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Archive of Gestures




Revolutions and protests, from the democratic uprisings of 1989/90* to the renewed waves of revolts, movements and occupations from 2011 to today have wrested fleeting, but precious futures from their dystopian present(s). New ways of being briefly manifested in and between assembled bodies – outside any prior blueprint or plan. When emancipatory projects are declared as failed or as already completed, bodies turn into archives of a political knowledge that dominant historicisations cannot yet or no longer capture in words. 


*
The emancipatory experience of the revolutions in East Germany and Eastern Europe in 1989/90 is this project’s starting point: The events’ emergent forms of radical collective self-empowerment enacted in streets and squares, assemblies and neighbourhoods, factories and schools were not only cut short by the installation of established (western) political forms, but have been erased from a history reduced to “the Fall of the Wall.”

ARCHIVE OF GESTURES is a research platform and archive in progress about the embodiment of revolt and revolution.

The GESTURES assembled here initiate and document searches for visual, textual, somatic ways of approaching the stored up, emancipatory knowledge of past revolutions.

How can we recover – and release onto the present – a political impulse that has not yet been spent? 

News



22 May 2025

 Circling
at 
“Planetary Peasants”


Archive of Gestures: Circling
Site-Specific Installation at

Planetary Peasants
Agriculture, Art, Revolution, 
Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle/S.
23.05.2025 — 14.09.202
20 Nov 2024

Interview about the ARCHIVE OF GESTURES with Burak Üzümkesici 
published in German. 

“Revolutionäre Gesten. Sprache finden durch Protest und künstlerische Praxis” A conversation between Elske Rosenfeld und Burak Üzümkesici
has been published in  “Selbsterzählungen und Umbruchspuren im Œuvre von Künstler:innen aus der DDR”in German. ︎︎︎

You can find the Turkish, English and German version of the text HERE. 

18 Nov 2024

REPEATING & INTERRUPTING: 

Workshop,
Talk & Screening






We are launching the gestures REPEATING and INTERRUPTING
with two events:

Repeating: Filmic Activism in Times of War and Revolution.
Workshop @Archive of the GDR-Opposition
29 Nov 2024,
4-7 pm

&
Interrupting: Troubling Archives
Talk & Screening @ Project Space Flutgraben e.V.
15 Dec 2024, 
5 pm


>>MORE INFO HERE>>
10 Sept 2024

“SPEAKING: Statements for the Future” @ festival wohn-komplex, Halle-Neustadt

The video installation Speaking: Statements for the Future is on display at wohn-komplex festival in Halle-Neustadt.

12 - 15 September 2024

We are also launching the booklet “Statements for the Future. Halle-Neustadt Edition.” For the booklet the English script of the performance/ video has been translated to the five most widely spoken languages in Halle-Neustadt in 2024: German, Arabic, Ukrainan, Farsi, Russian and French.

wohn_komplex︎︎︎ is created and organised by Sabine Strobler, Hendrikje Alpermann and Karoline Stegemann on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the founding of Halle-Neustadt.

28 Aug 2024

POSTOST ZINE CLUB Singing matter, Legeparty, zine launches & audiovisual leaks

We are presenting the Archive of Gestures and launching the collaborative collage  SPEAKING at 

POSTOST ZINE CLUB
Singing matter, Legeparty, zine launches & audiovisual leaks

A program as part of Clubs of the Future
https://www.clubsofthefuture.net/ 28.8.2024 5:30 pm to 10:30 pm
Vierte Wel, Adalbertstraße 96, 10999 Berlin
12 August 2024

“SPEAKING: Statements for the Future” @ Festival Begehungen in Chemnitz

The video installation “Speaking: Statements for the Future” is part of the Festival Begehungen in Chemnitz, 
former CSM Schule, 
15.08. Opening at 18:30
16 – 18 August: 10 am to 8 pm
19 – 23 August: 12 to 6 pm
more info HERE
3 July 2024

Performance Becoming In/visible @ ACUD Studio

Olia Sosnovskaya & Elske Rosenfeld 
perform the gesture 
BECOMING IN/VISIBLE:

ACUD Studio
Veteranenstraße 21
10119 Berlin Mitte
U8 Rosenthaler Platz

3rd July 2024
20.00-21.00, doors open 19.30,
free admission
(the performance will be in English)
5 June 2024

Archive of Gestures @ Matter of Art Biennial

Archive of Gestures is participating in the Matter of Art Biennial in Prague which runs from June 14, 2024, to September 29, 2024 with the installation: SPEAKING: Statements for the Future
and the performance “BECOMING IN/VISIBLE”(with Olia Sosnovskaya) on the 14th June, at 8 pm as part of the opening programme.
29 Feb 2024


Circling (Another Round) @ Haus der Kulturen der Welt: “Echos der Bruderländer”, Berlin

A new edit of the video installation CIRCLING (Another Round) will be shown as part of the HKW’s research project and exhibition.︎︎︎
 
1 March - 20 May 2024
5 Jan 2024

Exhibition and Workshop “Becoming In/visible”@VBKÖ, Vienna

Exhibition︎︎︎
 January 12th – February 11, 2024

Opening: January 11th, 6 p.m.
VBKÖ, Maysedergasse 2/28, 1020 Vienna

Friday, February 9th, 3–6 p.m.
Archive of Gestures: Becoming In/visible
Workshop with Elske Rosenfeld & Olia Sosnovskaya

9 Dec 2023

Workshop “Speaking” 
@D’EST Cycle #2: Post-Socialism as Method


More info on the Events Programme D’EST Cycle #2: Post-Socialism as Method:
Hader Halal [With Regard to Presence] Sessions
HERE︎︎︎
To attend the workshop please register at elskerosenfeld@gmail.com until 5 December
22 Sept 2023

ARCHIVE OF GESTURES @ (Selbst-) Erzählungen und Umbruchspuren im Œuvre von Künstler*
-innen der DDR

 
ARCHIVE OF GESTURES will be presented at the workshop “(Selbst-)Erzählungen und Umbruchspuren im Œuvre von Künstler*innen der DDR” at the University of Potsdam, 22 Sept 2023, 10 am - 8 pm. 

16 Sept 2023


STANDING STILL
on view @
“Ways of Unseeing”, Lunds konsthall

 
As site-specific iteration of the video and collage STANDING STILL are part of the show “Ways of Unseeing” at Lunds konsthall, Sweden.

Curated by Hans Carlsson, with works by Harun Farocki, Cecilia Germain, Maria Jacobson, Chloé Galibert-Laîné & Kevin B. Lee, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Patricia Morosan, Magnhild Øen Nordahl, Elske Rosenfeld, Birender Kumar Yadav.

 16 Sept 2023 – 21 Jan 2024
17 June 2023

CIRCLING published in print in “Outside the Box”

A print version of the chapter Circling has just come out as part of the magazine Outside the Box # 8: Kämpfe.

Outside the Box. Zeitschrift für feministische Gesellschaftskritik is a Leipzig based magazine dedicated to social critique with a feminist focus.   

A pdf of the contribution is available for download HERE. 
16 April 2023

Interview about the ARCHIVE OF GESTURES with Burak Üzümkesici


A talk about Revolutionary Gestures between East Germany and Gezi, is out now in Turkish on 

https://www.5harfliler.com





16 Aug 2022


Flyer for the ARCHIVE OF GESTURES @ 12th Berlin Biennial available for download











You can download the flyer HERE.








11 June 2022

Launching ARCHIVE OF GESTURES @ 12th Berlin Biennial






Very happy to announce the launch of the Archive of Gestures – a research platform and archive in progress and new iteration of my long-term research into the embodiment of revolt and revolution from 1989/90 to the present. Four of its works/gestures, including three new works, will be on show at the 12th Berlin Biennale, which opens today and runs till September 18th.