Ode Lab
Anne Brannys & Edith Kollath
(since) 2021
www.ode-lab.com

ODE is a collaboration project between researching artists Anne Brannys & Edith Kollath. ODE is a song with many voices, a dialogue, a fabric, a hymn to trying. ODE is an ode to the ode as an ongoing chant.

Choir Practice: Three Scenes
2021

As part of the STRouX project at the former GDR Academy of Sciences on Prenzlauer Promenade, Choir Practice by Anne Brannys and Edith Kollath transforms the three glass gatekeeper lodges into stages for an exploration of choral practices. These practices, no longer confined to theatrical settings, have become powerful tools for collective expression in demonstrations, assemblies, and marches, directly responding to current societal issues.
Through three staged experiments, Brannys and Kollath investigate how the choral body — both heterogeneous and homogeneous — unites many parts into a temporary, migratory collective. Emerging, dissolving, and re-forming in new contexts, it creates structures of resonance and mutual reinforcement, carrying knowledge across external, intimate, or unfamiliar realms and amplifying its presence: many voices becoming one.

Hope Labour: Constellations
2023

In this long-term artistic research project, we, Anne Brannys and Edith Kollath, explored the phenomena of hope and »hope labour.« The term refers to unpaid or underpaid work carried out in the hope of future opportunities, shaped by neoliberal systems that place responsibility solely on individuals. Women, historically tied to unpaid care work, are also significantly represented in cultural fields, where hope labour is disproportionately common.
Over the course of the project, we engaged in conversations with participants who brought objects and questions reflecting their experiences of hope and hope labour. These discussions each revealed diverse and often emotional perspectives on hope labour. We documented the encounters and responded artistically through monotype prints, combining text and image. This process created a reflective archive that preserves the intimacy of these conversations and views hope not as passive stance but as an active, transformative force for change.
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Pandora's Unboxing Show 
An Evocation. A Performance. 
Approx. 45 min

Pandora's Unboxing Show is a 45-minute performance created and performed by Anne Brannys and Edith Kollath. In this reflective and playful work, the artists themselves take on the roles of their imagined »guests,« embodying figures such as Lulu (Wedekind), Rebecca Solnit, Silvia Bovenschen, Friedrich Nietzsche, Slavoj Žižek, Ernst Bloch, Ana Alacovska, Bojana Kunst, the BareMinimumCollective, and others. Using hand-drawn paper props to signal each persona, the performance stages a lively and thought-provoking dialogue on the nature of hope.
Through the metaphor of Pandora’s box, the performance unpacks fundamental questions: Is hope an action? Does hope require effort? Is it heavy or light? Feminine or universal? Must we learn hope? Is it poison or antidote? What imagery does hope demand? And, crucially, is hope the worst evil contained in Pandora’s box?
In this multi-layered and dynamic piece, Pandora's Unboxing Show offers a space to interrogate hope's complexities and contradictions, blending humor, critical thought, and performance in a uniquely engaging format.