NEW LIFE BERLIN is a contemporary art festival dedicated to new modes of moving and existing...

NEW LIFE BERLIN is a contemporary art festival dedicated to new modes of moving and existing.

NEW LIFE BERLIN is curated from the participatory art community WOOLOO.ORG , and will take place in Berlin between 1st and 15th June 2008. In addition to the published program, the curators invite members of the online community to participate throughout the festival itself.

In this way, NEW LIFE BERLIN connects the resources of a global network of people with the physical geography of Berlin, as Europe’s pre-eminent centre for cultural production.

By inviting participation (while still retaining curatorial control), NEW LIFE BERLIN will investigate the much discussed ‘online community’ - How effective is this community? What binds this community? What governs it? In contrast to traditional art festivals and biennials, NEW LIFE BERLIN will not represent a set of cultural conclusions, but create a model for a fluid cultural landscape.

The NEW LIFE BERLIN festival program is structured along three themes:

Transnational Communities. What do ‘community’ and ‘identity’ mean today? Presenting projects from both artistic and sociological starting points, NEW LIFE BERLIN will use group participation to explore real-life cultural mobility.

Artistic Social Responsibility. What is the relationship between cultural practitioners and corporate entities in the new millennium? How does contemporary cultural production relate to the concept of “Corporate Social Responsibility”?

Participation and Intervention. How do participatory arts practices affect the socio-cultural environments in which they take place? How and why can local audiences become involved in artists’ projects, and what does their involvement mean in terms of civic engagement and social empowerment?


WHY BERLIN?
Berlin has been chosen as festival location, due to its growing international position as the preferred meeting place for a multitude of cultural practitioners. Constantly exchanging experiences, ideas and knowledge with other likeminded individuals within (and far from) the urban confines of the city, the artists in Berlin are forming and fortifying new human networks independent of specific citizenships and traditional nationalistic expectations.

Looking at contemporary Berlin can help us analyse the ongoing (re-)production of cultural signs that constitute the power structures of the Western nation state. In this important way, the artistic communities of the city are becoming essential for understanding how new collective networks are constructed globally today.


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