Gabriela Exner in conversation with Anna-Lena Wenzel. Interview conducted via Zoom on December 6, 2023.

Gabriela Exner is part of the Monstera workgroup. This project, selected by the nGbK General Assembly in summer 2022, deals with landscapes of memory concerning “reeducation” programs at special children’s homes in East Germany. Exner, who experienced these programs herself, calls herself Lucia Johnson for the project. For various reasons, Monstera could not be realized, but thanks to a change of format approved by the Coordinating Committee, the project is planned to take place in altered form.

Gabriela Exner: Before we begin, I’d like to say that I speak for myself only. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m representing the group.

Anna-Lena Wenzel: I noticed that in your application you used the name Lucia Johnson. Is that a pseudonym you adopted specifically for this project, or have you used it before in other contexts?

GE: No, I started using it for this project. I wanted to be able to choose whether someone looking for me can find me immediately using the hashtags #specialchildrenshome #reeducation, or whether I appear in a separate context. So I gave myself the project name Lucia Johnson. But in all meetings with people who attended such homes I always immediately revealed my real name.

ALW: How long have you been a member of the nGbK? And how did the workgroup come to choose the nGbK?

GE: I’ve been a member since 2022 and before that I’d never heard of the nGbK. We had this project and we were thinking about where to realize it and where we might obtain funding. As an interdisciplinary group—with a theater person, a fine artist, a dancer, a graphic designer, and myself as an eye-witness—the nGbK’s openness to such groups made it an interesting option for us. A second aspect that was very important for us is the nGbK’s structure based on grassroots democracy. I’d like to mention that we all have an East German background and we share a specific idea of working collectively. This prompted us to look for places with little hierarchy and an approach that begins by looking to see what the individual members of a group bring to the table. We also had in mind that the nGbK covers basic project costs and has good spaces—two key aspects for any exhibition.

ALW: Could you say a bit more about how and why the group came together? Was it mainly about working on a specific theme, or more about realizing a project together?

GE: The focus was on the theme. At some point, we realized no information was available (this later turned out not to be true; we just didn’t know about it yet). So we began working on the subject of “repressive reeducation in special children’s homes.” We asked ourselves why there was no culture of memory around all the institutions that existed and that we knew about. We wanted to create visibility, and we had the idea of organizing an exhibition. Then we asked ourselves who it would be interesting to work with, and we found collaborators, including my son Oliver, we thought that transgenerational trauma also needs visibility as there are now not only children but children’s children, and trauma is passed down through these families.

ALW: When you presented your project at the General Assembly, I remember being impressed by your presence and your status as a historical witness, and it was also obvious that you had put a lot of care into your proposal. It was evident that you had thought about how to collaborate with the institution, as when you mentioned previous nGbK exhibitions in your proposal. This impression continued in the Coordinating Committee, where once the whole group attended (even though only one person per group is required to attend), and where you were not only always present, but also played an active role. I had the feeling that you engaged fully with the nGbK’s structures. So you were aware that you would receive something, but that in return you had to get involved?

GE: It really is a mixed blessing. In any case, it’s true that we took the project very seriously. The subject was close to our hearts and we approached it with a great deal of hard work and earnest. This seriousness was also what made us say that we need to be actively involved if we want to help shape the outcome. But it was too much for us. By the time we’d grasped the structure and understood how it works and what’s important, much time had already passed. Moreover, we all tick very differently as individuals. When five people get together who’ve never worked together before, it’s a challenge. And then there’s an institution whose structures are clearly defined but not immediately visible as such. For workgroups, it’s hard to get a sense of the kind of support that’s available. First you have to understand the structure, then you have to be bold enough to ask questions. Sometimes we were unsure how the feedback was intended. In part, that was also because we were all shaped and slightly spoiled by conventional cultural institutions, where the mode of communication is different. It was always a matter of time. That’s how I understood that it should really be people based in Berlin who apply. Living locally makes sense within this structure. I was often in Berlin, but I still had the feeling it wasn’t enough for spending time together.

ALW: We’ve talked about how much work it takes to learn how the nGbK functions and to get organized within a workgroup. You planned a project that was strongly research-based and that aimed to inform the public. This brings many new questions of content that must be checked with the office team, opening up a whole new set of discussions.

GE: Right, and what we certainly underestimated was the amount of time we would need for our research and then for processing our findings for the exhibition. Our theme was very large and it kept expanding, so we faced a dilemma. If you look at my own personal case—and the plan was to structure the exhibition along my biography—one is dealing not only with repressive reeducation and racism in East Germany, but also with immigration and children’s rights, as well as the role of women, of foreign students, and of single parents. Basically, we realized we needed to explain East Germany all over again. The deeper we got into our research, the more we became aware of the gap between those affected and the people we can expect to see our exhibition today. But how far should we go, what kind of concepts do we need to cover? The art of making a good exhibition also involves setting limits, and it takes time and involvement to get a clearly outlined result.

ALW: Added to which, most of the places you were researching are not in Berlin but far away in the federal state of Saxony.

GE: Yes, most of these institutions were in Saxony on account of the industries located there, as the homes were linked to the factories. Child labor was also coupled with these factories. The advantages of these locations included the presence of old manor houses where the children lived.

ALW: If I remember correctly, you also planned to go on research trips, which is quite time-consuming.

GE: Yes, we really did visit these places to see what’s there. In some cases, the houses are still standing, with the wallpaper and the posters put up by the kids who lived there. We were relatively slow to discover the Geschlossener Jugendwerkhof [Closed Youth Labor Home] in Torgau that now houses a memorial. That was because we were researching on the topic of special children’s homes and it was only in the course of our research that we understood the structure of these homes, which are part of the special home system together with the youth labor homes. Much research on this subject has been bundled and archived in Torgau. They were very approachable and immediately agreed to work with us. New possibilities opened up. This allowed a whole different kind of engagement, with access to things like interviews and files.

ALW: When did you discover the memorial? You were supposed to be presenting your exhibition from September through December 2023. Maybe we can talk now about where the project stands now.

GE: Where we stand [December 2023] is that we applied for a change of format that has now been approved by the Coordinating Committee. The exhibition has been cancelled. The nGbK has offered to let us present our material for two days. I see these two days as an opportunity and as a trailer. I’ll be working with the Youth Labor Home in Torgau that has offered to loan us a travelling exhibition, which will be part of the event the nGbK.

ALW: When will these two days be? Do they need to be before the end of 2023?

GE: No, we found a different solution. As an institution, I can’t open a big new exhibition space and then immediately leave it empty for three months, so after we cancelled an alternative was needed, and fortunately one was found in the form of die Wissen, an exhibition originally developed by TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol that will be shown from December 2023 through February 2024. This exhibition is being funded using our budget. And I have to apply for new funds. A new proposal is being submitted, with new people to make up the group’s number again. I’m working on that right now. The idea is to spend one day working on memory and the second on bolstering courage. I’ll use an existing exhibition on freestanding panels from the memorial in Torgau and expand it with workshops.

ALW: Sounds like a compact solution.

GE: But also doable. I think this will give a basic idea of the subject matter.

ALW: And you’re currently looking for new members for the workgroup.

GE: Yes. It’s hard to invite people for this topic, because it’s so complex. Another point is the financial aspect. You can’t be dependent on funding because that merely covers your expenses at best.

ALW: I was just wondering about that, whether the entire project has been reallocated, or whether you got at least part of the funds for your work to date?

GE: We received 59,900 euros in funding. The new exhibition costs 50,000 euros and we had already spent 9,900 euros on our preliminary work. I think that’s fair, and it also persuaded me to stick with the nGbK. In my experience, the way people treat each other here is the way I like it.

ALW: What was your experience of the office team? Are they a supporter, making the infrastructure available to the workgroups, or do they have a different agenda? In my view, it’s not always clear – the balance between supporting and controlling.

GE: Yes, I agree that the two get muddled. In one meeting of the Coordinating Committee I asked how the management can be making demands on us? We put it in place, it’s our tool. Addressing such structural issues openly can be disconcerting. But if you take what we’re doing here seriously, then it’s true. I think the different interests of the office team arise from the fact that they communicate both inwardly and outwardly. In terms of internal communications, I experienced Annette [Maechtel, managing director since 2020] in particular as having a very sympathetic eye on artists and processes, in the sense of facilitating and enabling; at the same time, I suspect that external communications focus on presenting the institution in the best possible light. I don’t know how necessary that is. I’m quite good at reading institutions and I understand how people tick and why. I’ve spent a long time working on that. And I think it’s wrong to believe that a positive image can be achieved by merely claiming to be or represent a certain thing. In my view, it’s more effective to be authentic, because the person you’re addressing is also a human being. Each side can flex its muscles, of course, but it’s also possible to work together, to be creative and productive. And then it makes more sense to present oneself in terms of both strengths and weaknesses. I think there’s room for maneuver on this point. Public discourse calls for clear positioning and active engagement. We’re an organization based on a model of grassroots democracy, and as I understand it that also means that friction is allowed.

ALW: That’s another challenging dilemma: on the one hand, wishing to make decisions and keep things moving forward in order to save resources and, on the other, to provide time and space for issues and processes of negotiation. There’s a clash of interests here. As an institution, can one afford to do less? By which I mean fostering and valuing these internal communicative processes and structures of care in a different way.

GE: Yes, such negotiations should be part of our professional goals. Considering how we describe ourselves, that’s work we should be doing.

ALW: What was your experience with other workgroups? I’ve noticed there are groups who are very involved while others are less engaged. In part, this has to do with different levels of knowledge about the institution—some groups have several “old hands” who have longstanding relationships with the nGbK, others have only new members who need time to find out how things work and to make themselves heard.

GE: Of course we noticed that not all groups get involved with the same seriousness [laughs]. That’s something that really did trouble us at the start. We asked ourselves: How many members are there in the nGbK? And how many members are actually putting in some work? At the General Assembly where our project was selected, the hall was reasonably full, but the rest of the time? How few people do all the work in the Coordinating Committee is something I find really troubling. The question I asked myself was whether it makes sense to ask active groups who are working on their projects and still learning the ropes to take on additional managerial tasks, because working in the Coordinating Committee is a managerial role. Far-reaching decisions for the nGbk are made there, often by very few people. For a workgroup, this is a huge responsibility, either to say: “We have no idea about this, but we’ll greenlight it anyway,” or to say: “No, we’re not in favor.” If I take the process seriously, it’s beyond my abilities because I’m not familiar with the content. I remember the first time I took the minutes. It was amazing! Half the time I had to do extra research because I didn’t know what they were talking about. That might be worth rethinking. I’d welcome some change there. The idea of an advisory board or supervisory group without voting rights is conceivable.

ALW: You mention the idea of an advisory board. Are there other things where you see potential for change?

GE: I think it would make sense to use members’ resources better. I would introduce a questionnaire in which all members could state how they intend to get involved. I fear we’re wasting a lot of potential. There are members who have told me they regret not knowing what they can do within the nGbK. Regarding the working group on diversity, it occurred to me that one could conduct an anonymized survey to find out what handicaps exist within the membership and where there are barriers. I would say there are many people who have impairments but who keep them well hidden. Such a survey would show an interest in the membership on the part of the office team and the management.

ALW: But members are involved in this way, via the General Assemblies and the newsletter.

GE: At the General Assembly, I vote when I’m more or less involved in the processes in question, and the newsletter tells me what’s going on, but I suspect half the people don’t even open it. If, instead, I were to receive a circular that asks: “Dear members, where are you at? How are you doing? What do you want?” then I reckon half would be returned and the other half might contain proposals and ideas. I say this so explicitly because it’s my personal focus: How can we start a conversation? Who feels welcome or invited? Who is allowed to participate? In many contexts, I see low levels of welcoming and access. Which makes the conversation impossible for many people. It’s not typically German to say: “We’re glad you’re here.” So we need to take a look at ourselves and ask how we can create access. It can only be done via relationships. And via a feeling of being addressed, of being seen. This then generates commitment or an interest in new situations and places. If the pool of members isn’t used to create such relationships, leaving the contact on a purely institutional level, then they won’t reciprocate because they don’t feel seen or heard.

ALW: This is all about in-reach and out-reach: How to create strong connections that activate existing members, while opening the institution for new members? I am interested in that because it represents a fundamental decision about what we want as an institution. Is the aim to fulfil institutional obligations and be part of Berlin Art Week, or is importance attached to working on relationships and diversity.

GE: Exactly. And I’m very strict about that: If I say my structures are based on grassroots democracy, then working on relationships needs to be part of that, as does a pool of members who are listening and who are interested, not just a group of people who do little more than pay their 25 euro annual subscription fee. That’s my basic question: Do we want to live in this organization?

Translated by Nicholas Grindell