The Humboldt Experiment
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| 9 EUR, reduced 4,50 EUR |
| Book your ticket in advance online or at the box office in the foyer |
| Duration: 90 min |
| German |
| Accessible for wheelchairs |
| Hall 1, Ground Floor |
Art & Science. The six-part performative event series “The Humboldt Experiment” focuses on the life and work of Alexander von Humboldt. Brazilian director Mirah Laline stages encounters between Humboldt researchers from the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) and contemporary artists. Each lecture-performance surprises with its own aesthetics and makes Alexander von Humboldt’s scientific legacy a sensual experience. The director combines lectures by scientists with video art, dance, drama and music. The individual episodes deal with different perspectives on Humboldt’s work and its continuing relevance.
In episode 1 of “The Humboldt Experiment. Ascent to Chimborazo”, media artist Nelson Vergara from Colombia meets Humboldt expert Tobias Kraft on 17 March. Following in the footsteps of Alexander von Humboldt, Nelson Vergara has dared to climb Chimborazo. Ecuador’s highest mountain was considered the highest mountain in the world at the time of Humboldt. The lecture performance is the prelude to a six-part series of events staged by the Brazilian director Mirah Laline. It creates encounters between Humboldt researchers of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) and contemporary arts. Scientific lectures meet video art, dance, drama and music. Postcolonial perspectives of artists from Latin America enter into dialogue with research by and on Alexander von Humboldt.
OVERVIEW
Is a professor at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He studied Fine Arts at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Art and Media at the Berlin University of the Arts, and Audiovisual Media at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. He wrote his doctorate in artistic research at the Art University of Linz, Austria, on Alexander von Humboldt’s “1802: Ascent to Chimborazo. An Artistic Cartography.”
In his artistic work, he explores the poietic possibilities of knowledge generation and medial constructions with a focus on the subjective relationship of body-territory-technical medium. His art projects are performed as media and artistic cartographies, expanded-documentary, and reactive and generative installations.
Nelson Vergara has participated in more than 60 exhibitions, video and art festivals in China, Croatia, Germany, Spain, USA, Israel, Argentina, Canada and Colombia.
Holds a PhD in Romance studies and has been working at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 2015. Together with his team, he is developing the edition humboldt, a digital and printed edition of the travel manuscripts and estate writings on Humboldt’s great voyages of exploration in America and Asia. Since 2019, he is also the director of the “Proyecto Humboldt Digital (ProHD)”, an international cooperation with locations in Berlin and Havana for digital cultural research and advanced training in the digital humanities.
(*1988 in Belém, Northern Brazil) studied directing at the Federal University in Porto Alegre (Southern Brazil). In 2013 she completed her bachelor’s degree with the essay “Theater as Poetic Guerilla Struggle” and the site-specific street theater “Transpiro!”. In 2015, a DAAD scholarship took her to Berlin to join the directing department of the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch” Berlin.
In 2011 she founded the theater company ATO CIA.CÊNICA and won several awards for her productions of “Der Hässliche” by Marius von Mayenburg, the Brazilian premiere of Sasha Marianna Salzmann’s “Muttersprache. Mameloschn” as well as for “Pátria Estrangeira / Fremde Heimat” (a co-production between the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, the Goethe-Institut Porto Alegre and ATO CIA.CÊNICA funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation).
In 2021 Mirah Laline developed the theater project “Juntos/ Bî Hevra” at the Galerie im Körnerpark (Berlin) as an actress, dramaturge and director. The theater production is an atmospheric Kurdish-Brazilian wedding celebration that knits a web of migration and family stories. At the Humboldt Forum, she will stage the series “The Humboldt Experiment” – six encounters between science and art – starting in March 2022.
The Humboldt Experiment is a series of events organized by the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss in cooperation with the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
