Take a Break and Change the World
Our worlds are much bigger and brighter than we can imagine all alone. Inspired by Berlin-based Studio Olafur Eliasson, we invite our Talents of this very special edition to jointly share reflections and perspectives of their worlds around the globe and how they make their environments a brighter place - step by step, dream by dream.
#WeUsedTo collects people’s reflections on their past and dreams for the future in relation to their Covid-19 present. How can thinking about ‘before’ and ‘after’ help us frame not only our past experience and current feelings, but also our imaginations for possible futures? #WeUsedTo is part of the research collaboration - Experimenting, Experiencing, Reflecting (EER), a collaboration between science and art led by artist Olafur Eliasson and scientist Andreas Roepstorff (Aarhus University), funded by the Carlsberg Foundation (2019-2023). EER is founded upon experimentation. The experiments examine perception, decision-making, action, notions of togetherness, collaboration, and the transmission of knowledge.
I see an artwork not as a passive object but rather as an experimental setup of sorts, which anticipates the arrival of the visitors, their expectations, dreams, thoughts, and senses. An artwork is really a meeting-up of trajectories. Only at this intersection does the artwork become what it is – with you, with its surroundings, with others.Olafur Eliasson
Though Berlinale Talents will this year take place in our own virtual dreamland, we are determined to keep a connection to the physical world. The foundation and inspiration for our daily Talents explorations are a series of exercise movement and perception experiments, See Walks, which stem from the Walks initiated and choreographed by the Institut für Raumexperimente, an experimental education and research project, led by its founding director Olafur Eliasson in affiliation with the Berlin University of the Arts from 2009 to 2014.
The See Walks invite you to use a mirror to orient yourself in reflected space, and walk a predetermined route using the mirror to navigate. There are also versions with multiple people involved, where you use their reflection to navigate.
It is an open invitation to see things from a new perspective, and we invite our Talents and audience to share their reflections with us. Each day will bring a new element, whether an environmental aspect in their local area, inspired by Olafur's Earth Perspectives, or the influence of colour on how we see things.
Together, we hope to create a collection of fresh outlooks and new visions, a different way of seeing the world.
