Mission Impossible – How to move a ship across the mountains

Free Culture Incubator Workshop No. 8


Tuesday, 26.07.2011, 5-9.30 pm
betahaus / Prinzessinnenstraße 19-20 / 10969 Berlin / U8 Moritzplatz

With Henning von Gierke, Tonia Welter and Christoph Fahle.

Every big project eventually leads into a dead-end street: unimagined obstacles suddenly pop up, budgets are cut or team members drop out – in short: the big plan seems doomed to failure. At this point we can decide either to give up or to keep going despite all the troubles. Our next workshop is dedicated to the magic moment of persevering against all odds. What are the ways to refresh motivation? And how can we change our perspective in order to turn the impossible into an opportunity?


Our hosts and moderators have been Tonia Welter and Christoph Fahle from the betahaus team. Both had the idea to invite a guest who has embarked on many impossible missions over the course of his creative career: Henning von Gierke – German painter, set designer and professor at the University of Vienna. He has collaborated with directors Werner Herzog or Volker Schlöndorff on a number of projects. Henning von Gierke has created visual icons which will last in our cultural memory: The famous boat in “Fitzcaraldo” which was hauled over a mountain, or thousands of white mice which refused to get grey and dirty in order to match the gloomy atmosphere of “Nosferatu” or  the Wagner-opera with a spectacular underwater stage.

Henning von Gierke gave a lecture about the challenges of his work. During his speech he focussed on how to master the impossible with determination, passion and the art of improvisation – even if we have only limited resources at hand. After the lecture we broke out into 4 groups and shared our (im)possibilities with each other.

What I found quite striking was the heterogenuous nature of the workshop group (people from all walks of art, culture and creative businesses). And they all share the same problems or let's rather say challenges: mostly, people talked about the enormous challenge of having to lift everything on their own shoulders. Or their inability to delegate work to others. Another big issue was the notorious lack of time and other resources. Then we talked about the constant doubts about the quality of our work (am I good enough?). Money was a prime issue, too (of course!) - but it sort of moved to the background while we talked about the challenges of working in groups and keeping up a level of creativity and freshness over a long period of time. This seemed to be the major challenges of this evening. Of course, we didn't come up with any major solutions, other than: ask others for help, never stop communicating and approach the mountain step by step. The evening was rounded up with a dinner at betahaus. This provided a nice opportunity for people to meet up and exchange their experiences. So this workshop was much more a networking event rather than a solution-based, step-to-step manual of how to master the challenges of our professional lives.

In partnership with the the Government's Center of Excellence for the Cultural and Creative Industries & the creative network Moritzplatz: