In April of this year, it was announced that AquaDom would not be rebuilt. The dazzling 25-meter-tall aquarium cylinder’s collapse sent a shock wave through the luxury Radisson Collection hotel lobby, killing the majority of its 1,500 exotic fish, and flooding the streets of Berlin’s Mitte district. This earth-shaking event was a haunting reminder of the hubris of “civilization,” and the cost of such grandiosity on marine life, and the environment. For Creamcake’s fourth and final “Is it cold in the water?” event, running at Kleiner & Großer Wasserspeicher from July 11 to 14, the interdisciplinary platform dives into the two sides of human ingenuity—where innovation, progress, and creativity meets extractivism, commodification, and ecocide.
Complementary perspectives in the defunct municipal water tanks come from two invited artists and collaborations who consider how a thing, or things of beauty can have such devastating origins and outcomes, while suggesting alternative modes of interaction with the world that can help preserve it. Adham Faramawy explores themes of migration, colonization, and ecological collapse with their “And these deceitful waters” video installation in Kleiner Wasserspeicher, where a three-person dance performance with music and spoken word, which weaves together stories of the river Thames and its flora and how they construct, reinforce, and dissolve borders. At the same time, Yen Chun Lin & J. G. Biberkopf present their “Shell Sea Spiral Scry” sound installation at Großer Wasserspeicher. Along with two opening-night activations, the duo lead their audience through a dripping intersensory environment toward the center of a seashell spiral. Haunted by rhyming intimacies and tales of all existing beings, the coiling portal connects realities, dimensions, spaces, and times that embrace parallel ways of knowing.
As a tank-wide takeover of the Berlin water reservoirs, one project tells the migration stories of the river Thames illustrating the co-optation of land and water for projects of dominance and destruction. The other embodies fluid consciousness in an interdimensional spiral of memories of the ocean, rhythmic murmurs of dreams, and waves of wind that wash time.
Opening, Thursday July 11, 5-10pm
Friday July 12, 3-8pm
Saturday, July 13, 3-8pm
Sunday, July 14, 3-8pm
Opening, performative activation
Yen Chun Lin & J. G. Biberkopf
“Shell Sea Spiral Scry” 8pm & 9pm (limited capacity)
Slots every 30 minutes
