What may seem like a recently opened shop for biodynamic wines at Neukölln’s former freight yard is at second glance something completely different. The bottles on the shelves are filled with water collected from puddles across Berlin in 2014 by artist Mirja Busch. It is only a small slice of an archive comprising over 2,200 puddles, with some recorded with photographs taken in New York and Buenos Aires, and others sourced from local Berlin soil. She preserves something that would otherwise disappear, making visible what lingers in the air or on the ground. Some rainwater samples – infused with tar, nicotine and sand – appear murky; others are crystal clear. At times the water only half-fills a bottle, at other times Busch needs an entire arsenal of bottles to store a single puddle. Mirja’s work documents the transformation processes that shape life within urban landscapes. It is fitting, therefore, that the exhibition’s home is a small brick house outside the S-Bahn ring, transformed by Christof Zwiener into a temporary art space titled “when the image is new, the world is new”. Here artists are invited to engage with a historical site that – soon enough – will give way to a new construction project. (Text: Laura Storfner / Photos: Christof Zwiener (when the image is new, the world is new), 2019, Courtesy Mirja Busch)
When the image is new, the world is new, Ringbahnstr.2, 12051 Berlin-Neukölln; map
#2: (Fragmente | ruins), Mirja Busch, running until 20.05.2019
#3: Verena Issel, opening 29.05.2019, 19-22h
Open by appointment: info@whentheimageisnew.de
