The Ethnologisches Museum (Ethnological Museum) and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst (Asian Art Museum) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin) are organising together the exhibition "Discovering the West". A residency takes place as a part of the preparation for the exhibition
The exhibition deals with the reception, appropriation and reinterpretation of ideas associated with the ‘West’ in the Ottoman and Persian Empires at the end of the 19th century. Using the examples of urban redevelopment, fashion and furniture design, the exhibition focuses on how the new impressions took shape in the material and visual cultures of these cosmopolitan urban centres and how they led to concrete and far-reaching political steps. Changes in gender roles and social change are also manifest in the objects.
Residents are invited to engage with exhibition's themes and objects and explore their meanings for the 21st century. In doing so, the creative and material aspects of the works could be considered as well as their inherent transcultural or political underpinnings. Residents will further develop the submitted project and create a work that will be exhibited at the museum in 2023.
Artists of all media are invited. Due to the thematic orientation, but also the spatial conditions, painting/graphics, video or installation works, including design works, are particularly welcome. The three-months-residency will take place during the first half of 2023. The organisers are offering a stipend of 8.500 € (including taxes and health insurance), travel expenses all-inclusive to/from and in Berlin (including visa fees and possible corona tests: 1.500 €), a production budget, a small working space, access to the museum's object and photo collection, archive and library, sound studio. Applications can be submitted until 6 January. Find more information here.
