Exhibition – Mirthe van Popering

STATE STUDIO BERLIN | Exhibition

11 December 20201 April 2023

Welcome to the world as we don’t know it.
Welcome to Hypertopia.

STATE STUDIO • HYPERTOPIA

As part of STATE Studio Berlin‘s exhibition HYPERTOPIA, I was asked to create a spoken word piece. Inspired by the video work we are opposite like that by writer, poet and internationally exhibited artist Himali Singh Soin, I voiced questions of self- & humanhood, roots, borders, binaries, deep time and the power of storytelling.

Absolutes Gänsehautfeeling.
– Christina Hooge, Curator of HYPERTOPIA

My work was presented in video format as part of the exhibition’s Field Explorations program. The video can be accessed here. An art publication including the full piece in print is forthcoming.

HYPERTOPIA EXHIBITION

23 October – 6 December 2020 I 52° 29′ 24.482″ N 13° 21′ 34.603″ E

Now that we’re here, where are we? Still on the same planet, for sure. But forces are shifting. How did we get here? What stance should we take? What actions? And where are we heading?

“Hypertopia bridges between today and tomorrow. Powered by the vision of a collective change in consciousness, the interdisciplinary program and exhibition anticipates a post-crisis future to explore approaches for a meaningful present. With a selection of artistic positions, propositions and exploratory projects that incorporate scientific methods as well as speculative modes of thought, Hypertopia challenges hierarchies, probes ideas, and imagines scenarios for a new planetary optimism.”

“Hypertopia is neither an island nor a cloud-based never-never land. It is right where we are, in a state of suspense: a transit zone, a time-warp, a thinking space, a borderless territory of transdisciplinary inquiry into planetary futures, new forms of interspecies coexistence, and conscious collectiveness.”

FIELD EXPLORATIONS

When was the last time you saw the city as a playground to be be explored?

Hypertopia is a borderless territory. Hence, the exhibition was accompanied by a decentralized framework program. Self-guided Field Explorations took the exhibition from the gallery space into open terrain. Starting from the exhibited artworks, visitors were given basic instructions and sent out onto Berlin’s streets to gather clues for fresh momentum.

STATE Studio’s Hypertopia has closed, but the strings of narrative curated within and beyond the exhibition continue to unfurl. The exhibition as well as the accompanying Field Explorations are still accessible online: HYPERTOPIA online exhibition.

Hypertopia was supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin.

“Wir haben uns das Video mit dem gesamten STATE Team angeschaut und waren begeistert. Es ist wunder, wunderschön! Ganz toller text, schöne Stimme und absolutes Gänsehautfeeling. DANKE, DANKE, DANKE.”

^{– Christina Hooge, Curator and Cultural Producer at STATE Studio Berlin}

Top image credit: Himali Singh Soin / Mirthe van Popering

FIND A FALLEN STAR

20 March 201518 September 2019

Have you ever dreamt of finding a fallen star? The new exhibition in Foam, Find a Fallen Star, is all about these magical outer space entities and presents an intriguing visual narrative on stardust, storytelling and human life. Subbacultcha attended the preview.

Regine Petersen – Find a Fallen Star (20 March – 3 May)

Find a Fallen Star is the result of an extensive project that (re)covers multi-faceted stories on various meteor falls in different places. Each of these meteorites contains fragments of a past reality – they are baby pictures of early life, one could say. Sometimes these rocks from the past collide with the present, and a new story is born. Editor of these stories is Regine Petersen, a young German photographer who was awarded an exhibition in Foam’s 3h space for young talent as the winner of the Outset | Unseen Exhibition Fund.

Stars Fell on Alabama

Once upon a time, on 30 September 1954 to be exact, an eight pound meteorite crashed through the roof of a house in Sylacauga, Alabama, hitting Ann Hodges on the hip while she was having a nap on her sofa. She suffered extensive bruising – but survived. It is with this curious event, in which a 4.6 billion years old meteorite collided with a 31 year old human being, that Regine Petersen begins the first chapter of Find a Fallen Star.

Nearly 60 years after the actual event, Petersen started investigating the Hodges meteorite, assembling archive press cuttings, interview transcripts, eye witness reports and found images. History and memory, bits and pieces of fact and fiction go hand in hand in Petersen’s narrative – a narrative that is never complete or absolute. The found materials are complemented with quiet, contemplative photographs taken on the impact site by Petersen herself.

Fragments and The Indian Iron

What began with the story of a single stone, resulted in the unravelling of new chapters. Fragments tells the viewer the story of a group of children recovering a meteorite in a field near their homes in post-war Germany. The Indian Iron concentrates on a more recent event in India, where two nomads in the desert of Rajasthan witnessed a meteorite fall.

Foam is the first to combine all the chapters of Regine Petersen’s project in one exhibition. An exhibition that suitably appears together with the recently published book on the series.

Find a Fallen Star opened together with Broomberg & Chanarin’s To Photograph the Details of a Dark Horse in Low Light and Flashbulb Memories, Ash Grey Prophecies by Geert Goiris. All exhibitions are free for Subbacultcha members.

For SUBBACULTCHA • original publication here
Photos by Regine Petersen