After watching Germany come up with a tie during Saturday night’s World Cup match, I hit the streets to find signs of Fête de la Musique, which takes place yearly on June 21. Kotti seemed to be the epicenter of excitement in Kreuzberg. A dense atmosphere of people lined the sidewalks, streets and bars. I braced the crowd, walking up the stairs and over the bridge to number 4 Adalbertstr. There I discovered Vesselroom Project, which was hosting the opening night of DARK ENTRIES RECORDS + DOKIDOKI //// MUSIC LABEL ART EXHIBITION. The exhibit, which runs until July 12th, combines the works of San Francisco’s Dark Entries Records and Paris’s Dokidoki. Curator Bárbara Cueto answered some questions about the project and exhibition.

What is the Vesselroom Project?
Vessels are the containers used in laboratories, and our space is rather small, so our program aims to offer a different vision. Vesselroom Project is an independently run art space. We want to expand the exhibition realm, and give visibility to emerging artists of very different media. We want to investigate, observe and experiment. Vesselroom Project is a laboratory.

Why choose Kottbusser Tor for the gallery’s location?
Kottbusser Tor is booming. New bars and initiatives are opening every month. The whole area is experiencing a complete change, and it is very interesting to be part of it. Kottbusser Tor has become the heart of the transnational Berlin, there is an extraordinary mix of expats, tourists, emigrants and old-berliners. All combined in the exact same location that years ago was no-go area, but now it is going (slowly) back to life. Kottbusser Tor is now a meeting point.

We wanted to translate this idea in our gallery, so we invite very different artists with different backgrounds to meet in our space. We don’t know exactly what will come out of it, but that is what makes it so special. We want to experiment and show a plural vision of what is contemporary art. Kottbusser Tor was, for us, the perfect spot to do it, to break some mental boundaries of what and where a gallery should be, and to be open to explore new things.

What can one expect to see at the current exhibit, DARK ENTRIES RECORDS + DOKIDOKI //// MUSIC LABEL ART EXHIBITION, which opened on Fête de la Musique and runs until July 12th?
In this exhibition you are able to find a bit of everything: fanzines, vinyls, some other graphic work, and even merchandising. The exhibition brings together two labels separated by the Atlantic Ocean but united through one band: Crash Course in Science. Both labels didn’t have any previous contact, so Vesselroom Project was their meeting point. We were very excited about how would it be working with labels, a very different terrain of what we were used to, but with a very powerful imagery. We met their graphic designers and some of their represented bands, and the exhibition came up flawlessly. We wanted to show something else apart from their final product, and we discover all this incredible underneath. And that is what we showed in this exhibition.

For more information on the exhibition check out:

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Vesselroom Project is located at Adalbertstraße 4, Berlin Kreuzberg (U 8 Kottbusser Tor)