CRIS TALK with Berit Schuck
Tuesday 3 April 2017, 18.00
Nordiska Gästateljén, Malongen, Nytorget 15A
Welcome to a public talk with Berit Schuck our current guest at Nordiska Gästateljén Malongen within the project CRIS (Curatorial Residency in Stockholm). She will discuss the question what contemporary art does in a situation like Alexandria and thereby introduce the forthcoming edition of the MASS Programme, which starts in September, as well as her research on institution-building and instituting as artistic practice, focusing on the imaginary museum CAMOCA within the D-CAF in Cairo in 2017. Based on research and numerous conversations with artists in Cairo, CAMOCA encompassed four locations and comprised solo shows by Adlita Husni-Bey, the artist duo Noor Afshan Mirza & Brad Butler and the artist Manuel Pelmus, as well as a night school with a screening of one of the films in the cosmism-trilogy by Anton Vidokle, talks by Reem Fadda and Clare Davies and more.
Berit Schuck is a literary scholar, curator and producer of art and performance projects, and works as Programme Director for MASS Alexandria, an independent space for art practice, interdisciplinary research and education founded by the Alexandrian artist Wael Shawky. Berit has a keen interest in marginal and interdisciplinary art practices, which revolve around new forms of knowledge and the forming of knowledge in contemporary cultural production, radical pedagogies, and the future of independent art spaces in the Middle East and North Africa. In her capacity as a curator, she has presented experimental exhibitions at the D-CAF – Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival in Cairo (2017), LE18 & Dar-al Ma'amûn in Marrakech (2015), within the Parallel Projects Programme of the 5th Marrakech Biennale and at the Beirut Art Centre. She has also lectured and given seminars on contemporary art and performance. Recent publications include the essay Against Nostalgia: Ways of Seeing Alexandria published by the Cairobserver (2017). Berit lives in Berlin, Germany and in Alexandria, Egypt.