Forum

ZOO-Nature

The forum serves to link the festival thematically with the city of Halle (Saale) und the region, structuring the synergies between research institutions, universities, museums and the festival itself. The similarity between the zoo as manifestly designed space and nature as cultivated landscape is the thematic point of departure for this year’s Festival Forum.

Zoo-Nature, October 11 – 18
The exhibition Zoo-Nature in the gallery dieschönestadt mainly shows artistic statements about nature as it is staged around us in urban and suburban space as well as in reserves. The artists in the exhibition embark on an investigation of our imaginary notions of nature and animals, alluding in particular to their inconsistencies. The many-sided projection screen of nature is both a place of longing for the wild and the foreign as well as material for the human will to form her environment.

With: Lars Bergmann, Anna Maria Gawronski, Kurt Helm, Phillip Janta, Lutz & Guggisberg, Frauke Rahr, Sebastian Schröder und Juli Sing sowie Beiträgen des Max-Planck-Institutes für evolutionäre Anthropologie, Leipzig

Zoo-cabinet, October 11 – November 3
The Zoo-cabinet in the gallery dieschönestadt is devoted to our constantly changing notions of nature and animals. Based on the model of the Baroque curiosities cabinet, it assembles bizarre, serious and endearingly kitsch collector pieces of flora and fauna, turning the gallery into a contemporary natural history cabinet. The exhibits have been loaned private collectors, by the city museum Stadtmuseum Halle and  the foundation Franckesche Stiftungen.

Reading, October 12, 20:00 h
The reading Jaguar, zebra, mink... pigeon decoy with Judith Albrecht, Almuth Hattwich, Ulrike Kerrmann, Ruth Petri und Ralf Wendt in the gallery dieschönestadt presents iconographic animals, animals from literature and imaginary creatures.

The long night of the monkeys, October 13, 21:00 h
Within the context of the Festival Forum, two films will be shown in Zazie Kino & Bar: Capucine and Anpassung eines Anubis-Weibchens an das Haremsystem der Mantelpaviane [A female anubis adapting to the harem regime of the Hamadryas baboon]. Johannes Großmann presents the research of the Leipzig Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, discussing current comparative studies of the cogitative faculties of apes and humans. The biologist and ethologist Cord Riechelmann is discussion guest.

Excursion Cultural landscape as zoo-nature
The bicycle tour organised by Werkleitz, Cultural landscape as zoo-nature follows a route through the natural reserve Unteres Saaletal [Lower Saale Valley]. This cultivated landscape has developed over centuries on the banks of the Saale. Here we find an answer to the question, what did earlier generations expect to find in nature and which images of nature do we hope to see in reality today?

Werkleit Festival Forum recommends:
The exhibition Menschenzoo [Human zoo], Opening Oct. 7, 20:00h
in the gallery gernegross, Leipziger Straße 33, 06108 Halle (Saale)