You describe your approach as Vermittlungsverweigerung, a refusal of mediation, yet you work within institutional structures to critique and transform them. How do you distinguish structural transformation from institutional ventriloquism (“Bauchreden”, meaning: how can art education truly transform its frameworks instead of extracting from independent voices as the voice of the institution)?
In our experience, institutions work in previously set out structures and avoid certain impulses that come from the mediation. Instead of seeing mediation as a social infrastructure of the institution, it often serves as a functional outpost for needs such as inclusion and accessibility. That contradicts [the imperative of] creating an environment in which differences or needs that haven’t been thought of can unfold. Often, institutions don’t reach communities outside the art world; it becomes a task that is handed over to mediation. But, structural change must be a collective strategy of the organization, and not only thought of as diversity management by one department. It is also more than “just” being in contact with visitors through tours and conducting workshops with youth groups. For us, it is rather about the whole practice and labor of mediation, of how we understand the relationship between “hosts” and “visitors”, work hours, hierarchies in relationships of employment, or freelance mediators. We also love working with children, yet we see the needs of a team of mediators and the possibilities of the public space that comes with working with an institution. For us, these are starting points to seek critical conversations from within.
In this context, through refusing mediation in the way it is mostly practiced (dt. Vermittlungsverweigerung), we reject an institutional attitude of avoidance. This avoidance manifests in a resistance to embrace the responsibility that comes with “hosting” multiple communities and rethinking work relationships, and seeing the institution as a public resource. The business-as-usual of art institutions creates exceptional time frames in which invited communities participate in the life and programming of the institution as guests. Rather than thinking of our relationships in terms of limited invitations or visits, we seek to care for exhibitions as public spaces owned by the public.
Art mediation, as we see it, is a way of reconsidering existing structures, working with what we have, with an acknowledgement of limited resources and capacities of the ones involved, as well as an acknowledgement of our involvement in the institutional structure. Transforming is a way of connecting, shaping, and also undergoing a certain process in relation, on the one hand with the institution, on the other with the local collectives we are working with. It would be nice to have ventriloquism workshops. Of course, we use code-switching and speak differently depending on the spaces we are in. Most important are the communities we are accountable to.
People’s Tribunals and community organizing—parts of this year’s mediation program—develop through sustained, long-term relationship-building and emerge from urgencies within communities. How do you reconcile the quest for fixed forms of representation within a biennale with the often slow and contradictory processes of community engagement?
Maybe we cannot reconcile. Neither we, as the mediation team, nor the institution owns the struggles or the collective knowledge of the communities and artists we are working with. We know that the most important fight is not happening within the institution. We try to make use of it as a resource of space, or as a stationary moment, as long as it is in alignment with the work the collectives have been doing.
In the case of the People’s Tribunals, the format serves as a political educational forum with which we are trying to think about outreach differently. We apply this historical tool of community-sourced legal forums as a possibility for extending institutional resources. People’s Tribunals are organized when justice has been denied on a state and international level. In Berlin and beyond, there are already various examples of adaptations of the format of a tribunal. It is quite telling which Tribunals have been convened recently: the People’s Tribunals in Germany concerning the ongoing mass murder and displacement of the Palestinian people in Palestine, as well as the repression of Palestinian voices in Germany.
With the People’s Tribunals at the Biennale, we intended to reach out to local actors whose needs and work we have been trying to be considerate of. Jas has been a member of ALPAS Pilipinas, one of the collectives that are organizing the People’s Tribunals—meaning her grounding is not only within the institution. Already-existing relations made it possible to form trust. We were very grateful that this was the foundation on which we convened the first meaningful People’s Tribunal on the Systematic Targeting of Women Activists in Sudan.
You used the word “difficultators” instead of using the terms “art mediators” or “gallery educators” to describe the role you undertake within the Biennial. How do difficultators avoid the intellectual voyeurism that allows privileged audiences to consume other people’s trauma as an uplifting experience?
“Difficultate” is a term used by Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, which Zasha Colah brought up to us, and we found this approach very useful. Instead of facilitating, a difficultator does not interpret to solve problems or contradictions, but rather creates conditions of encounter, friction, and experience. We consider ourselves lucky to work together with a brilliant and critical team of mediators, including Arootin Mirzakhani, Duc Vu Manh, Jannina Brosowsky, Niusha Ramzani, Sarah Steiner, Thesea Rigou, Zoncy Heavenly, and also other guest mediators. Each of us has their respective knowledge background that feeds into our practice of mediation. What we share is finding an opening through conflict, embracing friction, and practicing the capacity of holding ambivalences. For us, it brings a different layer to the current popular concept of “conviviality”; it is a practice that also challenges the comfort zone. The focus lies less on a fixed mediation format and more on the presence, practices, and perspectives of the mediators themselves. We all want moments of uncertainty or discomfort not to be hidden but to be consciously part of the mediation process. This openness allows for a shared space in which visitors and non-visitors can encounter not only the artwork but also their own expectations and projections. Rather than smoothing over complexity or offering resolution, the process invites all involved to remain with ambiguity and friction. It is a form of engagement that requires honesty, self-mediation, and reflection.
Critical art education discourses have been grappling with encouraging the recipients’ autonomy and self-esteem in understanding art, i.e., providing and translating contextual information that is often only accessible to expert audiences, while at the same time preserving the wonder of the complexity of artworks. How are difficultators encouraged to deal with these often opposing expectations towards art mediation?
Our mediators engage directly with visitors during the focus tours, each bringing their own perspectives and approaches. Therefore, they are best positioned to speak for themselves. Here are two answers we would like to share. For Sarah Steiner, contradictory expectations are not obstacles but invitations. The aim is to recognize tensions, engage with differing viewpoints, and create meaningful exchange through mutual care. Arootin Mirzakhani, on the other hand, understands context as something unstable that shifts depending on who engages with it. In contrast to the speed and overstimulation of contemporary life, his approach values slowness, ambiguity, and the discomfort of not immediately understanding—offering a necessary resistance to the constant demand for clarity and resolution. It becomes less about producing clarity, accuracy, or “the one and only truth”, more so it is about cultivating an environment where people can dwell together in not-knowing, and feel all sorts of things.
Is it possible that political engagement, despite difficult questions, doesn’t always require intensity or difficulty? How might, paradoxically, difficultating cultivate what one could call the joy of engaging with complexity, where encountering different perspectives, grappling with contradictions, and sitting with uncertainty becomes a source of curiosity and connection rather than a burden?
In contemporary art, we are mostly dealing with political themes and contexts, yet it can feel as though merely exhibiting political positions or attending such exhibitions is already considered a form of political engagement. This is the point of departure from which we begin to think about the repoliticization of art mediation: what can political art mediation truly be? We nudge visitors and non-visitors alike to challenge the hosting institution, to take their curatorial themes, self-positioning, and visions seriously.
We try to understand the political education of art mediation in a material, but also a bodily way. Meaning how we create spaces that can be for gathering, feeling, and holding ambivalences; for play, lingering, zoning and hanging out; for shifting our perception to being in our bodies while being in the exhibition space. This does not replace the labor of organizing but can create moments of relief. In this way, we like to imagine political education as self-defense training for the public. Not in the sense of shielding oneself from politics, but in learning how to navigate and respond to complex realities with awareness, with others. Perhaps the joy of difficultating lies here: in thinking of joy not as escape from the political, but as its essential expression—as justice, as ease, as shared possibility.
Dalia Maini and Amelie Jakubek conducted this conversation.
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Duygu Örs is a researcher, curator, and art mediator with a background in urban ethnography. She is currently researching the possibilities of situating the museum within the Right to the City movement.
Jasmine Grace Wenzel is a writer, editor and organizer. Her practice moves between political education, cultural programming and creating collective learning spaces using a community-based approach.
They both are co-leads responsible for the mediation work at the 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art.
Image: Flowers at the People's Tribunals for all those who were present but couldn't be in the room. Comrades who can't cross borders, martyrs, or those whose shoulders we are standing on. Courtesy of Jasmine Grace Wenzel.
