Gardens and Extensions

This is a course in which we will visit different community gardens within Berlin, and learn about art, ecology and community art practices. Our starting point is the garden I established together with the students at the UdK in 2021, called the other garden. We will hold the classes outside in this garden and will have several site visits.

Since 2022, I have been running a project called “the other garden” in the backyard of MIE building at UdK, together with the students. This is a social space where students gather together as well as an artistic research space, where we talk about topics related to otherness, diversity, inclusivity and care.

This class is about how different communities in Berlin engage with different practices of gardening. We will do several site visits to different gardens in Berlin. We will also discuss community art practices gardening as a socially engaged art practice.

This class also involves embodies practices as a form of learning. We will start with daily meditation and yoga in the garden and will do several performative exercises with movement. No previous performance or movement experience is necessary but be ready to bring your yoga mat.

Isil Egrikavuk is an artist and academic, whose research specializes in performance, dialogue-based art and artistic research. She has an MFA from School of The Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD from Istanbul Bilgi University. She has been teaching for since 2008 in different universities in the USA, Turkey and Germany. Currently she works as a researcher and faculty at Berlin University of Arts (UdK).

www.isilegrikavuk.work