Studio friendship (2019)

Videos in cooperation with Adwoa Adjei, Gunnar Friel and Memory Stations at Academy of the Arts of the World, Köln, DE

"The idea of placing friendship as the number one priority in social interaction seems at first to be anything but timely. In the age of non-stop networking, personal relationships are considered a resource, too — one that can be purposefully used and instrumentalised for one’s own success. ‘You do not have to give up without a fight’, says ANNE SCHÜLKE, a media artist from Dusseldorf and one of three initiators of the project Studio Friendship.
Through interviews, this Memory Station explores how the idea of friendship can be understood, which associations it brings to mind and which imaginary spaces it can open up. These interviews emerge out of experimental settings - — ‘a bit of video studio, a bit of public space’, according to media artist GUNNAR FRIEL: ‘What would happen if people, cameras and microphones came together in an artistically designed location?’
Friendship proves to be a political factor which, through language and narrative, can communicate a counter-concept to a culture of economic exploitation. This also includes combining the areas of art and social work, making something productive out of a seeming contradiction. The impetus for the idea was the founding of the association friendship e. V., an initiative of ADWOA ADJEI, who does social work with refugees in Düsseldorf.
The artists later assemble the videos that are recorded into short clips, which affirm that for a short time this was a safe place in which friendship was everything."

In cooperation with Filmwerkstatt Düsseldorf, Düssel-Buntu e.V. and Forschungsprojekt ARTEC/Paradise Park of the Hochschule Düsseldorf

Text: Academy of the Arts of the World