IMPETUOUS IN-BETWEENS

Impetuous In-Betweens is to be understood literally: a title that designates both the ongoing work on the cinematic project Rengashis’ Room, which began in connection with the EXC2020 exhibition Translation Games, as well as the preparation for the 24/7 project. Impetuous In-Betweens thus itself practices an ‘in-between’ through the transition and confluence of two projects in process, and at the same time names what unites the two. From the constraints of persevering in isolation, Rengashis’ Room cinematically unfolds a poetics of the permanent in-between of individual threshold situations. Time is stretched, slowed down, strained—the longing for escape remains latently palpable and puts the focus on the inevitability of the current (pandemic) situation: constant transition as a new format of time and reality. In Rengashis’ Room—the room in which the ‘Rengashis’ actively compose RENGA, a Japanese linked-verse poem—waiting is transformed into a quest for new, as yet unknown impulses. In isolation, the impossibility of direct translation is replaced by the suspension of the need to understand each other; the ignominy of this deficit becomes the bearer and potential of the poetic.

In 24/7, the ‘in-between’ will again provide spatial and temporal structure, where the focus is on actions and narratives of and in areas of transit. Through spontaneity and coincidence, the present is shaped in these largely ungoverned in-between areas as new, contingent settings are introduced. Using audiovisual means, 24/7 takes a look at the particular form of narration generated by these fluid situations in the everyday, in which both a stabilising and destabilising power are inherent.

Visual artist Lea Hopp (b. 1992) draws inspiration from Berlin and Marseille. Hopp studied at the Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee and the Haute École des Arts du Rhin in Strasbourg. In her works, characterised by photographic and performative elements, she deals with the provisional, the casually commonplace, and structures of play. The architecture of play is also a preferred instrument of the queerfeminist label FAM_, co-founded by Hopp, with whom she most recently curated a series of events at the Volksbühne Berlin. Apart from lamb kebab and freshly baked goods, Lea Hopp is passionate about storytelling, human bodies as moving archives, and the process of identity. She finds (in-between) spaces alluring, where moments of documentary and fiction come together beyond cliché.