The series We, Travelling People features Angelos Tsaousis, bi'bak's fellow from START – Create Cultural Change Program 2018 for a screening of his documentary film The New Plastic Road about the new Silk Road. Together with Sofia Stavrianidou from Hellas Filmbox Berlin we will discuss about the development of the Silk Road and Tsaousis' film. Fingerfood specialities from Tajikistan will be served. 

The New Plastic Road reveals the gradual economic and social change underway in the remote, destitute communities within the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region east of Tajikistan in the Pamir Mountains. After China’s decision to open its border with Tajikistan in 2004, an ongoing attempt to resurrect the old Silk Road started, connecting the region with the rest of the world for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union. To make these changes visible, the documentary follows Davlat, a Tajik merchant who lives in the mountainous town of Khorog next to the Afghanistan border. As we are drawn into his world of work, family, and trade we come to understand that the (silk) road on which he depends to make a living is a unique character in itself, connecting him – and us – with people, stories, and a new hope for posterity.

Angelos Tsaousis is a documentary filmmaker from Thessaloniki. In 2017, he was a START fellow at bi'bak in Berlin. With a postgraduate degree in Communication Studies and a specialisation in documentary filmmaking, his main objective is to explore the potential of using documentary form as a social impact and educational tool. He is the founder of DocRepublic – a documentary hub inspiring digital storytellers and public dialogue.

Are there alternatives to container villages? How do we shape neighborhoods in an immigration society?

How can we re-work, learn and teach to overcome the great challenges of the future? And how can we organize and structure accommodation of refugees that remains humane? The series We, Travelling People this evening focuses on the architecture of spaces, used both temporarily and in different contexts. 

The architectural projects by Van Bo Le-Mentzel are one of these temporary living spaces, which are supposed to provide shelter for those who are affected most by the defective German refugee policy. Van Bo Le-Mentzel will present his work at bi’bak and discuss the issue of alternative living concepts in the context of migration.

The talk will be moderated by Dr. Christoph Scheurle Professor for Angewandte Kulturwissenschaften und ästhetische Praxis at the FH Dortmund

Funded by  Stiftung Nord-Süd-Brücken through BMZ.

Christoph Scheurle is professor for Applied Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practise at the FH Dortmund. He studied at the University of Hildesheim.

Van Bo Le-Mentzel, born 1977 in Laos, became known for the design of the "Hartz IV furniture" for self-construction at low cost. In 2015 he was a visiting professor at the College of Fine Arts Hamburg

Workshop: 24.112017, 3pm-6pm
Opening with discussion: 24.11.2017, 8pm
Exhibition: 24.11.2017 from 8pm, 25.11.2017 2pm-6pm

Whenever migration and tourism take place, it is not only the people who are travelling, but also things and objects, which sometimes tell their very own stories.

Objects can represent migration history and contain detailed memories for those who had to leave all of their belongings. As souvenirs, they can act as a reminder of a holiday and while also revealing the  tourists’ relation to the visited countries and their imagination of authenticity. Other objects, which are part of our daily lifes in Germany, originally “migrated” from other regions of the world.

We will talk about the mobility of objects in contexts of migration and tourism with invited experts on the topic.

In a workshop we will search for things and objects in the neighborhood, which migrated or travelled temporarily to Berlin. Later we will try to define the finds and learn about their stories through written descriptions. Several methods of creative writing will help approaching the objects and present them in an exhibition in bi’bak.

On Friday the exhibition will be opened with a discussion on the topic of travelling objects. Our guests are Dr. Claudia Tittel from the Bauhaus University Weimar who organized an exhibition with her students on the migration of things this summer and the photographer Sima Dehgani, who will present her work Ein Stück Erinnerung (A piece of memory).

Workshop leader: Maike Suhr

Funded by Stiftung Nord-Süd-Brücken through BMZ.

Claudia Tittel is a research assistant (Post-doc) at the Chair of History and Theory of Cultural Techniques at the Bauhaus University Weimar. She studied Art History and Cultural Studies at the Humboldt University Berlin and Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne as well as Architecture and Urban Planning at the Ecole d 'Architecture de Belleville Paris and her PhD at the Humboldt University Berlin.