Nomadic Mosque – The Art of the Palliative Turn – The Learning Body

Intermezzi are changing exhibitions in the exhibition “Versuchsstätte Bauhaus. The Collection” at the Bauhaus Museum Dessau.

Three Intermezzi at the Bauhaus Museum Dessau launch the thematic focus of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation on the human body in the Bauhaus and in Modernism – accompanied by attempts to understand it anew, to modify it, also to attain a topical and critical interpretation and further development of such ideas.

The Nomadic Mosque by the artist Azra Akšamija creates an article of clothing which when worn is transformed into a prayer rug. The project therefore explores the idea of the mosque as space, its formal limits and its relationship to the human body. It aims to redefine traditional forms and functions of mosques in the contemporary context – meanwhile respecting religious restrictions. The project addresses Mohammed’s concept of the “world as mosque” and interprets it as wearable architecture.

The members of the Association for the Palliative Turn (APT) engage thematically with death, leave-taking and our handling of this inevitable outcome. They do this with humour, generosity, delight and reflection. The name is borrowed from palliative medicine, which concentrates on relief instead of healing (curative medicine). In approach, the artists also propose to us an altered perspective of the body. Ultimately, the body is awarded the role of a medium in a limited – and not eternally extendable – life, which can help us to give meaning to the time remaining to us through sensuous and sensory perceptions and experiences.

The objects on show in the Intermezzo “The Learning Body” are creative approaches which investigate and consciously relocate the modification of bodies. This resulted in ten body extensions that play with the possibility of a mobile place of retreat, that act as extensions for the collective exploration of one’s surroundings and offer a way of recognising new options of perception and movement. At the same time, they question visual habits so as to absorb new perspectives and viewpoints; they manipulate hearing, or provide impetus to experience and to train seemingly familiar movements with one’s own body in a completely new way.