Finissage
Sunday,  23 February 2025 at 3 pm

ACTIVE TERRAIN N°1
Asef–Burckhardt
SHELTER–BONE
Love in Tough Times

To mark the joint conclusion of the first exhibition of the year, we cordially invite you to the finissage at the Künstlerhaus Göttingen on Sunday, 23 February 2025 at 3 pm. Right at the beginning, the creators of the exhibition, the art duo Asef-Burckhardt, together with the curator Stephan Klee, will host a final tour through the greatly altered rooms. This offers the opportunity to gain direct insights into the work and thoughts of the duo and to enter into further discussions with them and the curator. The exhibition edition can also be viewed again and purchased if you like it – an important support for the work of the Kunstverein.

Sun 23 Feb 2025, 3 – 5 pm
Finissage–Reception with
– 3 pm: Joint tour with artists and curator
– 4 pm: Closure

event image: Asef–Burckhardt SHELTER–BONE, 2023 – 2025, photo creditss: Asef–Burckhardt, VG Bildkunst

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The wooden residential and communal buildings of Sea Ranch in the north of San Francisco were developed and built in the 1960s by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and his wife, choreographer Anna Halprin, together with other ecologic avant-garde thinkers; the buildings are integrated into the rugged cliffs of the Pacific in an exemplary manner. Since then, the settlement has continued to grow and still sets international standards for the interplay between architecture and nature – in other words, “protection” and “environment”.

The works on display in SHELTER-BONE, the current project by the art duo and couple Asef-Burckhardt, are based on extensive periods of research and work in the visionary settlement in Northern California and question, among other things, the current relevance of the original utopia of The Sea Ranch. Against the acute backdrop of the global environmental crisis, new anthropological questions such as “What must architecture connect today?” and “What must love achieve today?” are raised and artistically explored in close relation to this real topography. Consisting of combined, multimedia works, the project is currently being expanded and further developed to be shown in changing settings at international exhibition venues. The Kunstverein is very pleased to be able to show this complex of works in Göttingen under the leitmotif: “What does protection mean in our time?
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The annual programme 2025 of the Kunstverein Göttingen TERRA DIASPORA – ACTIVE TERRAINS is developed by curator Stephan Klee together with the participating artists. The duo Asef-Burckhardt will kick off the fresh year with an all–encompassing, sensory–appealing exhibition consisting of several installations, which takes the viewer directly into the beach forests of California, characterised by the forces of nature.
Kirstin Burckhardt (* Durban, South Africa) is an artist and psychotherapist who uses visual and performative means to explore the interactions and emotional bonds between people. Her work focuses on aspects of the body, gesture, touch, communication, and friendship. Mario Asef (* Córdoba, Argentina) is an artist and architect who focuses on the complex interactions in the ecological networks of diverse species in wild and urban nature supported by his distinctive expertise in visual–acoustic recording techniques. Together as the duo Asef-Burkhardt, they not only unfold The Sea Ranch as a multifaceted place of longing for a common artistic quest but also elevate this specific terrain to their guiding coordinates of a new form of dual action between affection and real urgency. With this lively fusion of artistic field research and a productive network of relationships, the Kunstverein Göttingen is taking the first step into the new exhibition year.

We would like to thank our sponsors: Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur, Stadt Göttingen, Landschaftsverband Südniedersachsen e.V. und Sparkasse Göttingen