The location of the Gropius Bau, its architecture and surroundings are an important point of reference for the programme. Opening up the institution for its various neighbours is at the heart of this endeavour. How can we think of an exhibition hall as a place of community? And which practices does this bring with it? The Neighbour in Residence programme is part of the ongoing exchange with intercultural, intergenerational and queer neighbourhood initiatives that was started in 2020. An important collaborator during this time was the interdisciplinary writer hn. lyonga. As first Neighbour in Residence at the Gropius Bau in the second half of 2023, he will engage with the question of how neighbourly relations can exist in institutional spaces in the realm of his programme becoming neighbours.

becoming neighbours

becoming neighbours holds a series of four workshops (neighbouring, resting, planting, wor(l)ding). The first one is an active approach to reclaiming and opening up a space to the unrepresented or absent and to explore the permeability of institutional spaces. The second one addresses the possibilities of convening and resting together as an act of resistance. The third one draws upon the practice of agriculture and planting as a way of thinking about neighbourhoods as spaces we pour into. The last workshop of the series dives into the ceremonious tradition of writing as a ritual, prescribed or customary, and crucial for holding narratives that exist within a neighbourhood.

The programme will take place in the freely accessible areas (Gropius Hain, atrium, Resonance Room) of the Gropius Bau.