„Strategisch Hören“ (Strategic Listening) is an ensemble of three posters and an essay assembled for the exhibition and book project „Man schenkt keinen Hund“ von Christine Lemke. Point of reference is an exercise in the German textbook for Integration Courses „Berliner Platz Neu“ about how to train the understanding of spoken language. The series consists of a fragment of the original page with title and illustration, a commentary upon the concept of strategic listening that echoes both language and layout of German textbooks, and a description of the sound qualities of question marks (after Konstantin Stanislavski).

Das Fragezeichen, Laserdruck, 2013
Strategisch Hören I, Tintenstrahldruck, 2016; Bildzitat aus: Berliner Platz 2 neu, München 2013
Strategisch Hören II, Laserdruck, 2017

Man schenkt keinen Hund

A book and exhibition project initiated by Christine Lemke, in collaboration with Scriptings

The point of departure for the writings, interviews, and artistic contributions in Man schenkt keinen Hund (You Don’t Give a Dog as a Present) are the German language-learning course books which are authorized for use in the so-called ‘integration courses’ for immigrants by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. The textbooks available on the market represent and narrate migration, and those involved in it, primarily through the lens of a national scopic regime: a ‘German’ majority society is here invariably center-staged and framed as representing the norm, apparently unaffected by migrant movements.