HAPPY HOUR
A fundraiser event for earthquake victims in Turkey, Kurdistan and Syria
Readings, performances, music and drinks with Nikolas Brummer, Léon Kruijswijk, Göksu Kunak, Chima Okerenkwo and Lauryn Youden
Organized by Göksu Kunak
18.08.2023, 18:00 – 21:00
Nikolas Brummer (*1996, Düsseldorf, Germany) is an artist and radio-host living in Berlin. Through practices of collecting, cataloging, and writing on music, he studies the socio-cultural dimensions of affect, focusing on younger music history, streaming culture, and pop. He uses modes of active and passive listening both as tools and objects of observation. Nikolas is a member of PlusX, a project space dedicated to performance, text and sound airing in form of bi-monthly shows on Cashmere Radio.
Léon Kruijswijk (*1989, Netherlands) is curator at KW Institute for Contempororay Art, and a freelance curator and writer. With this practice, he addresses themes on the intersection of queer and gender theory, activism and institutional critique, and navigates the crossovers between visual art, literature, film, experimental music and performance within his curatorial practice. In the Netherlands, he organized exhibitions and events as a freelancer at Framer Framed, NEVERNEVERLAND, De School Amsterdam, ROZENSTRAAT – a rose is a rose is a rose, and Perdu among others. His most recent writings have been published on Mister Motley, in Metropolis M, and in the publication 'Queer Exhibition Histories' (Valiz, 2023) and he is a guest mentor of BPA// Berlin program for artists. Kruijswijk obtained his MA degrees in Museum Studies and in Art History: Contemporary Art at the University of Amsterdam.
Göksu Kunak (*1985, Ankara, Turkey) is an artist, writer, and researcher based in Berlin. Their interest lies in alternative methodologies (especially chronopolitics) and hybrid texts that deal with the performative lingo(s) of contemporary lifestyles. As a non-native English writer, Kunak’s texts play with multilingualism and syntax. Influenced by Arabesk culture and late modernities, they imagine new situations out of real encounters that point out the problems of hetero-patriarchal structures. Orientalism, self-Orientalization (the perception of the 'Eastern', and how the Eastern sees themselves through this construction), as well as Eastern masculinities in relation to state governmentality; camouflage and self-censorship are recurring topics in Kunak’s research. Göksu Kunak’s works have been presented at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (DE), Sophiensaele Berlin (DE), HAU Berlin (DE), De Singel Arts Centre Antwerp (NL), KW Pogo Bar (DE), Kaaitheater Brussels (BE), among others, and Kunak is currently a participant of BPA// Berlin program for artists.
Chima Okerenkwo (*1996, Cologne, Germany) is a filmmaker and film curator. After finishing his studies in fine arts, he co-founded the film collective Bipoc Film Society, which focuses on the representation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color perspectives within the media and film industry and organized several film screenings in Berlin. In 2021, he started collaborating with the production company Jünglinge on the Futur Drei Festival as well as doing streetcasting for Komplizen Film. The same year, he worked as the director’s assistant on the BFI-shortlisted film Das Gewicht unserer Worte and became Ambassador for Diversity at the Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden. In 2022, he created the performative film screening series SYNERGIE, with which he is currently working on a film festival while producing a documentary by Joseph Kadow that will premiere at the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden in 2024.
Lauryn Youden (*1989, Vancouver Canada) is a poet, performance and installation artist based in Berlin, Germany. Her practice derives from her research in and navigation through the medical industrial complex / colonial medicine, ‘alternative’ healing practices and traditional medicine for the treatment of her chronic illnesses and disabilities. By publicly presenting her personal experiences and re-evaluations of history, her work illuminates and advocates for repressed, marginalized and forgotten forms of radical care and Crip knowledge. Youden has performed and exhibited internationally at institutions including Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (NL), Frye Art Museum, Seattle (US), 11th Berlin Biennale, Berlin (DE), Manifesta 12, Palermo (IT), Shedhalle, Zurich (CH), Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (DE), Volksbühne, Berlin (DE) and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (DE) among others.
BPA// Raum is a platform for artistic exchange. It is operated by BPA// Berlin program for artists and organized by Sophia Yvette Scherer and Anna-Lisa Scherfose.
BPA// Raum
Sophie-Gips-Höfe
Sophienstraße 21
10178 Berlin
