Ben J. Riepe on one year of
FREIRAUM
31 jan 2021
Apart from the focus on exchange and the naturalness of meeting up, both so painfully lost in the crisis, FREIRAUM was and remains, first and foremost, conceived as a space for conceptual and research work. Even before the crisis, this concept promised that FREIRAUM could well develop into a space of the hour, because it did follow the rigours of production economics less while rather investing in a communal thinking on the times in which we live and how we could really search for ways and strategies, in an interdisciplinary manner and sustainably – employing the means of the arts and sciences. With a new and important solidarity of sharing resources, ideas, strategies and networks. How can we think the local anew, and the global – also through newly-won digital strategy. It puts the principle of care front and centre for a local and global community as well as, last but not least, the existential experience of the continuing importance of live-ness. Although we do experience numerous difficulties – it is, after all, a very difficult time -, it is also a time in which things start moving all of a sudden: Not every grant is coupled to the expectation of delivering a product anymore. Because we do not need a constant stream of new productions. No higher, faster, further, but rather a much more sustainable work and agency. We are the space for this, and we perceive our future mission here, too, even more so in being a voice and providing a safe space for new thoughts, for the untried and the unjudged, also, for the time being. For everything is in motion, the future is uncertain. Therefore, there is also a great opportunity to shape it anew now. We would like to extend an invitation to all artists*, scientists*, activists* and experts* to interfere here, to bewilder us, to make us view, think and experience things differently.