UFO Visitor #3: Johanna Markert (anorak, Berlin)
I’m an independent curator based in Berlin. Together with Lukas Ludwig and Florian Model, I co-direct anorak, a curatorial collective and non-profit organisation for contemporary art. This shared practice grew out of collaborating as artists. Since 2016 anorak has served as an experimental platform to present exhibitions, screenings, performances, dinners, publications, and workshops developed in close dialogue with international and local artists and institutions. While anorak is a constant engagement of mine, I also collaborate on projects with other artists.
What are you currently working on?
Recently, I co-wrote the script for a performance with artist Ana Wild titled Gravity and Grace for which mystic, political activist and philosopher Simone Weil’s idea of ‘decreation’ served as a critical starting point. It premiered in October as part of Diver Festival, Tel Aviv, and we’re now working on bringing it to Berlin within anorak’s upcoming programme. This coincides with an exciting new development – after years of working nomadically, anorak is about to open a project space in Kreuzberg. Currently, we’re in the process of moving into the new location and developing the programme for 2022.
How would you define your practice?
My approach is transdisciplinary and dialogical. It often begins with an investigation into a specific work and related practice that continues in close exchange with other artists: a collaborative process that transforms the initial fascination into form. I am interested in the ways art, particularly time-based forms and moving image, develops a new sensorium to detect affective attachments – feelings that we usually ascribe to subjective experience – as integral to larger social, material and environmental contexts. Running a non-profit offers space for this way of working. It also includes the continuous work on a sustainable support structure to enable artists to produce, share and critically discuss their work.
What do you expect from the UFO visitors programme?
I’m curious to learn more about the organisations behind the programme and look forward to the site and studio visits, the conversations that emerge within and beyond the days spent together.
BIO
Johanna Markert is a curator based in Berlin. Together with Lukas Ludwig and Florian Model, she co-directs the non-profit art association Anorak, a platform for contemporary art and experimental exhibition-making. Anorak’s artistic programme is developed in close dialogue with local and international cultural practitioners and unfolds in exhibitions, film screenings, publications, dinners, and workshops. From 2018 – 19, Markert was a fellow of the international artist residency Akademie Schloss Solitude.