Festival Day 1

The two-day festival “Horizontal - Practices and Politics of Lying Down” that takes place on the 12 and 13 September, is dedicated to the multiple dimensions of lying down. Through performances, workshops, talks, and conversations, international artists, activists, and scholars open up perspectives on horizontality in its cultural, historical, and bodily dimensions.

What forms of perception, action, and coexistence can emerge when bodies withdraw from the imperatives of productivity and performance—often symbolised by the upright posture—and critically interrogate them?

In connection with the exhibition “Horizontal – Politics and Poetics oft he Sickbed”, the festival expands the exhibition space through performative, participatory, and discursive formats. It opens a shared space in which horizontality can be experienced as a collective practice.

Featuring contributions by Black Power Naps Raquel Meseguer Zafe, Ania Nowak, Harold Offeh, Anajara Amarante, Pia Achternkamp, and others.

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Programme

11:00 a.m. | Museum Garden and Lecture Hall Ruin
Arrival & Attunement

11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. | Museum Foyer
“Horizontal – Politics and Poetics from the Sickbed”
Exhibition tour in English with Assistant Curator Nora Heidorn
Maximum 25 participants
Registration in the museum foyer

11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. | Lecture Hall Ruin
Raquel Meseguer Zafe – If We Could Rest Awhile
Workshop in English, maximum 30 participants, registration at: museum@charite.de

This workshop is part of a two-day format. Participants are invited to also join the second-day public action on 13 September (15:00–17:00), which extends the exploration into a shared outdoor setting at MuseumsMeileMitte. Participation in both days is welcome but not required. 
 

12:30–2:00 p.m. | Break
The quiet room in the museum’s entrance foyer is open during the break.

2:00–2:30 p.m. | Lecture Hall Ruin
Monika Ankele and Nicole Schuchardt – Wellcome & Introduction (English, German)

2:30–3:30 p.m. | Lecture Hall Ruin
Harold Offeh – The Lounging Lecture
Performance (English)

3:30–4:15 p.m. | Break
The quiet room in the museum’s entrance foyer is open during the break.

4:15–5:00 p.m. | Lecture Hall Ruin
Ania Nowak – Obelix Nutrix
Performance (English)

5:00–5:30 p.m. | Break
The quiet room in the museum’s entrance foyer is open during the break.

5:30–7:00 p.m. | Lecture Hall Ruin

Thinking While Lying Down. Sleep, Fatigue, and Exhaustion as Medical, Political and Aesthetic Questions
Conversation in German with Alexandra Correll (physician specialized on sleeping medicine), Fabian Goppelsröder (philosopher), and Surjo Soekadar (neuroscientist), moderated by author and artist Mirthe Berentsen.

Sleeping, being exhausted, being unable to get up — these states are often perceived in our society as individual failure or as medical problems. This panel brings together a sleep physician, a philosopher, and a neuroscientist to examine fatigue and exhaustion as medical, political, and aesthetic phenomena. What happens in the body when we lie down or sleep? What forms of experience and perception are opened up by the reclining body and the state of fatigue? And what does it mean when, in a capitalist society, even sleep — like exhaustion and illness — is no longer understood as a necessary condition of being human, but rather as an unavailability to be optimized or overcome?

7:00–7:30 p.m. | Break
The quiet room in the museum’s entrance foyer is open during the break.

7:30–8:30 p.m. | Lecture Hall Ruin
Pia Achternkamp – Lounge Concert for Horizontal Listening
Concert

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Contributors

Monika Ankele & Nicole Schuchardt, Curator
Isabel Coleman, Production manager
Catalina Fernandez, Technical director

Wanda Dubrau & Thomas Diafas, Access manager

Nwakoso Edozien, An Klepel, Yulei Yang, Pegah Zamaninematsara (Stage Design Class at the Universität der Künste Berlin,
Lead: Janina Audick and Meika Dresenkamp), Scenography of the lecture hall ruin

The festival is part of Berlin Art Week ("Featured") and funded through a Science × Media Tandem programme of Stiftung Charité and supported by the British Council.