Tales from a THIRD SPACE is an intercultural dialogue between the project spaces El Palmar (Mexico City) and Axel Obiger - space for contemporary art (Berlin), intending to enable artists of both spaces to meet at eye level in a non-commercial environment, to introduce production and living conditions on site and to gain insights into art and culture-related differences, perspectives and perceptions.

The project's main idea is based on the theory of the so-called “Third Space” by theorist Homi K. Bhabha, meaning that exchange creates a common ideal place in which new content can be developed collaboratively without any hierarchical structure. This place is as dynamic as it is changeable and limited in time.

Tales from a THIRD SPACE is divided into Chapters. It all starts with Chapter 1: vice, which will be combining a 14-day artist residency of six members of Axel Obiger with an exhibition and an artist talk at Galería de Dibujo at El Palmar. Chapter 1: vice intends to introduce the Berlin based artists into the local art scene of Mexico City. It will also include lectures, studio visits and artist dinners in order to open up an intense dialogue between Axel Obiger, El Palmar and the local art scene.

The exchange with El Palmar is Axel Obigers first collaboration with a space in Mexico. It deals with the artistic production and living conditions of both metropoles and focuses on global transformation processes viewed from each culturally shaped perspective. In Chapter 1: vice, stories (TALES) will be traveling with the artists from Berlin across the Atlantic in order to draw a direct link to Mexico as a country of immigration with its countless migrant biographies, all including their individual stories and projections connected to Mexico. The show at Galería de Dibujo at El Palmar will be containing these imported narratives and memories to bring all aspects together, both historical and fictional, individual and collective.

— El Palmar

Artists: Alke Brinkmann, Susanne Britz, Thilo Droste, Saeed Foroghi, Natalie Grenzhaeuser, Harriet Groß, Gabriele Künne, Jorge Lopes, Matthias Moravek, Enrico Niemann, Maja Rohwetter