Art & Activism: IIPM‘s & NTGent‘s ‘School of Resistance’ occupies the Akademie der Künste, Berlin
The new year starts with many pleasant announcements. Our film on the life of Jesus, “The New Gospel”, has been nominated for the Swiss Film Award, and the play “Family” has been chosen as one of the highlights of the past year in critics’ rankings in Holland, France and Italy, among others. Among the many lists released at the end of last year, two stand out especially: In a large survey conducted among fifty French-speaking critics and curators, Milo Rau/IIPM was voted second among the “most important theater artists of the 21st century”, and on the Sceneweb platform, IIPM’s hit production “La Reprise” even reached first place in an evaluation of the rankings of the past ten years. “It is probably not an inappropriate superlative to call Milo Rau the most innovative director in Europe,” wrote the Austrian press agency APA on the occasion of the online launch of “The New Gospel” in Austria in December.
For over a year, the Akademie der Künste in Berlin planned a major retrospective of the work of the Swiss author and director Milo Rau and IIPM’s nearly 15 years of work between and across art and activism. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the exhibition will take place online: the global network “School of Resistance,” founded by the IIPM and the NTGent in May 2020, will come to the Akademie der Künste from February 24 to 28, 2021 as a series of films and discussions. The starting point will be the cinematic work of Milo Rau/IIPM: screenings of films often accessible for the first time outside of cinemas will include: The Last Days of the Ceausescus (2009/10), The Moscow Trials (2014), The General Assembly (2017), The Congo Tribunal (2017), Orestes in Mosul (2020), and The New Gospel (2020).
In a series curated by Kasia Wojcik and Martin Valdés-Stauber and produced by Elisa Calosi, we will broadcast live from the Akademie der Künste for five days, taking a critical look back at past projects and composing an archive of artistic strategies of resistance in more than 15 debate formats with companions such as Susana AbdulMajid, Mohammad Al Attar, Inke Arns, Luca Casarini, Matthias Lilienthal, Florian Malzacher, Lorenzo Marsili, Surer Mohammed, Maia Morgenstern, Wajdi Mouawad, Rabih Mroué, Michail Ryklin, Miriam Saage-Maaß, Sylvia Sasse, Yvan Sagnet, Georg Seeßlen, Lara Staal, Kathrin Röggla, Juliane Rebentisch, Klaus Theweleit, Celine Tshizena, Andrei Ujică, Andres Veiel, Eyal Weizman, Harald Welzer, and Dorothee Wenner.
In a live three-episode podcast, French author Édouard Louis, political philosopher Geoffroy de Lagasnerie and Milo Rau will write a new book together – information on all formats, content and participants can be found here (press kit), the livestreams of all events here (AdK) or on the pages of our partners.
If you can’t wait until the end of February: already from the 12th to the 14th of February, the online conference “The Reconstruction of the World” will take place, organized by our longtime partner medico international in cooperation with the IIPM and many other partners – all information about the conference about the possibility of cosmopolitan solidarity here.
On February 19, just a few days later, Milo Rau and his artistic team will present their first opera: a radical re-reading of Mozart’s last opera “La Clemenza di Tito”, which will premiere online here and subsequently be shown among others at the Wiener Festwochen and at the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen.
THE FILM AND DISCUSSION SERIES SCHOOL OF RESISTANCE IS A PROJECT OF IIPM, NTGENT AND AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE, BERLIN IN COLLABORATION WITH MEDICO INTERNATIONAL, MERVE VERLAG, EUROPEAN ALTERNATIVES, ECCHR, SWISS ARTS COUNCIL PRO HELVETIA, ALLIANZ KULTURSTIFTUNG AND HOWLROUND THEATRE COMMONS FUNDED BY DIE KULTURSTIFTUNG DES BUNDES AND DIE BUNDESZENTRALE FÜR POLITISCHE BILDUNG CURATED BY MARTIN VALDÉS-STAUBER AND KASIA WOJCIK STAGE DESIGN: ANTON LUKAS TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: JENS BAUDISCH PRODUCTION: ELISA CALOSI, MASCHA EUCHNER-MARTINEZ, EVA-KAREN TITTMANN PRESS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS: YVEN AUGUSTIN, TOM DE CLERCQ DESIGN: NINA WOLTERS, THOMAS SCHOOFS THE MONTHLY DISCOURSE SERIES “SCHOOL OF RESISTANCE” IS CURATED BY: ELINE BANKEN AND KASIA WOJCIK