HEARTCORE Dance Party

Last week, TOR opened a new studio space in Mehringdamm, Berlin, an event that was less about arrival than about position. The rooms were inhabited by works by Stewart and Lukas Stoever, alongside a film programme by Julian-Jakob Kneer, in a space designed by Filip Samuel Berg. The opening was shut down by police, with the studio left somewhat worse for wear afterwards, though even this felt oddly consistent with TOR's own logic. What the evening made visible was something the studio has always understood: that a space can hold creation and destruction simultaneously, without one cancelling out the other.

Hannah, you’re from Northern England. Fritz, you’ve been in Berlin for almost a decade. How did you meet and how do your respective backgrounds inform your design approach?

Hannah: We met pretty naturally, going out to different events in Berlin. I was just starting my art practice and design career at the time and had been a fan of Fritz's magazine, Gruppe. We decided to combine forces about a year and a half to two years ago. A lot of my work comes from a place that feels localised to the North, but also from the perspective of someone who has not lived there for a while and is trying to retrace their position. My practice feels very time-led, whereas Fritz's is more visually driven, compounded by his curation of multiple editions of his visual art magazine.

Where do you see your approach sitting within contemporary design right now?

Fritz: Our approach is driven by an urgent sense to tell stories and make people feel space — whether it be a show, exhibition, or interior — in a way that responds to a surrounding context. This could be an artist's input or the studio's own. Often it's both.

H: I think the design world often prioritises elegance or craft for its own sake, which is no longer relevant in today's world. People want to understand why something is beautiful, even if they cannot

fully grasp it.

Was there a reference, architectural, atmospheric, or otherwise, that shaped what your studio space became?
 

H: The backstory is that it used to be an old post-production studio. When we got the keys, there were server shells and a cinema already built in. The atmosphere we wanted to go for was somewhere between Andy Warhol's Factory and a space filled with work from our own community. We want it to be somewhere that art we care about can coalesce in Berlin. Of course it's an office, but it's also a place where ideas and people should exchange.

What did you ask Filip Samuel Berg to do with the space, and how did the collaboration unfold?

H: Filip is a fantastic artist and a dear friend of the studio. We feel he shares a lot of our perspectives on space.

F: Filip and I go way back. We actually met in my very early days in Berlin, and it might have even been in the same building where our studio is now located — back then it was one of the older gay clubs, called Schwuz. We gave him carte blanche to do what he wanted with the cinema room, which he turned into this faux leather-seated, semi-pornographic interior. I think people had a wonderful time in there.

What does working in Berlin offer you?

F: There's an attitude towards making art in Berlin that is central to our work. The city has historically been a place for people to develop new ideas outside of the institutional discourse that dominates other capital cities. The 2016 Biennale was massively influential to us.

H: That isn't to say that institutions necessarily embrace us, or that the same issues Fritz is describing don't exist here today — they definitely do. For now, Berlin works for us. We've only been around for about two years and probably have a lot still to do here.

How are you feeling after the opening?

H: I think there's something ritualistic about building up a body of work in your studio and then having people come and tear it all down, so to speak. We had just come back from a pretty intense year of projects and it felt like a good time to open up to everyone. We want to change the way people engage with design studios. Past studios I've worked at felt like closed-door institutions. We want TOR to feel genuinely connected to Berlin.

F: It's always been a thing, since our first studio location on Kottbusser Tor, to throw open parties. I think we'll keep the tradition going. Berlin doesn't need much convincing for a night out.

You’re currently on your way to Venice as we speak—what are you working on there, and what’s next for TOR?

H: We're working on our first large-scale scenography for the Art Biennale, in support of Kelsey Lu's new album. Last year we also developed a project for the Dance Biennale with Bullyache, which was a great experience. This feels like a natural continuation, just at a different scale. At the same time we're expanding the programme — more events, more collaborations, growing the team. There are already a few things in motion.

F: The opening was just the starting point.