Joanna to Upstairs63

I believe that in unstable conditions (undefined, not finished, not clear, open, in suspension), there are more possibilities.
A place of possibilities where new things can emerge; that is how I see Upstairs.
Emergency, as you all know by now, is a word that interests me a lot.
For me the state of emergency is really interesting for the amount of possibilities that it holds and for the presence of real-possible change.
By real change I mean something that can alter a whole system (always with the consciousness that a change can be good or bad).
A System can be anything. Nowadays when someone says this word we have the tendency to think about big systems, but I see also my work as a system, myself as one.
Generally speaking I think that it is easier to change a system if it is under unstable conditions, because in such conditions every act means something and can change the structures whereas in other conditions that small act, although meaningful, would just be integrated by the Systems structure and stability without leaving any trace.

I see in Upstairs a territory in State of Emergency and that’s why, from the beginning (one year ago) I started going up. Immediately when one goes in the space ideas come to mind, and, even if they are unclear, the feeling that something can be done is present and I value this feeling a lot.

I think that places in State of Emergency can be found everywhere, in a person, in a group, in a city, in my country, in other countries, but mostly they are avoided (at least in the societies where I have lived all my life). In my opinion they are avoided because suspension, structure less, open, and unstable conditions are not exactly the most comfortable ones, and therefore most people, or at least the ones I know, artists or not, have the tendency to stick with what is known, what is there already, built and working, It is difficult for some to deal with non-definition, although it is precisely the necessary ground to build something new.

Pretending not to see Emergency or just forgetting about this part of life to avoid the hard job of dealing with change and instability is for me an interesting theme, and in my work I try do deal with this questions.

This year I am also thinking about UPSTAIRS in wider terms. My condition is different, I am going to Brazil in some weeks and the discussion that we started, about the metaphor of a forgotten place, about the forgotten place in ourselves or forgotten in our society helped me to see a clear connection between the space itself (the 5th floor) but also other spaces, physical or not.

For me, working Upstairs (here or in Brazil) is a choice. Less than a necessity to fight a System is an attempt to cause instability in a System so that new ideas and connections can emerge and produce change (hopefully good ones).

see you
Jo

Valeria to Upstairs63

Upstairs has started as reaction

- to a situation of stagnation/acceptance of conditions given

Suspension instead of stagnation – action and reaction instead of acceptance.

Movement and change against A:P:A:T:H:Y: The story is shortly told at the beginning of the Blog.

I wanted this year that people coming to share and participate to Upstairs63 would be conscient about this, that's why we wrote a text and asked to apply, and I feel in our firsts meeting that we all agree on this position, that implies for me a tension that has to be lived not to die out of it. I would like this position to find a space both real and metaphorical (we started upstairs with this relation between bi dimensional and three dimensional, the book/the real space and I feel this is getting clearer now) .

- In the work developing in the fifth floor, some installations and drawing are growing, as a long term dialogue accepting the exploration process we described in the text, and metaphorical, the blog as a metaphorical floor and the work itself in its meaning and intentions, because I think only artists are meant to bring this two dimensions together and know that only in the dialogue between this dimension there is a possibility of understanding. I feel our world is loosing matter and contact to matter and we should be aware of this and work on this relation, starting by getting back to the high technology of the human body.

More spacifically the projects I am developing inUpstairs63 relate to the idea of open space as space in between agression and protection and suspension as condition betwen life and death, Joanna would say emergency condition. These concepts are strictly related to the fifth floor situation.

See you there. Valeria

CHAPTER 3 - Welcome!

Today...
The Fifth floor was closed for a year; we have the new keys for 20 days (?).
The building is still not sold.
And here we are, in a sunny Sunday afternoon, coffee and cigarettes, writing the story for the ones arriving now to this space, closing the Third Chapter to start Upstairs63 and keep fighting against A.P.A.T.H.Y. around us.

Meet you tomorrow at 16:00

3.1 - call for participants: sent on 21.06.2009

Oh, You, artist. I am sure that you are available from July 5th to the 20th !!

Arrrh so!!! This first Email contains a descriptive text of the proposed project where you will find all necessary information to participate. The PDF file contains the images to be used and downloaded.
This project is open to all. Please feel free to share it with anyone else who you think might be interested.

The PDF*
The downloadable file contains 26 A4 pages to be printed front and back. The resulting 13 pages are then to be folded in two; they will make the pages in A5 format (which will correspond to the numbers indicated on the corners of the page).
These numbers, and the page numbers, are the structure of the document. Each time, while keeping the A5 format, participants may manipulate the layout as well as print any pages he/she wishes to rework.
Everything must be sent before July 1st to the following address :

Upstairs Project- Edisontr. 63 – 12459 Berlin

* In some of the images you will find the intervention of the artists who have started with the project last year : Joanna Barros, Joahim Buchholz, Valeria Sanguini.

For more information write to upstairs63@gmail.com

3.2 - text

text:

“The nomad movement does not follow a direct logic with a beginning, middle or an end. Everything, here, is the middle. The nomad does not go somewhere, particularly in a straight line, he evolves in a setting and often returns on the same tracks; enlightening them maybe, if he is an intellectual nomad, of new ideas.”

Kenneth White

Upstairs 63 is an invitation to a journey.

The book of sketches: 52 pages A5 in black and white.

The pages are the first contact with a place, which is at the same time real and a space in power, which is becoming. An attempt to collect an experience made, the tracing of a path already begun, born in the desire to sustain the idea which has already been sketched out.

Each participant is permitted to print the pages desired with which to interpret in their own language (drawing, writing…). The material will be the impulsive starting point which will open the dialogue, a new step.

Upstairs 63 is an invitation to a journey starting from an imaginary place.

5^th floor – Edisonstr, 63: 40 rooms spread out over 400 m2

The participants will be invited to come to the site eventually and work in the rooms during the 20 days. It is a question of breathing life to the proposed project on the pages, while exploring through the imagination a space becomes real. Everyone must provide their own materials.

The workspace is not a functional one, it has more the characteristics of a construction site. More inviting as a physical investment, it has been chosen for its extent, its malleability. It is not confined and limited as a set of rooms; it is permeable, open to circulation.

The only floor of a building left abandoned during the middle of its restoration, and since never been used, has remained suspended in a state full of potential. Under the windows runs the Spree. Left in such a condition as this, the fifth floor leaves room to daydream.

Each participant is called upon to find their own coordinates, which are appropriate to their, with which to follow a route, a course, opened to the possibility of meeting, crossing or engaging in dialogue during the exploration with other participants. The goal will not be a presentation of work, this exploration is made far from conditions and expectations.

By bringing their topographical imagination to an existing territory, from highlighting and making geographies exist, imagination and personal initiatives through an exchange; there is an attempt to reveal an inter-subjectivity.

Upstairs 63 is the territory which will create itself through the overlapping and the crossing of various approaches and routes implemented over the course of the 20 work days.

CHAPTER 2

still of the video when we first entered the 5th floor...the video will come soon

2.1 - The Auction

Dear Friends, the story goes on.

We decided to open this blog with information that could be useful today so will stick on what is important for Upstairs63 today.

- the fifth floor:

We had to ask for permission.

Why?

Valeria: “Joanna was a lawyer and Joachim is German so we HAD to ask for permission”

Joanna: “No… really…the thing is…”

The building has no owner, the last owner went bankrupt but a bank now administrates it through the Hausverwaltung and Zwangsverwalter Erhard Gähler. We wanted to start with good relationship with them and proposed them to use this empty space. It worked for a season. We did an exhibition, respecting the conditions given.

It went well, but after that the space was locked again, there were complains about us leaving some works inside. They said we couldn’t use it because the situation was not clear, the next Auction was coming.

2.2 - 6.000.000,00 euros

2.3 - Schweineöde

Since years an Auction is held every six months to sell the building.

No one bought it.

Why?

It is an old lamp factory located in Oberschöneweide or Schweineöde.

Oberschöneweide?

Former DDR

Far from the city centre (Mitte)

Not really around the corner…

Plus, this huge building (now costing 6 million euros) is hosting lots of doctors, dentists, ballet school, music school, Schlecker, post, Absolut Power Place, The Dark Side (Nazi? heavy metal? Harley Davison? bald leather boys, all wearing the same black t-shirt with the same white cross…), painters, video makers, performers, sculptors, Mark, Knut, two dogs, one cat, Martina, Upstairs63 and the legs of the Spider.

Quite a strange mixture.

How to manage all this crowd?

CHAPTER 1

Dear Friends we are very happy to see that after a year Upstairs63 is alive!
The Three Musketeers are still here and want to let you know shortly about the story:

1.1 - down by the river

May 2008:
Everything was there.
an atelier to work,
all of us were healthy and young,
we had huge common spaces and essential facilities to work
Belin as the “ideal” (1) space to meet and act and where we decided to be
(Valeria expatriated from Italian social and political illness , Joanna from Sevilla, Firenze, Barcelona, Kassel, Sao Paolo, Joachim from ex-east Berlin)

1.2 - out of tune

Valeria – “I had a dream …yes and I have hope anyway (2) .. two empty floors Edisonstr.63, I was alone in this huge space suddenly abandoned by all artists that where working there (I will tell the story in another chapter).. ok. I could fill it with the restless ones. how to find the right people? One only problem: I was new in Berlin..

I started spreading the information around..old friends abroad (London, Italy.. ), people I had just met. They arrived and brought other people with them.

Great!

First opportunity to start doing “something” together: participating to the 5^th of Juli Spreeknie day of open ateliers in Schoeneweide

but:

another proposal came out

-“she has lost of contacts and some curators are visiting her the 5^th of June, shouldn’t we do a first try of open studios for this date..?”

The idea sounded out of tune to me but I thought ..why not.. accepting this as cue to act?

Yes.

1.3 - A.P.A.T.H.Y.

Sharing these conditions with other 17 artists sounded like the perfect place to be, but it wasn’t.
WHY?
We were feeling sick
Why?
Apathy…we mean A.P.A.T.H.Y.

1. absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.
2. lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.

Origin:
1595–1605; (< F) < L apathīa < Gk apátheia insensibility to suffering, equiv. to apathe- (s. of apath s) unfeeling (a- A- 6 + pathe-, var. s. of páthos PATHOS ) + -ia -IA

Synonyms:
1. coolness. 2. See INDIFFERENCE.
Antonyms:
1. ardor, fervor.

1.4 - “let´s go Upstairs!”

5^th of June 2008

After the open studios everyone disappeared.

We met in the kitchen asking ourselselves

Why?

The openstudio was for us a good start, we were ready to make the next step: the 5^th of July

Presenting us to the Kiez in the Spneekine event. (link=)

A.P.A.T.H.Y. was contaminating the 1000 m2 (3 and 4 floor) where we were working

We felt like the only immune one and quite embarrassed to walk around..

We needed a new space

“let´s go Upstairs!”

We had in fact all of us (the 17) the keys of this abandoned floor (the 5 floor) but no one was using it.

We decided to start from there.

1.5 - "Wir erinnern uns nicht" F.Gonzales Torres

"Wir erinnern uns nicht" F.Gonzales Torres

“(…)on the 5th of June 2008, we all felt the need to find another place to work, a place where there would be less walls between us. On the 5th floor, above our ateliers, we gave our work the possibility to be together.(…)”