Working in archives entails repeatedly losing one’s way, even when one has just found it. At first glance, everything appears equally important and unimportant. The materials are awkward and incomplete and don’t fit in the pigeon hole to which they have been assigned. It is only when the topic itself is examined that light can be shone in the darkness, turning finds into historical documents. The image thus assembled remains a ragged depiction of things past and the selection made merely one of many possible combinations.
In the course of the project Wissensspeicher, thematic perspectives emerged mainly from work on the collection of publications produced by the nGbK. The specific view of art fostered by the society often focusses on the question of possibilities and limits. “Art must have an effect” was the early motto, which frequently led and leads, among other things, to activistic demands being formulated after theoretical discussions. The knowledge acquired is represented on this Website in excerpts, rhizomatically, in the form of a review, like a physical archive. What started as a list of subjects and key words became an ABC, a memory bank, which makes it easier to transfer knowledge and provide access to the nGbK’s rich history.
The nGbK’s Internet archive is composed of the announcements for past exhibitions. Projects realised before 2005 are accompanied by a title and list of persons involved. Selected exhibitions were expanded with additional material from our physical archives by the working group Wissensspeicher and linked to the home page.
We would like to extend out thanks to the staff of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum, the Fontane Apotheke and the Mediathek of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin for their help and support with research and digitisation.
Wissensspeicher working group: Sara Hillnhütter, Charlene Lynch, Olga von Schubert, Eylem Sengezer, Anna-Lena Wenzel, Assisted by: Irene Hilden, Dominika Klimaszewski, Franziska Ratajczak,
Dierk Saathoff und Rika Spiekermann
Image (logo) at top: © Gernot Bubenik
Projects marked with the icon are analysed according to outstanding topics within the Wissensspeicher-system.
Since 2024, the Wissensspeicher/Archive matter is located on the new nGbK website: www.ngbk.de/en/diskurs/wissensspeicher. From then on, changes are only made there.
