Ist das mein Ort? (English)
Amidst the villas of Berlin-Dahlem, the Henry Ford Building stands as a symbol of the optimistic spirit of the 1950s. As a counterpoint to Humboldt University in what was then the »unfree part of Berlin«, the new Freie Universität building, financed by the US-based Ford Foundation, was intended to architecturally reflect the values of »freedom« as proclaimed in the university's name. In keeping with the modernist paradigm, the building was intended to create new spaces rather than displace existing ones. The building's double-T shape orients it towards two differently designed entrance sides. On Boltzmannstraße, the entrance is set back behind a forecourt, dissolving into the glass facade and flanked by two structures on either side. Framed openness could be the architectural leitmotif. But there are clear boundaries inscribed in the architecture. The left wall, which shields the Audimax behind it, is made of solid natural stone. This side, facing the GDR, remains symbolically closed. Openness exists here only in one direction.
Rike Flämig is a performer that creates site specific works with her body as a resistant sign. She traces and confronts power structures in architecture and society with and through her body. She layers body and language between times and spaces and juxtaposes Western narratives with Eastern futurist thought while placing her body in the now.
Ist das mein Ort? Is This My Place? is part of the performance series Tracing Influence: Intervening in Western Cold War Architecture. The series is dedicated to four Cold War architectures in Berlin that bear witness to the institutionalization of US power in the promotion of educational institutions and the dissemination of knowledge. Various artists engage performatively with these architectural spaces and their site-specific histories to develop new forms of gathering that question the power dispositif of their past.
Tracing Influence was conceived by Kirsten Maar, Sophie Schultze-Allen, Hannah Strothmann and Luise Willer with the support of Mariama Diagne, Friederike Hartge, Martina Kutsch and Giulia Weis as part of the Collaborative Research Center Intervening Arts at the FU Berlin, in cooperation with the Central State Library Berlin and the HKW Berlin.