Berlin, October, 9– 30, 2001

House of World Cultures
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
D-10557 Berlin, Germany
http://www.hkw.de/

Between October 9 - 30, Documenta11 and the House of World Culturs, Berlin in association with the DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service, will inaugurate an international symposium: Democracy Unrealized in Berlin that will bring to conclusion the series which opened in Vienna March 15. Democracy Unrealized is the first in a five-part series of public debates, symposia, film presentations, lectures, and art exhibition organized within the framework of Documenta11 in Kassel, Germany.


About the Platforms

The present symposium continues Documenta11’s yearlong series of public debates and informal presentations in six key cities around the world. The intention of these platfroms is to bring the important artistic field to which Documenta11 belongs in dialogue with other fields and cities. The 1st part of Democracy Unrealized in Vienne (March 15 – April 23, 2001) presented lectures of about 20 international speakers. The second platform Experiments with Truth: Transitional Justice and the Processes of Truth and Reconciliation (New Delhi, May 7 – 20) was twofold: for the conference about 30 participants: historians, legal scholars, film makers, visual artists, psychoanalysts, curators, anthropologists, art historians and theater makers presented papers. The conference was accompanied by a video and film program of 35 films by 26 directors. All the proceedings of the two platforms are fully documented and are available as videos on our website.

The locus of Documenta11 is one of debate and contestation in which a constellation of theoretical ideas cross with praxis. Planned as intellectually rigorous and methodologically adventurous, the culmination of the platforms as an exhibition unfolds the complex vicissitudes that shape the Documenta11 exhibition when it opens on June 8, 2002.

The platforms can be understood then as constellations that open up a critical review of processes of a range of knowledge production. Equally, these platforms perform a second operation in that they allow Documenta11 the opportunity to render transparent the dimension of its intellectual interest and curatorial research. Hence the entire conceptual orientation of the exhibition is decidedly interdisciplinary, connecting a wide range of scholars, philosophers, artists, and filmmakers, institutions, cities, and audiences.
The locus of Documenta11 is one of debate and contestation, intellectually rigorous; methodologically adventurous more than any exhibition of contemporary art.