Somatic Shrines for Crip Times is an immersive exhibition that takes the form of a shrine honoring the lived experience of people with disabilities. The project creates an aesthetic and emotive language for what disability feels like made visible through digital avatars, performance, and health advocacy. The exhibition features avatars developed from performer-collaborators’ experiences of disability outside of purely medical contexts. These avatars appear as large-scale prints, digitally projected images, and video documenting their creation. The avatars propose a speculative way to transmit disability wisdom across time and between people, while inviting audiences to encounter aspects of health and lived experience that often have little space in public life. The process is designed to make participation more accessible for people with disabilities while also attending to subtle emotions and sensory experiences shaped by lived experience. Elements of the work are developed through access-centered practices including choreography rooted in disability experience, masking, and COVID testing. The exhibition is a window to share the realities that are left socially invisible but are visceral, vibrant, and living just beneath the surface.
Funded by the Berlin Senate – Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.Artistic Director / Creative Producer: Justus Harris (he/they) Avatar design collaborator: Derin Cankaya (they/them), Madeline Shann (she/her) Assistant Creative Producer: Joelle Burrichter (they/them) Access Consulting: Juli Reinartz (she/her) Trainer in Community Organizing Methodology, advising on accessibility: Ann (she/they) 3D-Rendering Technician & Technical Support: Nikita FREEBOID Videography: Kit Blamire (they/them), Sebastian Steins (he/they) Collaboration Partners: PSR Collective Research Phase Support and Gratitude: Sophie Mars (she/her), Lacy Barry (she/her), Adam Borut (he/him), Sherry Ohly (she/her), Elbe Trakal (he/him), Romolo, Liza Bernstein (she/they), Lisa Goldman, and workshop participants.
One highlight in the permanent exhibition at the Museum of European Cultures is the mechanical 'Weihnachtsberg', a giant nativity scene set in a hillside town that originates from the Erzgebirge, near the border of Germany and the Czech Republic, in the...
moreabout: The Giant Mechanical Nativity Scene from the Ore Mountains
On the upper floor, the 'Museum of Prehistory and Early History' takes visitors on a tour through the oldest eras of human history. With its unique collections on the prehistory and ancient history of Europe and near-lying regions of Asia, the museum...
moreabout: Back! Stone Age. Bronze Age. Iron Age
Gold jewellery from the migration period found near the Black Sea, silver brooches and magnificent belts from early medieval graves in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany: selections from the collection of Johannes von Diergardt will be on view again in...
moreabout: The Crown of Kerch
The eighteenth century was the century of porcelain. Princes, aristocrats and the well-to-do bourgeoisie were absolutely addicted to this “white gold”. People would even speak of the maladie de porcelain. Those who couldn’t afford genuine porcelain turned...
moreabout: The Worlds of Rococo
A cooperation of Berlin's Gay Museum and the Bode Museum, "All Forms of Love" casts a second look on works in the Bode collection that deal with the diversity of sexual identities and LGBTIQ life in art from previous eras.
moreabout: The Second Glance: All Forms of Love