Politics and Love interprets Religion and Sentiment, one of 10 chapters in The History Show at the Kunstverein in Hamburg, taking a category from the 19th century and reframing it in the context of contemporary society. The project includes three parts: the MANIFESTO On Politics, On Love, On Das Archipel; the VIDEO Das Archipel, Politics and Love; and the SOUND PERFORMANCE by Lisa Schmalz und Pauline Jacob. The History Show at the Kunstverein in Hamburg reflects on 200 years of its life at the center of culture in Hamburg and beyond. As a reference project, Biennale des Friedens at the Kunstverein Hamburg (1985) complements Love and Politics.
Photo above: Sound performance by Lisa Schmalz and Pauline Jacob on the opening of The History Show.
Title: Politics and Love at the Kunstverein Hamburg
Date: January 28 – April 2, 2017
Location: The History Show at the Kunstverein Hamburg
Students: Finn Brüggemann (Das Archipel) and Nuriye Tohermes (Das Archipel), MacKenzie Boomer, Xin Cheng, Lisa Eggert, Lea Kirstein, Robert Köpke, William Schwartz, Kathrin Sohlbach, Mana Stahl and Julia Wycisk.
Supported by: Kunstverein Hamburg
Politics and Love at the History Show at the Kunstverein Hamburg, January 28, 2017
»Politics and Love«, der Beitrag für The History Show von Marjetica Potrč, ihrer HFBK-Klasse Design for the Living World und dem Kollektiv Das Archipel, widmet sich dem Thema »Religion und Sentiment« – einem wichtigen gefühlspolitischen Aspekt in der Ausstellungsgeschichte des Kunstverein in Hamburg.
Part one: Manifesto: On Politics, On Love, On Das Archipel
Politics and Love
On Religion and Politics
We understand religion as systems of values, agreements, and beliefs. Since the separation of the church and state in the late 18th century, systems of legal and institutional structures traditionally inscribed in the fieldof religion have been relocated to the fieldof politics. Representative democracy as administered by governments, is falling short of democratically representing its constituents. Today, late capitalism has made democracy an ideological stand-in – a pseudo democracy. In the transition to a new social agreement, including new forms of understanding citizenship and collective decision making, we see community-based projects in cities as agents for political change. These projects are laboratories of coexistence. If used in a critical manner, they are political schoolrooms, where residents reclaim their city and develop a shared understanding of the kind of city they want to live in. We participate in a bottom-up process that seeks to reconstruct the world. Platforms like Das Archipel, seek to forge temporary, pragmatic agreements, they aim to experiment with alternatives to current structures.
On Sentiments and Love
Five cents for Ethiopia with every Starbucks coffee you buy – Capitalism with a human face. A hegemonic belief system that absorbs compassion, but never gets to the root cause for the lack of it. Today, religious sentiments have made way for the all-surrounding market belief. We see the need for a new sentiment.
Love might offer an alternative, a way out of the market logic and its all-absorbing ideology. Our struggle ought not to be fought in a social class. We do not call for solidarity amongst those that are like us. We call for love that embraces heterogeneity and encompasses the other. We don’t strive for an altruistic love. We seek to put forth a love that acts as a guide into critical dialogue, that can deal with conflictthrough the acceptance of diverse positions. Overcoming milieu divisions, we embrace the power of difference to create our own institutions. Together, we want to find newways of doing politics. This love is the basis for our political projects in common and the constitution of a new society.
On Das Archipel
Das Archipel is an open platform for self-organization that consists of four steel pontoons. It is floatingon the waters of Hamburg. In its beginning the project had no program. The use of the pontoons was conceived to be found in an open process. Since its inception in 2015, numerous activities have been organized by an open collective that formed and since produces the social space. Today, Das Archipel is a playground and a manifestation of the community that forms around it. On a small scale it is an example of a redirective practice, a form of collective action that demonstrates the process of cultural and political remaking. Das Archipel performs a ritual of transition to a post-neoliberal social and economic agreement. It is a temporary autonomous zone and at the same time a long-term project.
Das Archipel was initiated in 2015 by Finn Brüggemann, Amalia Ruiz-Larrea and Nuriye Tohermes, three former students of Design for the Living World class at HFBK Hamburg.
Part two: Video: Das Archipel, Politics and Love
Das Archipel, Politics and Love, video by Das Archipel (2017)
Statements by Finn Brüggemann, Marjetica Potrc and Nuriye Tohermes
Narrator: Annika Scharm
Produced by: Karsten Wiesel
Part three: Sound performance: Two singers use the oral cavity of the other as a resonating body. The tone produced by one changes when it reaches the other. Two bodies become one instrument.
Singers: Lisa Schmalz und Pauline Jacob
Referential project: Biennale des Friedens at the Kunstverein Hamburg (1985)
Flyer Biennale des Friedens at The History Show
Referential work: Notes on Participatory Design, no. 7 (2014) by Marjetica Potrč
Courtesy of Marjetica Potrč and Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin/Stockholm
Design for the Living World, HFBK 
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