Project Space Festival and “Know the Ways”

This past August I participated in the 3rd annual Project Space Festival Berlin. The festival is a celebration of the spaces that make Berlin unique, these are spaces (and non-spaces, a few are nomadic) that exist outside the closed circle of the art world. Many of them defy categorization, but there was quite a mix of old and young spaces and participants. All the events were special in different ways, I especially enjoyed mp43’s event in Hellersdorf.

Myself and other members of KN: space for art in context, applied and were given August 17th to hold an event in the 30 day calendar of the festival, titled Know the Ways. It featured artwork from KN members, a collaborative installation of special objects (attendees could contribute) and performances by Winston Chmielinski, Katie Armstrong and the Berlin Sacred Harp chapter. Using the writings of Hildegard von Bingen as a starting point, the event sought to answer the question: How have we reclaimed or revised the medieval sense of the mysterious in the modern information era?

The final performance by the Sacred Harp choir was impressive, they are a choir of shape note singers, a form of singing that developed in colonial New England. On a hot sweaty August evening, the crowd was treated to an hour long performance that defies description. Thanks to all who attended.