Luca Mercedes Braig
Art as dialog. Collective knowledge. New distributions of power.
For me, artistic work is always a dialogical process. Even in very personal or performative works, it is precisely the exchange - with the space, the audience, the material and other artists - that creates friction and opens up new perspectives.
Whether as a duo, in a collective or in the form of larger collaborations - I specifically look for constellations in which art, film, activism, theater, research and more come together.
Collaboration is not a sideshow for me, but an essential, recurring component of my practice and artistic philosophy. It is a counterbalance to the often highly egocentric dynamics of artistic production and firmly counters the problematic single-artist-genius narrative.
I am interested in what emerges when ideas are not only pursued individually but negotiated collectively. Collaborative processes generate a different kind of knowledge, challenge notions of artistic ownership, and create spaces for exchange beyond competition. Especially in performative and interdisciplinary contexts, I use collaboration as a means to shift boundaries - between disciplines, roles, and bodies - and to explore new ways of working together.
At the same time, I am aware that collaborative work requires time, energy, and mutual commitment. It is a practice I engage with thoughtfully rather than indiscriminately. More than a fixed approach, it is a principle that weaves itself into my artistic work whenever the right constellations and questions arise.
A film by Arte TRACKS about the intervention/performance “Amnesia Cruise” by The Yes Men, Threads & Tits and Say No to LNG, in which I participated together with my class of Heba Y. Amin. In December 2024, the global LNG summit took place in Berlin - we were on site. Have a look yourself ...
As part of their exhibition “Impossible is Nothing” with The Yes Men at the ACC Weimar and the upcoming state elections in Thuringia on September 1, 2024, Threads & Tits issued a call for participation. They applied and continue to apply artistic strategies for de-radicalization in the digital space and invited participants to take part. The submissions should be a further development of media that promotes democracy and counters right-wing networks #hopecore
Students of the class of Prof. Heba Y. Amin at Berlin Fashion Week with the artist collective The Yes Men.
The latest guerrilla intervention by activist artist group The Yes Men generated international coverage from Berlin Fashion Week. Together with Berlin-based design team Threads and Tits and labor rights organization the Clean Clothes Campaign, they launched Adidas‘ (fake) new fashion line „Adidas Realitywear“. The aim of the hoax campaign is to draw attention to the brand’s poor working conditions, particularly in Cambodia.
By anouncing the hiring of a former Adidas factory worker and Union leader as a new „co-CEO“, Adidas promises a new era of responsibility with the slogan „Own The Reality.“
This supposed turning point was taken as an occasion to present a new collection. The audience was presented with a bizarre reality through the striking collection and the whimsical display of crawling and wounded models. Mixed reactions were generated, leaving onlookers partly hopeful, partly perplexed and uncertain as to whether or not Adidas‘ proposed direction was in fact real.
A large number of articles were published on the occasion of this event. Monopol, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, to name but a few, have reported on the event.
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Class of Heba Y. Amin
If you want to find out more about the project, visit the website of The Yes Men, the Instagram of Threads & Tits or the website of the Clean Clothes Campaign.
UTOPIA AS PRACTICE aims to reconfigure our creative practices for more innovative future imaginaries. Drawing from futurist thinkers and practitioners with diverse approaches in (but not limited to) the arts, theory, speculative fiction, critical design and science fiction, we ask how our own practices can help us imagine a more just future. Our intervention at the Venice Biennale of Architecture will address the asymmetrical knowledge systems built by ideological frameworks such as imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism. With a critical reflection of the past, we will use various methodologies particularly inspired by literary thinkers such as Octavia Butler, Donna Haraway, and Ursula Le Guin as well as artistic approaches in Afro-, Gulf- and Indigenous speculative futures.
This workshop was held by Prof. Dr. Füsun Türetken and Prof. Heba Y. Amin in the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2023. Read more at the website of Arch+.
In collaboration with the 15th Triennial of Small Sculpture Fellbach entitled “The Vibration of Things”, curated by Elke aus dem Moore, students of the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart from the class for Digital and Time-based Art (under Prof. Heba Y. Amin) invited members of the academy and the public to a one-day symposium with the participating artists on Friday, June 3, 2022 from 10.30 a.m. onwards.
Part of the 15th edition of the Triennial of Small Sculpture Fellbach will take place in a digital exhibition space for the first time. Quantum State therefore aims to focus on digital materiality and the way in which the boundaries between virtual and real, material and immaterial have dissolved. If digital representation already emerges as a symptom of a problematic logic of representation conceived and embedded in colonial discourse, we must ask ourselves what it means to engage with the digital as creative practitioners. Digital tools have not only had a material impact on art objects and a reconfiguration of sculptural plasticity, but have also fundamentally changed our knowledge structures. Participating artists explore a range of themes including speculative forms of world-making, AI-driven restorative and healing practices, algorithmic predictive technologies, migration, techno-heritage and digital repatriation.
The artists Rheim Alkadhi, Lamin Fofana, Mohsen Hazrati, Nkhensani Mkhari, Jan Nikolai Nelles, Mitra Wakil & Fabian Hesse presented their positions in short talks, with opening remarks by the curator of the 15th Triennale Kleinplastik Fellbach, Elke aus dem Moore.
Moderation: Heba Y. Amin, Constanze Bahlo, Luca Mercedes Braig, Lejla Dendic.
Luca Mercedes Braig
Mail: studio@lucamercedesbraig.de
Instagram: luca.mercedes.braig
