Exhibition

Times of Waste – The Leftover

Museum of Decorative Arts Berlin, January 25 – June 2, 2020
Museum of Decorative Arts Berlin, Matthäikirchplatz, 10785 Berlin

Opening Event
Friday, Januar 24 2020, 7 pm
Welcome: Sabine Thümmler, Director Museum of Decorative Arts
Introduction: Flavia Caviezel, Project Manager Times of Waste; Claudia Banz, Curator Design Museum of Decorative Arts
Opening Lecture: Clémentine Deliss, Curator/Publicist/Guest Lecturer HFBK Hamburg, Questions on Transformation Processes in the Research of Collection Artefacts.
Dialogical tour of the guest curators Flavia Caviezel and Mirjam Bürgin with Clémentine Deliss.

Program
Repair Atelier: Regular workshops and talks on the reparability of mobile phones by students of the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, organized by Astrid Schwarz (BTU C-S) and Baruch Gottlieb (UdK Berlin).
https://www.b-tu.de/fg-technikwissenschaft/lehre/studentische-forschung#c229093

Guided tours: 26.1. / 9.2. / 23.2. / 8.3. / 22.3.2020 on 11:30 am

Symposium Times of Waste  March 18-19, 2020. The symposium focuses on topics relating to the exhibition and has been realized in collaboration with the Cluster Matters of Activity at Humboldt-Universität Berlin and with the museum.
Postponed due to the pandemic of coronavirus disease on 17./18.6.2021!
ToW Symposium_Programm

smb.museum/kgm
Invitation card
Booklet

Gewerbemuseum Winterthur, September 21 2018 to March 17 2019
Gewerbemuseum Winterthur, Kirchplatz 14, 8400 Winterthur

Opening and panel discussion
Thursday, September 20 2018, 6:30 pm
Welcome: Susanna Kumschick, Co-director Gewerbemuseum Winterthur
Introduction: Flavia Caviezel, ethnologist/vidéaste, project manager, HGK FHNW
Panel Metals never die: Flavia Caviezel; Gideon Chonia, IT engineer at Zurich University, electronic projects in West Africa; Astrid Schwarz, Professor Technoscience Studies, BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg
Moderation: Christoph Keller, SRF2Kultur
Listen to the panel discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVCXeApIJAM

Guided tours: 3.11.2018 and 10.3.2019; joint tour with the exhibition Hello, Robot (4.11.2018) and Food Revolution 5.0 (9.12.2018),  11 am.

Museum der Kulturen, April 23 to September 24 2017
As guest in the exhibition StrawGold – Cultural Transformations Rendered Visible.
Museum der Kulturen, Münsterplatz 20, Basel

Opening
Sunday, April 23 2017,  2-4 pm
With thematic catering by the Internationale Gastronautische Gesellschaft / Bäckerei Kult Basel

Where there is life, there is waste. What goes in, comes out – an eternal transformation. Waste is material that is perceived differently depending on the context. Whether it is a promising resource or the unavoidable leftover: what becomes waste cannot be disposed of without trace. Here, the life of a smartphone is focused on as a typical product of our times. Smooth, beautiful and high-tech, it leaves many kinds of waste: slag, altered landscapes and people who work under deplorable conditions.

The exhibition gives an insight into the transdisciplinary research project Times of Waste. It examines the transformation processes of the smartphone and its components from an aesthetic-theoretical perspective: an object biography maps various transport routes and recycling movements. It tells of economic transformations and novel relationships. Their research led the team to landfills, shredders, repair shops, testing facilities, research laboratories and to various waste materials and people who were willing to share their knowledge.

The exhibition is an assemblage of different fragments playing together associatively: a video projection with atmospheric landscapes and perspectives close to the material; shady maps giving an overview; a sound essay of a smartphone’s object biography, and a metal relict. Its inner life archives the geological and material afterlife, which is produced during a smartphone’s disposal processes: different granulates, slags or metals. They bear witness to the fact that while people are looking for raw materials they eradicate not only the earth’s crust, but also fill it with new waste materials. Different texts are grouped around the exhibited waste, maps, pictures, graphics and sounds raising the question: Where is the leftover going to? And what can be done?

Guided Tours (in German)
Sunday, July 2 2017, 11-12 am with Marion Mertens
Sunday, August 13 2017, 11-12 am with Yvonne Volkart
Sunday, September 17 2017, 3-4 pm with Flavia Caviezel
Link

Finissage: Sunday, September 24 2017, 3-5 pm

The audio walk wastescapes has also emerged in the context of the research project. It pursues various movements of people, animals, plants, materials and goods in Basel’s border area. On May 5/6/12/13 and June 10 2017 the walk will be conducted as a supplement to the exhibition. Information and registration until April 27 2017 on
https://times-of-waste.ch/en/audiowalk-en/

Flyer
Exhibition Booklet

Imprint
Conception & Realisation: Research team Times of Waste,  in collaboration with the Museum der Kulturen Basel/ Stephanie Lovász
Graphic Design: Sonia Malpeso
Animation: Andrea Zaccuri
Translation/Proofreading: Peter Burleigh
Metal Construction: Froelich & Corbella GmbH

Thanks to our project partners Museum der Kulturen Basel, Amt für Umwelt und Energie Basel-Stadt, Empa St. Gallen as well as the staff of the incineration plant Basel, the repositories Elbisgraben and DHZ AG Lufingen, the Immark AG, Geomicrobiology University Tübingen, Helvetrade, the Institutes Hyperwerk & Fashion Design HGK FHNW, Heinz Leuenberger (Chief Technical Advisor, UNIDO), RS Switzerland, Schweizerischen Metallhandels AG, Umicore, verkaufen.ch, Waser AG for their support and the loans.