Curated by Slavs & Tatars and Asya Yaghmurian, this exhibition of works by eight artists explores notions of disdain and contempt. Invoking the Peter Seeger song made famous by The Byrds in 1965, ‘Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)’, these newly commissioned paintings, watercolours and sculptures ask what it means to kick back, whether against a lover or an epoch. The artists: Javkhlan Ariunbold, Akhmat Bikanov, Bakhyt Bubikanova, Saule Dyussenbina, Nuriia Nurgalieva, Yuma Radne, Shamil Shaaev, Slavs & Tatars, and Alexander Volkov - all hail from Central Asia and the Caucasus, a region currently in the cultural spotlight.

In his 1972 BBC series Ways of Seeing, John Berger argues that how we look at images reveals something about ourselves and our social conditions. Today, as humans constantly morph into images and data, technical reproducibility dislocates both the image and the act of observing itself.

Armenian film director Sergei Parajanov, who saw himself as a citizen of the world, has been quoted as saying he will get his »revenge on this world with love«. This love is what’s also planted in the works of the artists. In the images, in the films, in the plays and in the music of the festival 100 + 10 - Armenian Allegories; the prologue of the 7th Berliner Herbstsalon RE-IMAGINE!. At its centre are Armenian artists. They come from all over the world. How do they look at the upheavals of the present in light of the history of the Armenian genocide of 1915? From 24/April to 31/May 2025, we will be presenting an exhibition with over 70 works, a literature and film series, concerts, world premieres, performances and guest performances from Amsterdam, Yerevan, Istanbul and Gothenburg in and around the Gorki.

For the Fall Term of 2025, I developed and convened a module ‘ The Reality of Representations: theory and art practice’ as part of the Institute for Art History, Art Theory and Aesthetics.

In 2024, I spent three months in Doha conceptualising and setting up an artist residency program for Caravane Earth Foundation.

Metaphorically spanning from ancient Greece to today, the trilogy uses kitsch as a language with which Scoufaras operates—a methodology that generates a vocabulary challenging kitsch through persistent engagement. Three films comprising The Trilogy of Terror — Panic, 2014, N, 2016, and Omphalos, 2016 change sequentially throughout the course of the exhibition. The trilogy was shot during periods of heightened terrorist threats in Europe and the United States. Scoufaras addresses terror as a collective experience, asking how global events communicated through media impact an individualistic society. Do the acts of violence emerge from a desire for ownership—ownership of land or, perhaps, ownership of myths and symbolism? Do we seek to possess belief systems or are we propelled by them? How do we, collectively, experience terror?