LIMBO - Part I, A Living Room Without Walls is the first phase of a long-term project and emerged from a personal preoccupation with homelessness, which already began in my childhood. The research for this work takes place in Berlin and is based on personal contacts with affected people, other artists, academics and activists who deal with the topic. The project has been developing since the summer of 2023 and the first prototype of the installation was exhibited as part of the Rundgang exhibition at the UdK Berlin.
Since the beginning of 2024 I have been working on the continuation and final stage of this first part of the project - an installation that resembles a living room, placed in an urban space - A Living Room Without Walls. The main gesture here is the invitation to the public to meet us in our living room and get to know the problems of homelessness from the perspective of two affected women - Janet Amon and Habibi. With this invitation, I would like above all to facilitate communication between affected and non-affected people in order to possibly broaden the discourse on the subject.
This work will be first presented in the context of the 48h Neukölln Art Festival at Weichselplatz between the 28th and the 30th June.
Here, the audience is invited to visit the installation and experience it in three ways:
One can have an individual insight into some experiences the two women went through when living on the streets, by watching their interviews and getting to know this reality through their personal perspective - this will be possible throughout the festival, from the 28th to the 30th of June.
At the opening of the exhibition (28.06 at 19h) Janita Juvonen will be reading some parts of her book about her personal experience on the street.
On the 29th and 30th of June at 15h, both Janet and Habibi will be present and the audience is invited to play “The Memory of The Powerful Women” with them - a game we developed together, to enable the dialogue with the audience and break the ice.
Schematic Program 48h Neukölln:
28.06 19h - 22h
19h // Reading Session Janita Juvonen
29.06 14h - 22h
15h to 18h // Memory der Starken Frauen (game playing) with Janet Amon and Habibi
30.06 14h - 19h
15h to 18h // Memory der Starken Frauen (game playing) with Janet Amon and Habibi
The installation will presented a second time in cooperation with the Karuna Kompass Association at the Karuna Café at Boxhagener Platz, on the 6th of July from 10h until 17h.
We are glad to invite you all to join us in our living room!
TEAM
Concept, Production, Realization // Madalena Wallenstein de Castro
In cooperation with // Janet Amon; Habibi (Silke Brey); Janita Juvonen
Production // André Correia
Documentation (Camera) // Robert Grünheit
Documentation (Post-Production) // Juan Manuel Ramirez Villa
BIO
Madalena Wallenstein de Castro was born in Lisbon and began her artistic work there. She is based in Berlin since 2017 and is soon finishing her Master’s Degree in Stage Design at the UdK Berlin. Since 2015, she has been working in many different projects and productions with a central focus on spatial design, mainly between Lisbon and Berlin. Working in a transdisciplinary way, she mainly deals with social-societal issues. She is also interested in working in collectives and the issues that are associated with them. In 2022, she founded a collective for performative arts with André Correia and Paula Meuthen - PAM! Kollektiv.
You can find out more about her work here: https://www.madawallen.com/
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Image courtesy: Madalena Wallenstein de Castro
