solo show 2022, Eigen + Art Lab, Berlin, curated by Jakob Schäfer
embossed paper, judges' robes, agreement with acrylic paint on wall

Juliane Duft

“In the automated state power resides less in control of the traditional symbols of wealth than in information.” John Kenneth Galbraith

It is hard to remember the uncomfortable conversations with one's parents about the expensive phone bill in the early 2000s after spending hours on the phone with friends as a teenager. In 2022, inmates in German correctional institutions get charged by the minute for their phone calls - comparable to the phone rates of about 15 years ago.

For her project, Brückner in the year 2020 requested the current telecommunications contracts from a correctional institution in Hamburg. With the help of FragDenStaat.de, Brückner then filed a lawsuit against the denial of information. The statement of claim by lawyer Theresia Rasche hangs framed in black on the gallery wall. The frames are as soft as the interpretation of laws - they are wrapped in black judge robes. On the opposite wall, one can read in large print an agreement that Brückner made with the EIGEN + ART Lab for the exhibition. According to this agreement, Brückner will be making phone calls at the rate of a JSA in Saxony from the beginning of the exhibition preparations until the end of the exhibition. EIGEN + ART Lab will transfer the resulting sum as a donation to the Justice Collective, from Berlin. Justice Collective is an international association of lawyers and experts.

“We are now in transition from an object-oriented to a systems-oriented culture. Here change emanates, not from things, but from the way things are done.” Jack Burnham

Belia Brückner's research aims to make factual contradictions to social narratives visible. There is also a single plastic rose folded out of paper in the room. It contains Telio's statement.

(Excerpt of the exhibition text)