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ABOUT US
neue häute e.V. is a non-profit culture association founded in 2020, by a Berlin collective of artists & curators. Through its legal status, the assotiation operates as a project production platform, offering curatorial/infrastructural support for community-driven initiatives working with participatory strategies, site-specific approaches, and socially-engaged artistic practices. We favor interdisciplinary collaborations in the urban context of Berlin -- ranging from alternative models of consumption, self-organisation, care and feminist politics, focused on process-based practices and practice-based research. As consultants we
specialize in the mediation of artistic & culture research projects with the aim of gaining new audiences and sharing different forms of knowledge through situated approaches.
*Artistic co-directors are: Silke Bake (dramaturg & curator), Sheena McGrandles (dancer, choreographer & curator), and Paz Ponce (curator, culture producer, consultant in arts communication).
*Manager: Paz Ponce
*Associate founding members: Kitti Acosta-Zsiga, Diego Agulló, Silke Bake, Shelley Etkin, Sheena McGrandles, Paz Ponce, Gabriel Vallecillo, Jo Vávra, Akiko Watanabe.
*Collaborating advisor: Gaby Hundertmarkt
History
Under the motto: "sharing of infrastructure - sharing as infrastructure", between 2020 and 2023 we run a cooperative interdisciplinary place, Ana Conda am Ufer, in which a café-bar & Kitchen/LAB were interwoven as places and as practices: choreographic-artistic work was localized, a wide variety of public spheres were created.
Our space inside Uferstudios functioned as a House of Collectives, where several artist run initiatives active in community work, socially engaged artistic practices and social choreographic practices met following often a South to South connection:
*Soydivision
(Indonesian collective working in the intersection of art & activism)*insurgencias.net: Berlin-based platform for socially conscious artistic practices & activist positions from Latin America
BIOS CORE TEAM:
Silke Bake is a curator, dramaturg, and mentor. Together with colleagues, artists and institutions, she develops thematic programmes, discussion and research formats in the field of performing arts.
Sheena McGrandles is a dancer and choreographer living in Berlin working in different contexts such as theatre/stage, education and independent art and culture projects. Further she works on the development of new interdisciplinary platforms and formats for the independent scene in Berlin. www.sheenamcgrandles.com
Paz Ponce is an independent culture producer, writer & researcher involved in alternative education and cultural cooperation between Asia, Europe and Latin America. Her practice is oriented towards the development of co-creation formats that she calls “dramaturgies of participation”, investigating the collective context in which art is produced and mediated, with a special focus on self-organization, culture of cooperativism and biographical research. www.pazponce.com
Collaborating collectives:
Soydivision: a performing art collective consisting of Berlin-based Indonesians, positioning itself in the intersection of art and activism. As a registered UG, Soydivision curated performances, organized workshops, culinary art activities, film screening, and discussion sessions. Their diasporic point of views offer an alternative approach to contemporary challenges through art, inviting a new kind of dialogues and engagement.
People of the Soy: Ariel Orah (Berlin-based Indonesian artist), Jan K (Berlin-based musician), Gigi Gumilang (Berlin-based social researcher/project manager), Bilawa Respati (Gamelan performer and modern composer), Nindya Nareswari (architectural light designer), Morgan Sully (Berlin-based American-Indonesian artist and performer), Ghaliz (Berlin-based Indonesian artist), Monica Vanesa Tedja (Indonesian filmmaker), Asarela Orchidia Dewi (hotographer and videographer), @cadudasa/Irma FS (Berlin-based photographer), Cindy Putri (Berlin-based Indonesian illustrator), Talisa Dwiyani (Indonesian-born, Helsinki based designer).
& ASSOCIATE MEMBERS:
Kitti Acosta-Zsiga is an industrial design engineer with a strong interest in conceptual strategies. In her artistic practice she addresses social issues through drawings, small sculptures and speculative objects which reflect the tension between the technical appropriation of the world and the plurality of organic affects.
She is the founder and artistic director of the Future Village Initiative, which reflects on the rural exodus caused by globalization. www.futurevillage.org www.instagram.com/kittizsiga/
Diego Agulló’s practice operates in the intersection between education and art, dilettantism and professionalism and it covers different media such as dance, performance, essay writing, publishing books, video art and laboratories for research. www.diegoagullo.com
Shelley Etkin is a transdisciplinary artist, educator, and gardener based in Berlin, Germany. Her work is rooted in relations between bodies and lands. She engages with ecological thinking, making, and healing through process-based artistic research. Moving between dance, performance, pedagogy, and curation she weaves practices of plant medicine, hands-on bodywork, and place-based knowledges.
www.shelleyetkin.com
Gabriel Vallecillo Márquez is a Honduran artist living and working in Berlin. His artistic practice covers poetry, video-poetry, video-jockey, 3d projection mapping, live cinema, video installation, documentary film, video performance and guerrilla projections. He has published 3 poetry books, has been featured in anthologies, has edited and published other poetry books from diverse authors and is the founder and editor of the magazine Gargantúa.
www.gabrielvallecillo.com
Jo Vávra is a transdisciplinary artist and cultural ecologist. Her practice, rooted in the concept of collaborative survival is centred around community building, perception and language. She uses somatic practices and multi-sensory experiences as pedagogical tools, aiming to choreograph sustainable futures. Jo’s work merges theatrical, performative and visual arts with science and ecology. She is a co-founder of LIOS labs and Teatro Urcylium.