Returning to Sender

Develop and disperse topics, mediate and control knowledge, network and encourage the negotiation of issues: What marks the way the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) produces, arranges, and establishes knowledge? And how far does the institution work as a producer of content, an embassy or as a message itself ?

The project Returning to Sender traces the different layers of meaning and parallels that the German term »Botschaft« exhibits in relation to the HKW – in the double meaning of both an embassy and a message.

Over the course of three days the aspects of representation, negotiation, and reporting, that have shaped the HKW in its development and its changing self-concept over time, will be examined. Different symbolic formats and exemplary situations address the relationship between representation, message, and subtext. They debate outposts and invitations, narrative meditation strategies, and the languages of knowledge, self-image, translation, (mis)understanding, and the interplay in diplomacy between meeting at eye-level and distance.

Curated by Sarah Alberti, Stefan Aue, Kenan Darwich, Jana Eske, Lena von Geyso, Lars Hering, Stefanie Humbert, Anastasia Marukhina, Jessica Paez, Elisabeth Pichler, Marlies Pillhofer, Johanna Rainer, Michaela Richter, Agnieszka Roguski, Julia Schleis, Kristina Semenova, Inga Zimprich.

A project of the Master’s programme Cultures of the Curatorial of the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig, in cooperation with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.

More information on www.returningtosender.de