Julius Vogelsberg

I'm happy to be speaking with you, Julius, here at Ortloff. And I've just been gifted this publication of the first five years of the space, which I'm thrilled about. I was already saying before we started to record, I was impressed when I heard that the space has been running since 2007. That's a crazy feat, keeping a space alive that long. It's really not easy.

Also, I admire the very clean graphic design of the flyers, the way you display the information and how that's a very distinct part of your image. It's minimal, clean, gives the info, and it's always the same style. I've appreciated that.

Before I ask more questions about the space in general, could we hear a bit about you, Julius, and how did you come to be involved with the Kunstraum?

I'm one of the founders. We were four people when we founded the space. In 2007, Leipzig was a shrinking city with a lot of empty buildings, empty spaces, and the smell out of the streets was like, you have to do something with this, these abandoned places. I was interested to get a house, make a house project, or run a space with culture.

The idea was not to make a white cube gallery.

The first idea was to have a space where you can do what you want. And also in these days, we were DJing. Till and I were organizing parties. I was studying geography, with a view on city geography and sociology. I was into this discourse, and Leipzig was in a very exciting place. In 2007, this is when the transformation of Leipzig started, and the transformation of this area, the Leipzig West.

Interesting. I'm a fellow sociology graduate. I share an interest in that- the ties between geography and how people use the spaces and use the city.

There were many possibilities to do projects like this space. So in the same time, other off-spaces opened in this area. D21 is the last one which still exists.

We were the early group who founded Lindenow, this gallery festival. In 2008. Different groups sitting together, and talking about what we can do, a bit like LEICO now. We were sitting there learning how to collaborate more, how to get more audience.

It's important that places come together with some kind of plan how to support each other, because, not everyone's doing the same thing, it's not at all like that. But some of the motivation is the same, no? And also the people and the scene. We share the scene, the audience, together. We share and build the community together, so to come together as spaces can be really powerful.

And how did you find this room that we're sitting in?

I found it, because I was living very close, and there was a phone number on the window, and I called this guy who owned the building. I met him alone, and he showed me everything. Then I was talking to Georg, and Till and Hannes.

And yeah, we met again with the owner and we decided to do it- to take the whole building.

We moved in here for living and working. On the second floor, we had our flat, and on the first floor our work studios. The store was the party and exhibition space.

In the beginning, once a month there was a party. Some people knew Ortloff as a dark place for music and concerts. As a club and dance floor.

Other people knew it as a white cube.

I love that you've taken the whole house.

Yep, it was possible.

Is it still like that?

We don't live here anymore. But yeah, the studios are upstairs.

Very cool. You mentioned some other people who are involved in the space...

Till, he is a graphic designer. And Georg, he's an artist. Hannes moved to Berlin in 2008, but he was a founder. He's still a good friend.

How do you collaborate together? Is it more like a collective?

Yes, I think it works like a band.

It grows step by step, and there is no contract between us, what we have to do. It's more like an intuitive thing. My role often is to make the business things, to write the texts, or the financial stuff, I give the interviews...

The other things we decide together.

And you collectively decide on the exhibitions?

Absolutely, yeah.

The last time I was here, it was the opening for Grids. I was really impressed. I loved it. The scene, and the ability to also meet and speak with interesting people that were here, and the way that the bar flows into the space. Also the works, the curation.

How does the space connect to the community in Leipzig and beyond?

The old scene of Lindenow, this old network doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah, there are personal connections to some spaces in the east, but the field as a network was stronger then than it is today. The initiative of LEICO, to reanimate this movement, is great. I think it is important and nice to be part of it.

The thing is that we are so old now, most rooms don't exist this long. They come and go. And sometimes, as an old space, you're not so active anymore, when the people you have had connections with disappear.

So you have to start again and again.

It's almost like being an elderly person. You lose your friends here and there.

Many of the people left the city after three, or four years running a space. And for us, the whole plan wasn't to run this place for so long. I thought, okay, it's near the end, and it just kept going.

Was it kind of flowing into continuation, or was it something that you really had to fight for at certain points?

No, we did not have to fight. But we are not the same room that we were in 2007. We changed.

You have to do that. You have to change yourself a bit, stay fresh.

I'm wondering about the funding of the space because I've seen some of the exhibitions are city funded.

Nearly all are city funded.

The news has come out recently, that the city funding is indefinitely paused. Can we speak a little about that? What's the information that you have from the city, have they stopped the funding for the rest of the year?

It's not stopped. It's frozen till September, or end of September, at minimum. Maybe it cannot be given this year, so that could be a thing which we have to handle. This is based on the current political world. It's not from the city, it's from the land, Saxony, from the regional government.

This is crazy. In a time when they're approving billions for military budgets in the EU they're cutting cultural funding to compensate. Part of my vision long term for eos archive, and what I try to build now with the platform, is this shift of mindset for everyone in the scene, and supporters of it. Conceptually, they're supporting, but a lot of the time financially, there's no support coming from people who would attend a show here or at another space. Exhibitions are free, and that's super important, in my opinion.

At the same time, the state of the world is changing, and we have to get used to being more supportive within our communities. To build a circular economy, where for example, if I'm a member of this network, and I'm supporting all these spaces with a monthly contribution, they're able to do more.

I've gotten really interesting feedback in some of these conversations for eos, when I ask the question, what is Leipzig's subculture missing? A lot of people have said, from different subcultural groups, that everyone's very isolated.

This is what we talked about, too, in the beginning of this conversation, how you felt that at the beginning, in 2007-2008, you had this kind of initiative to come together.

I think back then, the scene was much smaller, so everybody was easy to know, the main spaces and projects. And now it's grown, and we're much more places, and younger people and older people. It should be easier today to connect, actually...

With our digital tools.

Yeah, devices and tools. But, sometimes it's like being on islands.

Totally, I think actually technology should enable us to find each other with ease. But Instagram does not do this.

No not at all.

It keeps you in your bubble, algorithmically, it shows you what you like to see. That's why it is very important for me, when choosing the events every week, that I'm picking stuff from different parts of the city and also different spaces and different subcultures, because to see it all together makes some light bulb go off in people's brain like, 'Oh, I've never heard of that space before.'

I use your channel often to get information. And I was always wondering- who is this person?

I'm happy that you find it useful. Honestly, I'm finding it hard to keep up with the Instagram because of my personal disdain for the platform. Although I enjoy curating each week, because it's fun to find the events and to promote the spaces.

But I built eos archive app because I want it all to be more independent. I want the spaces to be able to upload the events that they have going on, and I want people to be able to find certain things in this network.

We're fed so much information nowadays, and things are overly curated for us. I really want to empower people to explore the map, choose the date you want, or the type of event, and then see for yourself what you find.

How do you envision Kunstraum Ortloff's role in the scene and the space evolving? Do you have any hopes for what's coming?

I hope that we don't get old in the way we do things. That, we always find a way to discover something new, or stay in contact with younger people and younger artists, and be a social place for the scene. A point where you meet people you like.

To continue this thing.

I wish that also in the next 10 years people love to come here and to get something nice, also through the exhibitions. But the exhibition is sometimes not the most important thing.

1,000%. I just went to a refreshing opening at Kombinat Studios, and it made me think about that. When the pieces also spark conversations with the people around you, when you're all connected by the art in the space, it opens more discussions.

So for people who are visiting Ortloff for the first time, is there an experience or feeling that you would hope they take from this space?

I'm always wondering what people think about Ortloff before they enter it. I heard of people that didn't come here for a long time because they were having a form of respect to the scene, and the cool people hanging out here.

Maybe I want that people are surprised, and go with the feeling that they want to come back. That they found something, a special place, that maybe they hadn't seen before. And they feel embraced.

That feeling of connection. I definitely felt that at the Grids opening. Everybody had that energy here. It was super lovely.

Well, it's been really nice to talk with you and learn more about the space. And I think there will definitely be more conversations in the future.

I hope so.

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This conversation for eos archive was hosted by the project's founder, Micky Arratoon. Micky looks forward to hosting more conversations with those who are shaping and redefining subculture in Leipzig, Berlin and beyond. Get in touch to say hello@eosarchive.app.