Artistic Perspectives Within Healthcare Movements

Reacting to the healthcare system’s discriminatory structures, in 1972, Sozialistische Patient*innenkollektiv (Socialist Patients’ Collective) decided to weaponise their illnesses.

The group aimed not to portray illness as an individual problem that must be overcome alone, but to show its complex connections with social neglect and structural inequalities.

In this context, this exhibition draws attention to the structural and intersectional disadvantages faced by disabled, chronically ill, and/or neurodivergent people in a late-capitalist, ableist system.

How can illness be turned into a weapon?

When it became clear that the abandoned building was to be transformed into artists’ studios, the initiative Kampfkomitee Bethanien, among others, demanded to use the space as a children’s polyclinic.

In the exhibition, 17 artists are brought into dialogue with the site where these specific political struggles played out. The artists present critiques of the current conditions in art and healthcare policy, and point towards alternatives.

The group exhibition Turn Illness into a Weapon – Artistic Perspectives within Healthcare Movements takes its starting point from the grassroots healthcare struggles around the former Diakonissen- Krankenhaus (protestant hospital) Bethanien in 1970s Berlin.

With

Anguezomo Mba Bikoro
The Chronic Iconic (Jessica Cummin)
Chloe Pascal Crawford
Criptonite (Edwin Ramirez & Nina Mühlemann)
Miriam Döring
Tomás Espinosa
Eva Egermann & Cordula Thym
Lotti Fellner-Wyler
Feministische Gesundheitsrecherchegruppe
Cornelia Herfurtner
Kallia Kefala
Magda Korsinsky
Julia Lübbecke
MELT (Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paehr)
Silvi Naçi
Sophie Utikal
RA Walden

Curated by: Linnéa Meiners
Curatorial Assistant: Gianna Ehrke

Events

Opening: Friday, 31/05/24, 5 - 11 pm

7 pm welcome: Stéphane Bauer,
opening speech: Linnéa Meiners
Followed by a concert by Gigolo Tears
Video Intervention by Power Makes us Sick (PMS)

Wednesday, 05/06/24, 6 pm

Curatorial tour with Linnéa Meiners

Monday, 10/06/24, 6 pm

Tour in German Sign Language

Thursday, 13/06/24, 6 pm

Tour for blind and visually impaired people with Ugne Metzner and Franciska JC Schmit

Thursday, 20/06/24, 6 pm

Tour with Gianna Ehrke with translation in German Sign Language

Saturday, 22/06/24, 10:30 a.m.

Walking tour through Schokofabrik, HeileHaus

Thursday, 27/06/24, 6 pm

Film screening SPK Komplex, 111 minutes, German with English subtitles

Followed by a conversation with director Gerd Kroske and protagonist Carmen Roll

Wednesday, 03/07/24, 10:30 am and 6 pm

MÜDE by Kallia Kefala

10:30 am: Low Sensory Performance 6:00 pm: Higher Sensory Performance

Friday, 05/07/24, 5 p.m.

We doctor ourselves!

Gigolo Tears, celebrating disabled and crazy - Pride Parade Berlin & Cashmiri

Concert, participatory performance and DJ set

Monday, 12/08/24, 6 pm

Podium moderated by Kate Brehme

Sunday, 18/08/24, 5 pm

Finissage with curatorial tour

with Linnéa Meiners

Low-Sensory Timeslots

Every Wednesday, for two hours in the morning or evening respectively, sensory stimuli (volume, light, number of visitors) will be reduced in the exhibition.

Additional information

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