Alice: I mean, what is an un-birthday present?
Mad Hatter: A present given when it isn’t your birthday, of course.

A Very Merry Unarchitecture to You is an expansive party of emptiness and a miniature monument to a vacant land. Topically interweaving a nearby eclectic model-condo, the construction site for an office building, and Model Park Berlin-Brandenburg*, Jelka Plate opens her own model-making studio, the Merry Unarchitecture Workshop, in a modular container.

Over the course of the month, Plate will construct an on-site, scale-replica of Skulpturenpark Berlin Zentrum’s vacant land. The miniature landscape will leap in time and in scale, perpetuated by memories, reality, fictions, and conversations with the local residents who have been in attendance since Skulpturenpark’s inception in 2006.

The Merry Unarchitecture Workshop also sets up a mirror-exchange with Model Park Berlin-Brandenburg whose workers construct miniature versions of Berlin’s most distinguished architectures. This unique program provides work for unemployed residents and is sponsored by the job center in Berlin’s Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district.  Plate will host the workshop’s staff in her studio container where they will provide professional talks and exchanges about their practice and occupation.

*http://www.modellparkberlin.de
Eichgestell 4, 12459 Berlin

Dates:
August, 23, 2009
3 PM: Inauguration of the temporary Merry Unarchitecture workshop
4 PM: Notes from Wunderland: Anecdotes on effects of model-building. Includes a walk around the park.

25.8.-17.9.:
Tuesday to Thursday, 3 - 7 PM

September, 20, 2009
8 PM: Presentation of the Skulpturenpark model and interviews with the staff of Modellpark Berlin-Brandenburg

Wunderland Curatorial Committee
Matteo Pasquinelli (Amsterdam/London)
Tim Voss/Britta Peters (Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg)
Pelin Tan (Istanbul)
and KUNSTrePUBLIK e.V.