“My ABC is …”
A series of workshops at the Kunstbibliothek and the Werkstoffarchiv
Putting a book in the wrong place in a library is sabotage, since it then becomes practically impossible for other people to find. The ABCs with their strict order leave very little room to maneuver. The dynamic order of the Kunstbibliothek, however, makes it possible to interpret the ABCs more freely and to define them anew again and again. The aim of the three-part series of workshops called “My ABC is . . .,” is to take advantage of this freedom and make the Kunstbibliothek and Werkstoffarchiv a marketplace for various points of view and notions of order for a specific period of time.
Guests from various areas of expertise are invited to reorganize the collections based on their criteria for a few days and to thus make their research interests visible. Superordinate topics of the three research stays are questions regarding the handling of material resources and thus searching through and interrogating the holdings with respect to information on the origin, extraction, and circularity of raw materials and substances. As the conclusion of the days of each workshop, there is an evening event with a public discussion in which the guests present and discuss the new order that they have left behind in the library space. This order is then retained for a period of one month before disappearing again as a result of the use of the library by regular visitors.
“My ABC is ... active”
March 23 to April 23, 2023
An overview by the architect Iva Rešetar and the media theorist Léa Perraudin of the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity” from Berlin
From March 20 to 23, Iva Rešetar and Léa Perraudin of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin’s interdisciplinary research group Matters of Activity rearranged the holdings at the Sitterwerk within the framework of the series “My ABC is …” Their intervention in the collections of books and materials is guided by activity in materials and the mechanisms of control and cooperation in our handling of them, as well as beyond the area of human influence and perception.
8th of June, 18:30 h, Werkstoffarchiv and Kunstbibliothek
A conversation on the overview by the Competence Center for Secondary Raw Materials at the University of Bern, welcome by Julia Lütolf, head of the Werkstoffarchiv
Followed by an apéro
This week, Paula Dörfler, Frank Gfeller, and Mirjam Wolffers of the Competence Center for Secondary Raw Materials at the University of Bern are guests of the Sitterwerk. Within the framework of the three-part series “My ABC is . . .,” they have reorganized the holdings of the Kunstbibliothek and the Werkstoffarchiv and created new categories, references, and compilations that provide insights into their field of research.
“Mein ABC is elementary”
28th of September till 29th of October
by Ignacio Acosta und Stella Carlsen
Ignacio Acosta und Stella Carlsen