ARTIST PATRON PROJECT
Art can heal wounds. Art can help us grow, understand and inspire others.
But very often artists need a helping hand.
This is the moment when we come into play:
We accompany artists and artivists on their journey and help directly with the realisation of their ideas.
We offer financial support and connect them with matching players in the art scene.
We provide exhibition space, artist residencies, and contribute to making their works known to a wider audience.
Our aim is to give artists the space and the means to fully develop their creative visions and make them shine and rise.
THE ARTISTS
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AUGMENTED REALITY EXHIBITION
MICHAELA KONRAD
PAINTING. PRINTMAKING. AUGMENTED REALITY.
HOME IN VIENNA AND TENERIFE.
FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE.
For Berlin Science Week 2024, we invited Michaela to exhibit her augmented reality project ‘Embrace The Future’.
And there is double the joy:
It is our first ever participation in Berlin Science Week and Michaela's first exhibition in Berlin.
ABOUT 'EMBRACE THE FUTURE'
Embrace the Future is a fictitious image campaign aimed at the consumer-oriented part of humanity that cultivates a western, resource-intensive lifestyle. In the style of classic commercial advertising, it illustrates twelve posters using screen printing. With the subject matter of the posters and their aesthetics, the poster series establishes artistic references to great role models: on the one hand to the WPA (Works Projects Administration) posters, which attempted to counteract the Great Depression during the New Deal in the USA from the end of the 1930s, and on the other hand to the American and British campaigns during the Second World War, which advertised renunciation with a view to a greater goal – resources for the war economy.
The art project focuses on the most important issue of our time: climate change and the question of the right methods to counteract it.
© Stefan Panfili
THREE QUESTIONS FOR MICHAELA
WAS THERE A SPECIFIC TRIGGER FOR YOU TO DEAL WITH CLIMATE CHANGE IN YOUR ART?
I love reading non-fiction books and I particularly enjoy watching documentaries about important contemporary issues. You automatically come across climate change.
At some point, I realised that global warming is not just one problem among many.
Rather, it is THE big problem.
Noam Chomsky speaks of two abysses facing humanity: one is the extinction of human civilisation through nuclear war and the other abyss is climate change.
It is only when you take a close look at this that you understand how urgently we need to act.
I now feel an inner need to deal with this topic artistically.
VIENNA AND TENERIFE, WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO LIVE IN TWO PLACES?
That's how it turned out. I lived in Tenerife for a year in my early 20s thanks to a university exchange programme. Apart from the beautiful nature and great weather, I discovered the city's printing workshop there.
I have been realising my projects there since 2003. And as life goes, I met my husband there. However, the centre of my professional life is in Vienna, where I also have my studio.
Since I've been working intensively on climate change, I've realised how damaging flying is to the climate. I'm trying to get out of it somehow - which isn't easy when you're travelling between Vienna and Tenerife. The last few journeys we made were by ferry and car, also harmful to the climate, but less so. I'm hoping for better train and bus connections between Austria and Spain in the near future.
HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO OVERCOME CREATIVE BLOCKS?
Quite simply to answer: I take a break, have fun and distract myself. The ideas and the desire to work will then come back of their own accord.
ARTISTIC MUSIC PERFORMANCE
THE 432HZ PROJECT
ARTISTS AND SCIENTISTS GROUP.
FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. SÃO MIGUEL. AZORES.
We support the 432Hz Project with the organisation, planning and realisation of their first performance in front of a German audience.
In addition, we will endeavour to ensure that Berlin is just the beginning of a wonderful journey for these amazing humans and making it possible that many more people will be able to enjoy their performances and environmental education activities in the future.
ABOUT 432HZ PROJECT
The 432Hz Project is an artistic performance created with the community in which art and science merge with a single objective: to raise awareness of the conservation and protection of the natural and heritage resources of the Azorean Sea.
The group is made up of a wide variety of people who all have different professions, such as biologists, designers, musicians and dancers, but all share a common passion.
THREE QUESTIONS FOR 432HZ PROJECT
WHAT DOES THE OCEAN AND ESPECIALLY ITS SOUNDS MEAN TO YOU?
When we think of the ocean, we think of what it offers us - calmness, a sense of security, tranquility… Additionally, it provides more than half of the oxygen available on Earth, which is essential for our survival. And what do we offer it in return? Plastic, metal, fishing net remnants, toxic materials, and another significant human contribution often overlooked, noise. The noise pollution generated daily in the ocean endangers numerous marine species, which in turn jeopardizes our existence. Cetaceans play a fundamental role in the marine ecosystem and in mitigating climate change, but their survival depends on communication: for navigation, reproduction, and feeding. Earth functions as a whole, where each element, no matter how insignificant it may seem, plays an essential role. We are reaching a dead end. It is up to us to choose the planet we want to live on.
WHAT IS 432 HERTZ ALL ABOUT, WHY EXACTLY THIS FREQUENCY?
It is believed that 432 Hz is one of the frequencies of the Universe, the perfect tuning, elevating human perception to its highest level. We thus invite the entire community to a deep listening process of the ocean - which survives in constant metamorphosis - where the vocalisations of cetaceans are the guiding thread of this vast journey that culminates in an immersive artistic performance.
WHAT IS YOUR APPROACH WHEN IT COMES TO ART AND SCIENCE?
Our philosophy is defined by the creation of relationships between science and art in conjunction with education, involving the entire community in a journey of knowledge discovery and disseminating the importance of artistic experiences developing society.