On site KickOff with the artists for StoryTelling:Europe!
Brunnenpassage is delighted to announce that we finally could host an on site kick-off meeting with the invited artists involved for our production StoryTelling:Europe! which is part the European Pavilion Initiative. Asma Aiad, Melika Ramic and Natalia Hecht are ready to start their work in the neighborhood of Brunnenpassage, the market area, which represents Europe and beyond within a nutshell. On the basis of the concept of our two interlinked projects which will have premiere and opening 23rd and 24th of June 2022, we are diving more and more into the topics and emerging questions which might be of relevance in the collective process of transmedia storytelling in the upcoming month.
Brunnenpassage is excited and very honored to work with those wonderful artists within the European Pavilion Initiative. We are happy to introduce you to:
Asma Aiad, conceptual artist, activist and youth worker.
She has earned her Bachelor’s degree in political science and is currently studying at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is completing her Master’s degree in Gender Studies, with a research focus in Islamic feminism. Her activism and artistic work deal with topics like identity constructions, anti-racism, feminism and the deconstruction of stereotypes. She is a co-founder of “Salam Oida”, an initiative that celebrates Muslim culture and art in Austria. Her various works such as “This is not a headscarf” or “(Un)Seen Sacred Spaces”, she explores her Muslim identity in Austria and Europe and issues such as discrimination, representation, and art.
For StoryTelling:Europe! she is developing a multimedia stations exhibition in co-creation with protagonists of the market under the title “A Viennese Caravanserai”.
Melika Ramic, performance director and art education
She has worked at the Burgtheater Wien, Wiener Festwochen, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus as well as Dschungel Wien, Brunnenpassage ArtSpcialSpace and others. In 2010 she founded her association motschnik and staged various plays for young audiences, which were shown at national (spleen*graz, Szene Bunte Wähne, SCHÄXPIR Linz) and international festivals in the UK, Malta, Switzerland, Luxembourg.
Since 2017 she has collaborated with the Canadian group Mammalian Diving Reflex on projects such as Haircuts by Children, These Are The People In Your Neighbourhood, and All The Sex I’ve Ever Had, touring to the US, Finland, Australia, Slovenia, and Germany.
In 2021 she was curatorial collaborator for the family program of the Kultursommer Wien. She is currently working as an artistic collaborator on the long-term project “Humboldting the Humboldt” between the Humboldt Forum Berlin and the Thomas Mann Gymnasium Berlin under the artistic direction of Darren O’Donnell.
For StoryTelling:Europe! she is creating performative StoryWalks with and by children of a neighbourhood school class collecting and sharing stories with and by local shop operators and market stall workers.
Natalia Hecht, Community Artist, Psychologist, Cultural Evaluation Expert from Argentina living in Vienna.
At the core of her artistic practice are participatory co-creation and reflection processes with communities. Through collaboration, artistic intervention and critical social reflection, central topics such as diversity, migration, transculturality, feminism and collective care, are explored in order to initiate processes of self-representation and transformation. Natalia has specialised in designing and leading evaluation processes in the cultural sector with an art-based, discrimination sensitive, participatory approach. She has been part of Brunnenpassage Team for many years developing artistic projects and leading community engagement and evaluation processes.
Her role in StoryTelling:Europe! is supervisor, curatorial one with a focus on the development of thematic focus, methodology and the interrelation between the project rails.
Let’s get started in the field – we’ll keep you posted.