fachbetrieb rita grechen

Multifunctional object | June - November 2023 | Spielart Festival, PATHOS, HochX, DJ Bike | Munich

By: G.Urban, di. Studio and fachbetrieb rita grechen with: Yeva Abgaryan, Syuzi Ginosyan, Gevorg Grigoryan, Taron Grigoryan, Kay Khachatryan, Ani Khachikyan, Hannes Köpke, Artak Kolyan, Artush Koshtoyan, Maria Matinyan, Sona Nersesyan, Olivia Rosendorfer, Vera Vishnevaya

DJ Bike Session from 13th of July 2023 on Youtube

A Bisetka (բիսետկա) is a pavilion. Homemade bisetkas made of metal rods and corrugated iron that protect chess players from the sun can often be seen in the Armenian cityscape. They can create a cozy situation in almost any environment: in parks, backyards or squares, their roof provides security. At the same time, they are open meeting places because they have no walls. Bisetka translates as “talk place”. Starting from these pavilions, we developed a cultural concept in several stages that does not differentiate between spectators and artists, but rather creates experiences, discourses and communities through shared contemplation.

In the summer of 2023 we built Bisetkas together with the Armenian based collectives G.Urban and di. Studio as part of the residency at HochX according to our ideas and set it up in various locations in Munich. Equipped with projectors, speakers, microphones, games, sunflower seeds and tea. With DJ Bike we organized an interactive concert on St. Paul's Square, and for the HochX summer festival we invited people to drink Armenian lemonade and talk with us. In the evening, the Bisetkas were transformed into luminous installations.

For the Spielart Festival we moved to the PATHOS Theater with our Bisetkas in November. After sharing tea with sujukh (walnuts covered in mulberry syrup), the audience was invited to walk through our installation and interact with it: design the projected video with a controller, place texts in the projections, occupy the Bisetka and have their own conversations in it, play games or chat with us. The room was repeatedly used for performative interventions: among other things, bread was baked from stones (as the Armenians did during the “hunger marches” in 1915), news from those affected by the war in Artsakh (Bergkarabach) filled the room and three huge screens showed a journey through Armenia . At night, DJs took over the room and invited people to dance.

 

BISETKA: TALK_PLACE is produced by the collectives G.Urban, di. Studio and fachbetrieb rita grechen and was coproduced by HochX, DJ Bike, PATHOS, Spielart Festival and PACT Zollverein.