In October 2020, the 4-member collective soft power took over a 137 m² project space in the former Sarotti factory in Teilestraße 11-13, Berlin-Tempelhof. At the same time, around 40 artists moved into their new studios here – a new place of artistic production is thus emerging in Teilestraße, which we as a collective aimed to contribute to shaping. In this first phase, the soft opening, our curatorial approach therefore primarily addressed process, forms of communality, and situatedness. Our soft opening aimed at turning the inside out: A slow and ongoing opening ceremony that deals with the immediate environment and the future public of this place. In this process, we pursued the following goals:
- To create visibility for Teilestraße 11–13 as a new place of artistic production within the district and within Berlin.
- To create a processual identity for soft power as a new cooperative and transdisciplinary art and culture platform online and offline.
- To research and develop alternative economic models and resource utilization for the independent scene.
- To create a participatory knowledge space where ideas with model character can be tested.
- To enable participation in the space itself through local collaborations and to open the space to the perspectives of others.
- To make the event program accessible to diverse audiences.
- To establish, in the long term, an artistic as well as transdisciplinary, politically and socially relevant space.
Our initial on-site collaboration partners included ErtlundZull (development, design and implementation of a mobile kitchen that can be used for community events in Teilestraße, both indoors and outdoors); Laura Bake (political scientist and consultant who advocates for female* leadership in corporate culture and supported us through workshops in the founding phase); Equations Collective (collective from the fields of music, photography, sound and software design who explored our space sonically); and numerous artists from our neighbourhood with whom we exchanged ideas during studio visits.
One of the many outcomes of this ongoing process was the founding of the Kunstverein soft power e.V. on 23 April 2021.