Janne Bender
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born 1951
at the age of four engaged in creating weird three-dimensional objects from paper
1963 taking up photography with equal enthusiasm + an Agfa Clack
„life – accompanying“ literary, autobiographical and journalistic writing ...
... since I was able to hold a ballpoint / pen / cil
1970 - 1977 student at the universities of Freiburg, Göttingen, and at University College London
1977 - 2017 teacher at a Berlin highschool; resident of Kreuzberg
since 1980 starting on drawing, painting and collage inspired by talks with the psychoanalyst
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hochheimer (1906 - 1991)
continously dealing with photography; paper works; occasional videos
1984 - 1985 drawing / painting classes at adult education centre
1998 "A Blow-up of Café Germania-Palast, 1928/1998" (today Berliner Bank, Mehringdamm 32-34)
[very large framed blow-up of an original picture postcard showing the interior of
the location + collage including the handwritten message on the reverse side of the postcard]
Various "blow-ups" of private photographs
2009 acquiring basic skills of digital image processing with Adobe Photoshop
2011/2017 potpourris
2020 A pretty bad fall which injured my right leg has been the reason for some new motifs in my photos and writing.
Exhibitions
Galerie Jeda, Berlin (1987)
Galerie Djesany (Kani Alavi), Berlin (1989)
Galerie La Girafe, "Anthologia - Vom Sammeln der Blumen" (2011)
Participations
Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin-Kreuzberg (three artists) (2002)
Große Steglitzer Kunstausstellung, Campus Klinikum Benjamin Franklin (1998/1999/2000)
QuerschnittKreuzberg (until 1999) oberbaumArtbrücke (2003) Heiligkreuzkirche, Berlin:
Art Auction for the benefit of refugees (2002 –2005)
'Künstler im Kiez', former Café Mora, Berlin-Kreuzberg (2011)
Publications
Essay about flat - hunting in the feuilleton of the local newspaper (Göttingen 1973)
Publication of a number of poems in the literary magazine "Das Nachtcafé" (Freiburg /Göttingen, 1975, 1976)
In 2003, after three years of research into the entanglement of my father and his parapsychological institute in
the Nazi era in Strasbourg, my academically acknowledged study was published. It was accompagnied by
public talks and later served as a door - opener for further research:
Moragiannis, Janne: Parapsychologie an der »Reichsuniversität Straßburg«. Hans Bender und die
grenzwissenschaftliche Abteilung am »Institut für Psychologie und Klinische Psychologie«, 1941–1944.
In: Le Détour. Revue des Sciences Humaines. Nouvelle série 1 (2003) – Nomades et clandestins
(Éditions Histoire & Anthropologie, Strasbourg/France), S.155–176 (in deutscher Sprache).
Many publications on internal platforms at my school
Letters to the editor (i.e. to taz, die tageszeitung)
"Brand im Wäldchen des Ostparks", with documentary photos, published on www.gleisdreieck-blog.de (24/4/2019)
Self – publishing of various literary texts as well as essays to accompany current exhibitions on this website.
A one-year project was "Walking Through Park am Gleisdreieck" (2018/19). The result is a large collection of (mostly) ten-word
poems which were written after frequent visits there. There was a reading session of some of the park poetry by
invitation of Moeckernkiez e.V. on Sept. 15, 2019. To underline the flow, my performance included clips of the
lovely music created by Canadian jazz musician Jane Bunnett "and .the Cuban piano masters".
Apart from continuing to write poems in different tones, I presently focus on stories who circle around female
protagonists that will be finally interrelated to each other. I follow up on the project of a novel, again circling around
a group of women in Berlin. This had been interrupted by Covid19, as the virus had blown up both the original plot and structure!
As enriching opportunities for literary exchange I used to take part in some of the weekly Monday readings organized
by Autorenforum Berlin e.V. I am also grateful for the offers from Lettrétage (Mehringdamm 61, Berlin).