There is no simple solution to today’s problems. In the overture and aftermath of the global COVID-19 crisis, it has become increasingly clear that contemporary social, political, economic and environmental developments, spanning a vast and complex network, connect us to myriad ends of the Anthropocene. Running at Berlin’s Kleiner Wasserspeicher and Großer Wasserspeicher from July 28 to August 12, Creamcake’s “Paradise Lost” program explicitly explores these notions of dystopia and apocalypse, transition and redemption, while also activating forms of care and recovery during pandemic and beyond. The installation and concert series brings together a spectrum of experimental, progressive and genre-crossing acts, presenting a wealth of different sounds, timbres, volumes and speeds in the monumental setting of Prenzlauer Berg’s two water reservoirs.
Inspired by John Milton’s 17th-century epic poem of the same name, “Paradise Lost” plays a counterpart to Creamcake’s previous “Paradise Found” events, which took place in the monastic ruins of Klosterruine Berlin in 2019. There, the curatorial focus was the medieval garden as a utopian site of change and transformation, away from hegemony and heteronormativity and toward queer-feminist community. The old Franciscan church became a place of longing, and a symbol of the desire for transcendence and hope. This year’s program is more disenchanted but no less inventive, where a consciously ambivalent selection of artists* and projects reflects a contemporary tension between destruction and construction, technology and spiritual synergies.