>> Sep 2015, Mittelweg
“Mittelweg”, a publication unfolding in space, compiled in the context of Module V of AFFECT 2015
26 September 2015, 4-7pm, in & around Agora, Mittelweg 50, Berlin
About 800 meter long and 5 meter wide, Mittelweg (The Middle Way) is a small curvy street spanning between Kopfstrasse and Karl-Marx-Platz in Berlin-Neukölln. Located in its midst, the fifth module of AFFECT 2015 Summer Program set out to map and temporarily occupy various instances and forms of the in-between——of buildings, bodies, identities, temporalities——within the diverse realities and interconnected scales of the local.
Over the last month we overheard conversations of passersby, pondered the opacity of lace curtains, and observed kids learning how to safely cross the street. We walked through the nearby cemetery, debated on issues like multiculturalism and gentrification, and tried to count the sticky filo layers of baklava. One of us wondered “how can you know it when you’re in the middle?” Many things were lost in translation, and some things were found.
The Mittelweg publication is a collection of some of these findings, observations and reflections, an approximation of a now and here——inevitably fragmentary, fluid, incomplete. The launch of the publication will take the form of a continuous folding, unfolding and distribution process within and around the space of Agora, with a map serving as an extended table of contents guiding the visitor through the streets and between the lines.
—
Mittelweg is a collective publishing experiment by Maria Ader, Jessica Arseneau, Lina Augustin, Nellie Chu, Diana Duarte, Shauna Janssen, Ariela Kader, Anne Marchal, Ayumi Miyano, Reese Riley, Mariangela Tinelli, Maria Tsilogianni, and Megan Wiessner, facilitated by Fotini Lazaridou-Hatzigoga