On September 7, 2012 – Sociology Doctoral Candidate Anne Winkler opened her museum/archive to an eager public audience.
Over the course of a few months the Intermedia Research Studio’s North room took on a profound change and morphed into a gallery space. With the help of fellow graduate students Andriko Lozowy and Jim Morrow, and with financial support from Director Paul Datta and the Department of Sociology – Anne Winkler brought her vision for East Germany on display: Dictatorship, Nostalgia and The Everyday, to life.
The general concept behind the Intermdia Research Studio in this capacity is for students to have an opportunity to expand their working frames of academic research into visual and expressive forms of knowledge creation. The Intermedia Research Studio has a long standing tradition of collaboration – operators, and community members are encouraged to work together to combine uses of analogue and digital technologies to re-present expressive forms of social research.
East Germany on Display is exemplary of a collaborative spirit born of individual intention. Anne Winkler had a spark of an idea, bring the museum in a suitcase to life in Intermedia Research Studio. From the initial concept our team worked together to create a space of East German nostalgia to life. All of the relics that appear on display offer a brilliant glimpse into the mundane and everydaylife aspects of that which ‘may have had meaning at one time, but now one may forget why.’ The suitcase itself is fastened to the wall complete with audio narratives for art goers to pause and listen to. The suitcase contents are exploded, categorized, coded, revealed and ready to be manipulated by sensorially voracious fingers eager to take in the lived memories of material artefacts.
The Intermedia Research Studio encourages students and faculty from the department of Sociology as well as the faculty of arts to submit proposals for personal and collaborative projects. The IRS offers an opportunity to occupy space, try out the material limits of artist studios, and finally, expose through creative exhibition. Please send proposals to Dr. Ronjon Paul Datta.
