative to you And instead it's a powerful feeling that also leads to not compress everything in yourself also in terms of feelings that then will be exploding in a negative way One of the examples she categorized and of course it's associated to social behavior and dynamics it's way deeper than that But one of the typical behaviors I don't know the man will kiss maybe the partner or the person killing out of racist ideas And the truth is if you will be able to say I hate you instead of saying I kill you because you're black or because of that then the dynamic will probably go differently So this of course led me thinking a lot about it because I never really had an issue myself in saying what I would hate But I understand it is difficult to accept the feeling It's also easy that you fall into a very disorganized way of expressing this feeling that then leads to very negative consequences So I would say that it's a feeling that gives me both attraction and resistance sometimes And reading about it of course makes me think about it At least this is the first thing that comes to mind right now Yeah that's the answer My name is Carlo and the question reads Zatan makes discomfort visible instead of hiding it What becomes clearer when discomfort is out in the open I believe that when discomfort is out in the open you usually become more true to yourself for better or worse And I guess depending on what kind of person you are that can manifest itself in vastly different ways Like to generalize you might for example become much quieter than you usually are You might become much louder than you usually are Yeah something according to those lines I would think Yeah that's it for me My name is Igor My question is Alungu Zatan asks how home can feel secure and temporary at once What still makes a place feel like home when it keeps changing I think for me it's two things It's feelings and rituals Like for me I feel like home in a place like either my own apartment or in a situation like this or depending on how the people around and the architecture around the nature around whatever makes me feel And I either feel at home or not And I think rituals would be the other part of this Because sometimes I might not be feeling so safe in a place or feeling so good but then if I do a certain thing like for example if I'm not feeling great about how a week went I know that I can always order crispy chicken and watch Glee on the TV and then I get my blanket and I'm like ah yes I'm home you know So yeah I think it depends on that And this makes me think also about when I moved to Berlin seven ish years ago that before that I always had it in my mind like oh where am I going to go next Where am I going to go next I was never satisfied And then after two weeks living in Berlin I noticed that my mind was clearer you know And I was like what was that And it was because I didn't have this oh where am I going to go next Where am I going to go next feeling anymore And that's when I felt that I was home you know So yeah that's kind of it Actually I think that rituals are so important especially for us that we are I guess we're all migrants somehow Yeah And it's so important too because rituals can be like the crispy chicken when you're feeling depressed but also doing something that reminds you of your culture of doing stuff with your family that maybe with other people And it's so nice when you are able to find a space where you can apply these rituals In that case I think life is good Thank you so much So I'm Sissy and my question is Satan builds attraction and resistance into the same physical forms What makes the same thing pull us and push us back Honestly connecting this to your work I felt that I was behaving in this exact way because I was looking at the artwork from different perspectives and sometimes going closer and then looking from you know afar So I was kind of like pushing back and forth And I felt that I was behaving this way because I couldn't actually understand what I was seeing that something that happens with all the artworks that you might see that when you're trying to understand something because you don't really see something clear that's when you start to have this behavior of going a bit closer and then I don't like this Because stuff that we don't understand sometimes are confusing for us and we feel like discomfort when we don't understand something So we kind of have this attitude of going back and then going further and going closer And also with what you were saying that I think this question is really accurate with your work because of the thing of the food that you don't know if you can eat it or not You go closer and you see ah maybe I can eat it and touch it You feel like you want to touch it but maybe you don't do that So I think what gives us this behavior of pushing back and what's the opposite of pushing back Back and forth exactly It's when we don't get what we're seeing This can be a network a relationship everything in life a subject maybe math I don't know I don't know if you had this experience with science Thank you so much Thank you Zizi I'm Carl and the question is Alungu Satan places attraction and resistance next to each other in one form What can pull you in and make you pause at the same time That sounds quite similar So I think I can extend on what you just said Zizi The artwork itself that you interact with can pull you in You're trying to understand it and make you pause at the same time when you're thinking oh maybe I'm not getting to the bottom of it yet Let me take a step back I'm not sure what to feel about this But also with regards to what you told us about the process of making it I think it's also very fitting to that thought of it does pull you in When I see certain types of artworks you can tell okay I can see how the person that made this got into a state of flow But at the same time especially you struggling with the materials and trying to find out the best way to make this work those are the parts where it makes you pause and reassess how to continue So it's something you feel while you're appreciating something consuming something but it's also something you feel while you're in the process of making it Hi again I'm Lea And my question is as long as I can sculptures hold attraction and resistance in the same physical space Why can the same thing pull us in and push us away That sounds probably like the same question but I do have a different perspective And because I do feel like one of the most important things art can and should do is to create a sort of tension And I think your work does that very well in the sense that it creates almost enough resistance to be attractive if that makes sense Because it does hold a lot of political tension social tension and also material tension of course that makes it even more to be drawn into And I like the fact that it's quite subtle in that sense Because in a larger context in the art world I feel like we due to our I guess attention economy we also have an interesting cultural moment where resistance is almost forced in a sense that we are looking for a shock moment that draws people in And I think you don't fit into that box because the tension is subtle enough to still create this value but lasting in that sense Yeah I'm Sumai Zatan lets discomfort stay visible instead of hiding it away Does visible discomfort make people look more closely or step back I mean I think visible discomfort both draws people in or pushes them away depending on the viewer But personally I didn't feel discomfort from the color white like brightness But from this personally I like smooth surfaces and proper measurements But for this specific artwork the visible footprints surrounding the piece shows that I have to say that discomfort actually encourages people to look more closer and step closer and examine it more intently So yeah I felt that curiosity So discomfort yeah I couldn't explain it but I felt like that Yeah thank you That's what I was trying to say actually but it's even better No no Because that's what I was saying that when you don't understand something you're even more engaged in finding meaning And in this process of looking for a meaning you're getting familiar with what you're seeing and there's curiosity driving you and I guess there's no more engaging feelings than not understanding what's happening And if we think about relationships for example when someone is giving you a big sit up it's happening and you know that it's wrong but you don't know how to step back from this situation So I guess you can apply this to everything It's a very inspiring exhibition Thank you Hi I'm Ipek and the question is satan's sculptures make instability visible instead of hiding it Can instability sometimes feel more real than stability I definitely think that instability is more real than stability especially in the current state of the world right now But also maybe connecting it to your work because you use biodegradable materials that it is in fact instable in a way that it's going to fade away one day And I think that's what's also beautiful about it because this life that we experience here is also not stable and it's going to fade away one day And that also puts so much more meaning into both your work and also life in general So yeah I'm really filled with a lot of gratitude right now actually I think it's interesting to have a room where so many people are so deeply engaged with someone's work I know that especially with the open days it can feel a little bit overwhelming and this is my last time I'm doing this so I feel extra happy that I now was able to hear so many thoughts and feelings that came I mean through the work but also beyond the work And I was talking to Pascal just earlier today saying that I think what is happening with the May community it seems like people are really really coming together And in the end this is sort of what I think a lot of artists and me included are trying to do through the art to be honest that it raises conversations and that people are standing there and sort of thinking about what they're feeling and just giving it space for it And it's really yeah really really beautiful that you guys are giving it space as well through creating a community And I'm really happy that we were able to do this together today And I think this is now the point where I am releasing all of you into the outside Alongo you also have a question Do I also have a question Oh okay I am really sorry It would be nice to hear your answer Okay Alongo Hattan's sculptures hold discomfort without trying to resolve it What can discomfort help us notice And I think earlier we heard that discomfort almost brings out the very basic like nature of a person And I think there's a lot of truth to it I mean for me it is bringing out for me it is bringing out creative energy I mean I think because basically all of the works I am creating are in the realm of like more negative feelings For me it's a very like life giving and very sort of like engaging kind of energy that comes from it But at the same time it yeah it's hard right It's hard dealing with hard things And it often sucks And often you don't want to do it But then you know there's a friend that says maybe you should do therapy you know and you're like nah I'm a sculptor It's like no But yeah no I think it's difficult And I'm honestly like really amazed when someone does it for themselves I am doing it through the artwork I'm making And yeah I think this is I guess what I would like to share about it
