…ein wenig mehr Lautstärke / a little more volume. New & Renewing Institutions

What does it mean to develop an art institution from scratch? Fabian Schöneich has initiated a new, non-profit Centre for Contemporary Arts, the CCA Berlin, which is currently expanding its activities step by step. Eunice Tsang is the founder of Present Projects, an art space in Hong Kong’s in-district Sham Shui Po. The space has recently been renamed to Current Plans – a nod to the discontinuity of all planning in Hong Kong in the face of pandemics, uncertain funding and political transformations.

Both are currently intensively engaged in the processes of starting up and renewing a space for contemporary art. We talk about the different conditions under which we operate as cultural workers. What is our purpose? How do we define ourselves – as an institution, art space, platform, etc.? Where do we set up and who do we address? And finally, looking at Zurich’s situation, what is needed, where and when?

“The city is quiet, as if it has been eating too fat,” writes the author Sibylle Berg about Zurich’s post-pandemic cultural life. She speaks up for: “a little more volume; the courage to be uncomfortable; the will to change the world; and the awareness that art and culture are more than something to afford.” (WOZ; No. 05/2022, 03.02.2022). Against this background, looking at Hong Kong and Berlin also opens up perspectives on the local. The conversation takes place at PROVENCE Pavillon in Zurich Oerlikon – itself a space in transition.

In collaboration with PROVENCE Magazine & Pavillon. Followed by an apéro.

PROVENCE Pavillon, Hagenholzstrasse 106, 8050 Zürich

Bios:
Eunice Tsang is a curator, artist, researcher and journalist based in Hong Kong. She founded and curates Current Plans (previously known as Present Projects), an experimental art space that encourages cross-disciplinary dialogues through exhibition-making.

Fabian Schöneich is the founding director of CCA Berlin – Center for Contemporary Arts. He was curator of Portikus in Frankfurt (2014–18) and worked as an assistant curator at Kunsthalle Basel and Kunstinstituut Melly (formerly known as Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art) in Rotterdam.