In January 2023, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA, the cinema project by bi’bak, re-opens its doors at a newly renovated space in Berlin-Wedding. A physical hub that brings together film and video culture, arts, education, conversation and community, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA explores transnational society through screenings, symposia and exhibitions.
Over the years, bi’bak has built up an archive of books, magazines, ephemera and films (analog and digital), a collection that will now become part of KIRAATHANE. A term with Arabic/Persian origins meaning “house of reading” that in modern Turkish more commonly refers to tea houses, KIRAATHANE extends the SİNEMA foyer, aiming to be a welcoming, publicly accessible place where people can access knowledge, read, watch and exchange.
SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA now calls on filmmakers, cineastes, archivists, students, artists, locals and scholars to take part in the first KIRAATHANE workshop, a collective interrogation of archival practices and politics in relation to film and moving image.
Over the course of the first weekend in February, four invited experts – Nnenna Onuoha, Dominique Hurth, Şirin Fulya Erensoy and Mohammad Shawky Hassan – will host a series of short sessions giving an insight into their own work with archives. Alongside selected open call participants, through various modes of exchange we will come together to ask:
What is archived, how, and for whom? What tactics can be employed to ensure that KIRAATHANE, and archives in general, reflect the transnational societies to which they belong? How can archives serve the communities within which they are embedded?
Apply to the open call here: https://forms.gle/CdAtPWk8top18xhKA
For more information go to https://sinematranstopia.com/en/hane/kiraathane/workshop-tactics-for-a-transnational-archive