Tools for Conviviality
Anna Ehrenstein/Emily Watlington/C/O Berlin Foundation

Multimedia artist Anna Ehrenstein uses Tools for Conviviality to challenge the utopian idea of digital technologies as a neutral tool: smartphones, social media, the internet, and virtual reality today promise a multicultural communal life that goes beyond national borders. But do digital technologies really have the power to change the way we design our lives? And what are the traditional resources that facilitate human togetherness? The project, which consists of a 360° video and sculptural photographs, tackles the socio-cultural consequences of digitization in a global context. Developed in Senegal, it centres on collective research with local creatives in place of a documentary view from the outside. Tools for Conviviality was developed in collaboration with Saliou Ba, Donkafele, Nyamwathi Gichau, Lydia Likibi, and Awa Seck and received the C/O Berlin Talent Award 2020. The book is published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name at C/O Berlin with texts by Emily Watlington, who won the C/O Berlin Talent Award in the Theory category. This award is made possible by the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung.

Anna Ehrenstein, born 1993 in Albania, works as an interdisciplinary artist in Berlin, Cologne, and Tirana. Emily Watlington, born 1993 in USA, a writer and art critic, lives in New York.