Forecast Festival _ Gestures of Maintenance—A workshop on networked thinking
An international mentorship program and interdisciplinary network for knowledge transfer, Forecast offers a new generation of artists and creative thinkers the chance to work with accomplished mentors toward bringing their project ideas to fruition. Forecast transcends neatly defined genres and eschews prescribed research themes to carve out space for the questions on the minds of future trailblazers. In winter 2022, creative practitioners from around the world answered an open call and submitted their proposals to work with one of six mentors shaping Forecast’s seventh edition: investigative journalist Alia Ibrahim, artist Ana Prvački, comedian Daliso Chaponda, choreographer Florentina Holzinger, artist and filmmaker Laura Huertas Millán, and vocalist Rully Shabara. Active in a variety of disciplines, the mentors in the 2022–23 edition all share a common engagement with practices characterized by immediate encounters, either with the work’s subject matter or its audience.
In a climate defined by impersonal, screen-based interactions, Forecast seeks to forge audacious paths forward for practices that thrive and rely on corporeal, unmediated situations. Reading a total of 600 applications from over 100 countries, the six mentors invited 18 nominees to participate in the Forecast Forum in July 2022 at Radialsystem, Berlin. Visitors experienced boundary-pushing contributions ranging from performance art and deconstructed magic to immersive explorations in moving images and vocal experimentations. At the event’s conclusion, the mentors each selected one mentee and accompanied the development of their respective projects until their premiere at the Forecast Festival. Over the course of eight months between the Forum and the Festival, one-on-one mentorships took place, in which each of the six mentees went on an individual work-stay with their respective mentor. This time was a condensed period of creative exchanges, finetuning, and concrete mentoring ahead of the Forecast Festival. These personal exchanges and work sessions, which prove crucial for the final productions, were captured in short videos produced with local camera people on the ground.
Forecast 7 culminated in a two-day event which marked the conclusion of the 2022-23 edition. From March 17–18, the mentees premiered their projects at Radialsystem and the mentors each presented unique work. Having reached the end of their mentorship period in March 2023, the mentees Mia Štark, Tom Cassani, Hamza Baig, Luciana Decker Orozco , Peny Chan, and Alexis Guillier unveiled their productions in the two-day Forecast Festival, and brought their projects to life in concerts, performances, installations, and conversations. The six mentors also offered insights into their own work, and the topics that inspire and move them.
The entire venue was buzzing with boundary-pushing contributions by the mentors and mentees including stand-up comedy, deconstructed magic, cinematic explorations, and vocal experimentations. In addition, LINA fellows Studio Inscape and Tevi Allan Mensah offered workshops relating to their respective practices as urbanists and architects, responding to the
Berlin location with site-aware activations.Forecast 7 marks the first edition since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that could take place entirely as the mentorship program was originally structured: centered on in-person gatherings and exchanges not only between mentor and mentee, but among all participants across the six fields of creative expression and the LINA Fellows. It is in this transdisciplinary approach that Forecast radiates far and wide, and new ideas blossom.
LINA Program within the Forecast 7 Festival
Workshops by LINA fellows Studio Inscape and Tevi Allan Mensah Studio Inscape, Gestures of Maintenance—A workshop on networked thinking: Trained as architects and urbanists, the members of Rotterdam-based Studio Inscape aim to translate eco-philosophical theory into practice within the built environment. Participants in this one-hour workshop engaged in thought-provoking group activities using movement and their body to consider spatial arrangements, power relations, and possible future scenarios. Tevi Allan Mensah, Borderline Investigations—A walk on the edge: Architect and visual artist Tevi Allan Mensah invited participants to reflect together on the new narratives of tomorrow through a fundamental act: a walk. This tour explored the former Berlin Wall territory and its surroundings near Radialsystem to contemplate on the margins as areas of potential for change. The two-part activation came in two stages: In a workshop preceding the walk, participants prepared archetypes such as traveling structures, flags, and banners to accompany the odd procession while discussing borders, past and present. Then, the participants embarked on a parade carrying these props and continued the discussion in situ.
What did the LINA Fellow learn through the collaboration?
The LINA Fellows were guided closely by the Artistic Director and the team to further develop their workshop ideas and were encouraged to go beyond their usual artistic practice. Studio Inscape travelled to the venue and researched the existing agents around the venue (Radialsystem) and integrated these in their workshop.
Tevi Allan Mensah developed a workshop on his subject of borders and decided to bring in the additional aspect of the parade along the former border to stimulate reaction from a broader
audience.
Collaboration with LINA Fellows Studio Inscape
Studio Inscape, Gestures of Maintenance—A workshop on networked thinking: Trained as architects and urbanists, the members of Rotterdam-based Studio Inscape aim to translate eco-philosophical theory into practice within the built environment. Participants in this one-hour workshop engaged in thought-provoking group activities using movement and their body to consider spatial arrangements, power relations, and possible future scenarios.
