Exhibition Bockmeyer Travel Grant – Helena Otto
Exhibition Bockmeyer Travel Grant – Helena Otto
Exhibition / 02.06. – 09.06.2023
The exhibition is the result of a trip by Helena Otto to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan as part of the Bockmeyer travel grant.
With the travel scholarship, founded by architect Heinz Arnold Bockmeyer, the H.-A.-Bockmeyer-Foundation enables an annual trip for the realization of an artistic project at the HfK Bremen. Students and alumni from the courses of study Free Art, Integrated Design and Digital Media can apply with a concept. The amount of the travel grant is 3,000 euros.
Helena Otto – „Back;Ground“
Home is a place within me. Besides me. Passed through generations. Circulating narrations.
Home is blurry. Floating from timelines between past, present and future. Home is filled with symbols, metaphors, gestures, stories.
Memories from the sun’s smell, colors which vest my eyes with contrasts, soil particles left on my shoes which pass borders, taste of food which forms displaced regions.
Home has an odd, folksy sound. Home is a gesture passed through my mother and my grandmother.
Auf die Frage woher kommst du?, kann ich nur in Geschichten antworten. Geschichten, die von mir erlebt wurden. Geschichten, die mir erzählt wurden. Geschichten, die nur geträumt wurden. Geschichten, die vergessen wurden. Geschichten der Identität, die Stille Post spielen.
Родина _для _меня _- это _синь _неба, вкус _маринованных _помидоров, шум _базара _после _глубокого _вздоха _на _горной _вершине. И _снова _и _снова _дыни _и _арбузы _скатываются _по _улицам _и _теряются _в _степи.
In 2019 with the help of the Bockmeyer travel scholarship I’ve done an expedition to Kazakstan, Kirgistan and Uzbekistan. The region where me and my family is from. On my trip I was focused on my own former origin and the history of Russian Germans, who emigrated in the 19th century to Russia and Eastern Europe and through history partly relocated to Central Asia in the 20th century voluntarily or by force under the Soviet Union regime. Most of those so named Russian Germans went back to Germany in the 90s.
In the gallery of Circa you can now see the exhibition „Back;Ground“ to that research trip.
Opening: 2.Juni / 19 Uhr Opening special: Plov; Taste of Home Gemeinsames Essen & Dialog über Identität & Heimat in Essen, Zubereitung & Geschmack
Circa Space: Bismarckstr. 106, 28203 Bremen
Exhibition: 3.-9.Juni Sa & So: 16-21 Uhr Di-Fr: 17-21 Uhr
Film screening: 8.Juni / 19 Uhr / Heimat ist da, wo wir nicht sind. / Home is where we are not. / Pодина _там, где _нас _нет.
