LABA. A laboratory for Jewish culture

Fellowship exhibition 2022

PROGRAMME

01.10. 19:00 // LABA Berlin “Broken” exhibition opening
02.10. 19:30 // Jews! Jews! Jews! Drag Show (tickets required).
03.10. 17:00 // “Broken Heart, Broken Country” Perel and Jalda Rebling in conversation
06.10. 19:00 // “Wonder” performance with Alex Stolze, Tamar Grosz and Daniel Gerzenberg

07.10. 20:00 // “The Zweig Project” performance with Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus, Susannah Hurrell and Daniel Gerzenberg
09.10. 19:00 // “The Zweig Project” performance with Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus, Susannah Hurrell and Daniel Gerzenberg
13.10.19:00 // “Talmudic Abstractions of Gender: Anti-trans and Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory Past and Present” Roy Victoria Heifetz in conversation with Naomi Alizah Cohen
15.10. 19:00 // “Meine Forschung zum O” book launch with Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus
18.10. 19:30 // “The Little Book” performance reading by Rachel Libeskind, Julia Bosson and Gur Liraz
19.10. 19:00 // “Can Women Reclaim Jewish Tradition?” Ella Ponizovsky Bergelson, Yael Attia and Rebecca Blady in conversation

20.10. 19:00 // Film-Screening of RUSOLO VENTURES with Wal Solon followed by a Q&A
21.10. 20:00 // “Crip Prophetics” performance lecture by Perel
22.10. 19:30 // Finissage party featuring Jungle Hebrew Hymns - a live music performance by Gal Ovadia Naor and a live set by Alex Stolze and Ben Osborn

Fellows 2022:
 Ella Ponizovsky Bergelson – visual artist
 Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus – author, poet, translator
 Romy Victoria Heifetz – visual artist
 Ryan Kopstick – new media artist
 Gal Ovadia Naor – performer, choreographer, theatre maker
 Perel – visual artist
 Wal Solon – interdisciplinary artist
 Alexander Stolze – composer, violinist, producer

Team:
 Dekel Peretz – Program Director
 Bryan Fellbusch – Operations Director
 Olaf Kühnemann – Director of Arts 
Rachel Libeskind – Creative Director

LABA Berlin is happy to be launching its second program year in 2022. Hosted by the Jewish Center Fraenkelufer Synagogue, currently engaged in constructing a new Jewish cultural and art center in Berlin, the initiative brings together a group of creative personalities – a mix of visual artists, writers, dancers, musicians and actors – to study and discuss classical Jewish texts in the heart of Kreuzberg. As a group, they will explore what the future of Jewish art in Germany could look like. LABA aims to promote diversity and contribute to making Jewish art and culture present again in everyday German cultural life.

LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture is a program that was first launched in 2007 at the ‘14th Street Y’ in New York’s East Village. The fellowship uses classic Jewish texts to inspire the creation of art, dialogue and study. Participating artists use the forum to create work which is featured in a final exhibition and performance series, and is also featured digitally. Every year LABA focuses its study around a theme. Previous themes include Paradise, Eros, Blueprint, Eat, Mother, Time, Beauty, Other, and Chosen.

The theme for 2022 is Broken:
“We are broken vessels, and we live, according to Jewish mysticism, in a broken vessel. The chaos is never-ending, as is our longing to put the pieces back together. Don’t be scared. Our brokenness, as individuals, as a people, and as a society, is what pushes us to think, feel and change. All the things that make life interesting, that make it worth living, despite the suffering and struggle, come from brokenness. Except, of course, for those times when the brokenness is just too much and the only possible outcome is tragedy.”
In 2022, LABA will dive into the pain and pleasures of brokenness through our study of ancient Jewish texts, as we contemplate the ways in which brokenness is foundational to the Jewish tradition, and the ways in which brokenness plays out in our individual psychology and the world around us.
LABA hopes to present Judaism’s rich literary and intellectual tradition in a free and creative setting, so that these stories and ideas spark new thought and art. The results of this process will be presented online to a wide audience, having the potential to push the boundaries of what Jewish art can be and what Jewish texts can teach.

LABA now has hubs in Buenos Aires, LABA BA, the Bay Area, LABA EB, Berlin, LABA BE, and Tel Aviv, LABA TLV.