Checkpoint DreamYourTopia
This weekend you can finally dive into your own dreams. All you have to do is come to Checkpoint DreamYourTopia at Stattbad Wedding. It is a big art performance by Dutch artist Dadara. He is currently building the border checkpoint that you can see above into the pool of the Stattbad. Find out what happens on the other side after the click.
If you fill out this form and bring it to the checkpoint you might get permission to enter the Land of Dreams. But entry is not easy and you will have to make a little effort. You can also fill out the form on location, but taking your time at home and being creative will save you a lot of time and hassle.
In the night from Saturday to Sunday the border checkpoint will get covered in tags, graffitis and street art and in the end of the second day the whole border point will get destroyed. It’s the fall of the wall all over again. We will see what will be revealed behind those gates then…
Checkpoint DreamYourTopia
7.-8.11.2009, open from 12h (midday) to 2h (at night)
Stattbad Wedding
Gerichtstr. 65
13347 Berlin
by Frank
on November 3rd, 2009
in Art, Events
November 3rd, 2009 at 22:48h
Ich bin dabei, warte aber noch auf meine Papiere. Die sollen wohl noch in dieser Woche in meinem Briefkasten landen. Bin gespannt, dem letzten Artikel nach zu urteilen, haben die Leute sich ja richtig Mühe gegeben.
November 4th, 2009 at 14:56h
Oh ja, da wurde sehr viel Liebe ins Detail gesteckt, der Pass, das Geld, die ganzen kleinen Illustrationen. Auch vor Ort wird euch einiges erwarten… Viel Spaß beim Träumen!
November 5th, 2009 at 11:26h
Big Dreamer is watching you.
November 8th, 2009 at 22:50h
The DreamYourTopia concept was absolutely shit! After spending more than an hour being bossied and pushed around by a bunch of loosers wearing hideous pink outfit I realized how the whole project was not devised and created for the people but for the those who organized it, took part in it as guards and cashed on the large amount of money they probably earned from tickiets sales and from whoever funded the whole pile of bullshit.
Dreams are for free you arty farty assholes. Your concept missed the point, the people working on the project were not friendly, interesting, funny, entertaining, inspiring and stimulating. You were not properly organized and you luck creativity. You might sell this shit to people in the US but here in Europe we dont’ buy this farse! Dreams are for free and we don’t need a fancy passport to believe you are the good mediator of such a world.
November 9th, 2009 at 12:11h
I agree with Still dreaming. I left this stressful situation after one hour of waiting in several lines explaining my dreams to these “guards”. It was more a nightmare than DreamYourTopia. They stole two precious hours of my life!
November 9th, 2009 at 23:51h
I don’t agree with the 2 former comments, I enjoyed the whole thing. It did take longer than expected and was a bit annoying with all the waiting in the beginning (which was not planned as my immigration agent told us later - they simply didn’t think Berlin had as many dreamers). But everybody who joined in the game, explained their dreams and did all the stuff suggested definitely had fun doing so. For someone with a bit patience who is open-minded enough to get over himself and be a bit silly, this was great. And I believe most of the people there thought so, it at least very much seemed like it.
And one other thing: I really don’t think they actually made money doing the whole thing. Firstly the installations were quite large and took a lot of effort to build and then everybody got a passport and other stuff later on, so 4€ were a perfectly fair price!
So, thank you very much for the tip!
November 10th, 2009 at 10:15h
I was waiting for four hours! I am open-minded and enjoy being silly but this was like an oppressive regime (close-minded) run by people lacking humour (not silly). I played the “game” all the way to be eventually taken to the Stattbad party that wasn’t even fun. Everyone was tired because of the waiting. There was lots of waiting NOT because Berlin has many dreamers (they did this checkpoint installation in Burning Man Festival where there are thousand of people) BUT because they were not organized properly and we were constantly being taken from one queue to the next or sent away for NO reason. When I asked why, do you know what they said? It’s ART. Well Malte, whose side are you on?
November 11th, 2009 at 04:43h
According to the “Philosophy” section of Checkpoint DreamYourTopia’s website, Dadara, with the aid of a scholar named Charissa N. Terranova, has re-appropriated (or buggered if you will) critical theory – in this case it was Agamben, Althusser, and Zizek – in order to legitimate his project as “art” and attach to it critical/political significance – of course this is nothing new as this has been the trend in contemporary art for some time now. In its essence, the project seems to criticize the constraints put against the freedom of movement (commodities or funds are able to move freely around the globe people are not). In that respect it has gained my utmost sympathy since I believe such barriers must be strictly opposed and fought against. Moreover, the project seemed to be witty and well thought-out, we also saw this in the close attention to detail and how the international immigration regime was mocked via the questions in the immigration forms. But the close attention to detail failed when after filling up a visa application to visit the Land of Dreams one was issued a Land of Dreams passport. In real (not dream) life passports are issued by nation-states (your home country not the country you will be visiting), and the fact that you are a citizen of a nation-state (certain nation states, the poorer, “less developed” ones to be exact) puts you in the fucked up situation of needing a visa to travel in the first place. Those of us who are privileged enough to own EU passports may live and work anywhere in Europe and travel around the globe mostly with no visa requirements up to three months. Similarly, those holding US, Canadian, Australian, or Japanese passports may travel around the globe for three months with no visa requirements and it is drastically easier for them to come, live and work in Europe compared to people who come for example from India or Turkey. Unlike us, the majority of the people on this globe need a visa even to be able to spend just one day in Berlin. And that means having enough money in one’s bank account not only to be able to pay the visa processing fee, the mandatory return ticket and travel insurance, but also to prove via bank statements that one has a steady job and income in his/her home country which means he/she will be visiting for a short time and will not attempt emigrating/seeking asylum. Moreover, according to a recent law, if you are married to a German citizen and you happen to come from a “less desirable” country you will be required to provide proof of basic German language skills (level A2) to be able to apply for a visa to come here and live with your spouse – let me emphasize that: not in order to come here but in order to be able to apply for a visa to come here! For example if you happen to come from Egypt or Albania you’ll need to speak basic German to be granted access to Germany where your German spouse resides, if you come from the US or Canada you won’t need to! Those of us who have had the privilege of never having been mistreated during visa applications at consulates or never having been made feel like second-rate human beings at the border of the First World may be ignorant of this harsh reality as the lack of freedom of movement exists mainly outside our First World existence. Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of people are being hassled, pushed around, mistreated and deported by immigration officials everyday. So dear Still Dreaming, please remember how you felt after “more than an hour being bossed and pushed around by a bunch of losers wearing hideous pink outfit” and then imagine how an Armenian college professor must feel as he is being bullied by the high-school graduate customs controllers (bunch of losers wearing hideous green outfits?) at the Tegel Airport. And dear Barbara, it did not have to be a waste of “two hours of your precious life” if it made you think and question the harsh reality I’ve tried to depict above. I am not claiming the men-in-pink intended to create this effect as they pushed people around, I am not defending the project either as I do not believe one can get away with any sort of bullshit merely by calling it “art.” Nevertheless, I feel complaining about the lack of organization and the rudeness of the staff is also not very fitting given the fact that the project was supposed to make us think about immigration regimes which are disorganized in terms of red tape and rude. Having said that – and not trying the discredit the project’s good intentions or its point of critique, and not trying to belittle the problem of immigration or bracket it as a problem concerning only the people coming from the Third World – I believe the cynic in me can no longer resist to ask the following question: How can a Dutch artist, the privileged Westerner who would never need a visa in his whole life unless he wanted to stay in America for an extra 2-3 months after the Burning Man Festival to continue partying make himself think he can organize such an event in a First World capital and believe he will not be accused of being hypocritical? In other words, organized and participated mostly by those who actually do not require a visa to live – at least anywhere in Europe – this satire of immigration regimes still did not target those who actually need a visa to be in Berlin. Despite the fact that this “happening” took place in Wedding which is a migrant neighborhood, neither the now elderly guest workers nor their working class children and grandchildren managed to enter the glamorous world of the first world/upper-middle class artists and hipsters in order to dream and party the borders away with them. So at the end of the day was it really about rebelling against the immigration regime and making a political statement via the metaphor of liberating the dreams, or mental masturbation disguised as art and yet another excuse for creative types and hipsters to party? Perhaps both….
November 11th, 2009 at 18:40h
wow, vera, thanks for this massive comment! it must be the most insightful comment we have had here, haha!
November 11th, 2009 at 18:41h
and by the way. I was at the closing event and this was absolutely not a hipster kind of thing. at all.
November 12th, 2009 at 21:15h
I was one of the guards….for the third time:
Once at Burning man
Once in Dallas
Once in Berlin
and I LOVED it !
The first time I did it I felt horrible being the bad guard telling people they had undeveloped dreams and they needed to be more specific with their dreams. Then the people I told came back…with MUCH more detailed dreams AND SMILES!
It taught me that we NEVER talk about our dreams. If we talked about our dreams more to those who care about us and those we meet on the street. We would have a chance to flesh out our dreams more and have a MUCH better chance to make them a reality. I can not tell you the number of people that said as their dream they want to be happy and could not describe it. Or wanted to win the lottery. Wanted peace for the world and could not describe it. Peace to one person IS NOT peace to another.
I completely understand your frustrations with the project. It was to show you how much
I love you all.
I love your passion and I LOVED you pushing at the guards cause they were not giving you what you thought you wanted when you wanted it.
FOR some reason you stayed in line for 3 to 4 hours to reach your dreams.
Many people stay at their jobs for YEARS if not lifetimes in order to get enough money to reach their dreams outside of work)
Something kept you in line for that passport or the U.S. VISA. —
what is it that keeps your flame burning for more?
tell everyone.
make it happen.
My dream is now
http://www.TheBallOfLight.com
BM 2011
November 13th, 2009 at 09:44h
Vera,
Don’t assume too much there, lil booger.
Ricardo Paniauga-
November 13th, 2009 at 14:41h
…or Warhol?
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=199593890066&ref=search&sid=1299223386.3661234859..1
November 13th, 2009 at 19:21h
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dadaism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxus
tehre is more to art than 80s retro
November 17th, 2009 at 15:11h
Get a life people. Dreams are not for sale! We can philosophize endlessly and jerk off the sound of existentialism bullshit but it all comes down to one fact (or three):
A) dreams are not for sale
B) going through the checkpoint was a meaningless experience
C) pink is a hideous colour
November 29th, 2009 at 19:33h
Haha .. are you for real ..
” , I am not from Germany .. and I went there by accident supposing that I’m going to a gallery opening or something .. but I thought the project was so much better, it made everybody happy, where else you could see so many and diverse people dressed according to their true desire, and imagination, not having the need to comply with the society expectations.
I would be glad to use my passport many other timed
I was at that party and it was amazing.. and so much fun .. and actually if you were interesting and pushy enough you were not supposed to wait for 3 hours.. it also helped if you didn’t moan and complain:)
Nevertheless, it was great. Everybody that I met was stunned.. they were like ” I can’t believe it.. It is so cool
+ the idea was amazing, the fact that you don’t know what is going on untill the end madeeverything even more exciting .. and I’m proud that I got my passport:)
And for the conspirational theories about the money and the guards.. are you for real ? $ Euros for entrance .. and what .. you think that they made a fortune ??
that’s just my opinion though