The Drop Out: Tell Them I Said No

This Spring, E-WERK Luckenwalde will convene The Drop Out: Tell Them I Said No, a major international programme of performances, conversations and workshops reflecting on the power, politics and potential of saying ‘no’.

Inspired by author and art critic Martin Herbert's collection of essays Tell Them I Said No (2016, Sternberg Press), the programme will consider the implications of resistance, what radical models of self-sufficiency look like, the political connotations of counterculture (or cancel culture), who has the privilege to say no, and artistic vulnerability. The event will take place across E-WERK’s 25,000 metre square site, including the historic Turbine Hall, the adjacent Bauhaus Stadtbad and E-WERK’s outdoor geodesic dome, and will include concerts, performances, panel discussions and sauna sessions. Asad Raza and Prem Krishnamurthy have consulted with E-WERK, providing creative and dramaturgical suggestions for the two day event. Prem Krishnamurthy of Department of Transformation will help guide the event with karaoke on both days.

Contributing artists, thinkers and performers include Lamis Ammar, Sascia Bailer, Mirthe Berentsen, Candice Breitz, Eglė Budvytytė in collaboration with Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome, JJJJJerome Ellis, Hettie Judah, Prem Krishnamurthy, Zoë Claire Miller, Eve Stainton & Florence Peake, Nástio Mosquito, Asad Raza, Lauryn Youden, Abbas Zahedi, SERAFINE1369, Pussy Riot, Fatoş Üstek and Melanie Jame Wolf.

On Friday, May 3, 2024 (4–11pm) the programme will include an introduction by Curator Katharina Worf; dragging workshop by Eglė Budvytytė in collaboration with Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome (both days); performances Practice 1 by Eve Stainton and Florence Peake; you’re seeping into my bloodstream by Lauryn Youden; a conversation between curator Fatoş Üstek and artists Florence Peake, Abbas Zahedi and Melanie Jame Wolf. The evening will culminate with a performance The Promise of Their Body by Melanie Jame Wolf. 

On Saturday, May 4, 2024 (11am–11pm) the programme will include performances by JJJJJerome Ellis, Riot Days by Pussy Riot and STEMM & Rose by Abbas Zahedi; a discussion between Candice Breitz, Lamis Ammar and Zoë Claire Miller on withholding labour as a strategy towards transformation; sound work by Nástio Mosquito; a soil workshop with Asad Raza; tour with Bernd Schmiedl (former E-WERK production manager) and Prem Krishnamurthy of Department of Transformation; a conversation and workshop with Hettie Judah, Sascia Bailer and Mirthe Berentsen on resilience for parents in the artworld; a performance IV by SERAFINE1369 and an in-conversation between artist Asad Raza and E-WERK Co-Directors Helen Turner and Pablo Wendel on alternative models of self-sufficiency.

The programme, which spans both day and night time events, has been co-curated by Katharina Worf, Curator, E-WERK Luckenwalde, and Helen Turner, Chief Curator and Artistic Director, E-WERK Luckenwalde.

Helen Turner, Chief Curator and Artistic Director, E-WERK Luckenwalde, said, “I will always be beholden to artists' courage and defiance. That, despite the vulnerable and exploitative landscape of the artworld, artists still persist, aggravate, call out injustice—Tell Them I Said No. This programme was inspired by artist dropouts, those courageous artists who dropped out of the art world in order to cultivate new worlds of possibility, counter cultural movements and autonomous models of production. It was conceived with the intention to think about defiance as a material for system change, about the agentic potential of outrage and withdrawal in cultural transformation, and to consider how to cultivate radical new models of institutional practice that refute exploitative conditions.” 

Press enquiries and professional accreditation: Nicola Jeffs, nj@nicolajeffs.com

The Drop Out: Tell Them I Said No is funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation), funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media), and we acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the city of Luckenwalde. Programme partners for The Drop Out: Tell Them I Said No include FRANK—Fair Artist Pay and Gallery Climate Coalition. The presentation of Riot Days by Pussy Riot is in partnership with Cultural Foundation Schloss Wiepersdorf.