Talks on Curatorial and Artistic Practice: Ariel Reichman: "Am I Safe?" // Nir Evron & Omer Krieger: "Spectres and Vectors"

Ariel Reichman: "Am I Safe?" 
The question is as complex as it is elementary. The answer depends on a number of factors that concern all of the mosaic stones of our current living situation. We cannot get an overview of all of them; not all of them matter equally. And yet we can answer quickly, because in the end it essentially points to the individual feeling of each of us: “Do I feel safe right now?” Ariel Reichman raises this question as a kind of preface to his exhibition. I AM SAFE can be read on the neon lights outside in front of the gallery building. Or I AM NOT SAFE — depending on the answer we ourselves give by pressing a button in the exhibition or online at iamnotsafe. If we press NO, all of the letters of I AM NOT SAFE light up. If we press YES, the small word NOT goes out: I AM SAFE. Our emotional state becomes visible—and so subjectively and temporarily as the question per se allows. It cannot be made objective and can scarcely be differentiated, because if we were to answer it in the absoluteness with which it is posed, the rigorous answer would always have to be: No, because there is no total safety. But I can certainly feel safe. At least sufficiently safe to answer the question with YES, even if it is/was only for the moment and in reference to those aspects that are foremost for me right now.

Nir Evron & Omer Krieger: "Spectres and Vectors" - screening and talk
"Rehearsing the Spectacle of Spectres" takes its title from the opening words of a poem by Anadad Eldan (b. 1924), a member of Kibbutz Be’eri, a collective community in southern Israel that was tragically hit during the October 7 attacks by Hamas.

The video was filmed by Evron and Krieger entirely in and around Be’eri and premiered at the Kibbutz Gallery in 2014. A decade later, in the wake of Be’eri’s devastation and rebuilding, the video takes on an altered resonance. It stands as an unintended archive and monument of a place irrevocably changed. The images of Be’eri—its open landscapes, its communal spaces, its voices—now bear an unbearable weight, forcing a new and urgent reading of both the work and the historical moment it now finds itself within.

Also screened is Nir Evron’s "Oriental Arch" (2009), a meditation on time, memory, and loss, filmed at the Seven Arches Hotel in East Jerusalem. The film explores architecture as a repository of history, inviting us to consider how places silently preserve the past and reflect the shifting realities that shape them.

The series ‘Talks on Curatorial and Artistic Practice’ by the OnCurating Academy Berlin and Dorothee Richter, continues at Radialsystem from December 2024, carving out space for critical curatorial thinking as well as new perspectives and formats in the context of curatorial practices. The OnCurating Academy Berlin is an international postgraduate programme and platform that aims to strengthen the community of emerging curators, artists, and cultural workers.

The focus of the series builds upon the platform and the OnCurating postgraduate programme, and aligns with goal of (further) developing cooperative and interdisciplinary working methods. Curating means the creation of innovative structures toward the presentation of cultural artefacts through collaboration. In curatorial practice, art, digital media, design and architecture overlap in new ways that require constant reflection.