akcg.org

akcg is part of the research cell disruptive processes within the context of Research Pavilion #3 2019, Sala del Camino, Giudecca, Venice.

The Research Pavilion, hosted by the University of the Arts Helsinki, highlights the points of view of artistic research in the context of the 58th Venice Art Bienale in spring and summer 2019.

Research Cells

Disruptive Processes

Disruptive Processes are constituted as non-hierarchical open workshops in which knowledge is reciprocated and embodied. Our epicenter is the Temporary Agora (facilitated by Anni Laakso) – a workshop, a sculptural space, an ongoing site for debate, and a potential location to set free collective un/learning processes. The other four Disruptive Processes workshops are: Feminist Gathering with an ambition to form emancipatory feminist strategies (facilitated by Jaana Kokko). Sensory Experiences in Urban Space by the Ajauksia group; a range of excursions in urban environments with an ambition to re-liberate authorship and the articulation of the body, where did art go?/get lost! with an ambition to strengthen where and how art can happen, and scrutinize the systemic tools of our time used to govern us all, facilitated by akcg (anna kindgren and carina gunnars), and the writing workshop Wording – Collaborative Writing in Public Space with an ambition to act against the commodification of bodily resources (facilitated by Lena Séraphin).

WORKSHOPS
Temporary Agora
3, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14 June at 10:00 – 13:00
Temporary Agora is an on-going collective construction of a sculptural space. It develops during a process of constructing together. It enhances the skills of material negotiation. The working process include the gathering of debris in Venice and a building process that is adapting to each participant needs and desires.
A temporal sculptural construction will be built during the two weeks in a workshop open for everybody. The idea is to create a free and open physical and mental space which will serve as the basis for dialogues. The sculptural space can include structures for different activities. The round seating area is for meetings, talks, small performances and resting. The sculpture will be site-specific and built especially for the pavilion so that it reacts on and alters the room.
The building process is ongoing and will keep on mutating according to the builders. The process materialises negotiation, weighs dissensus and consensus, and suggests collective discerning of form. Temporary Agora will be built of found materials collected in Venice by the research group and participants, who are asked to bring material for the Agora.
The workshops take place in Sala del Camino. The workshops are open for the public and no advance booking is required. You can bring material for Agora with you. More information al(at)annilaakso.net

Feminist Gathering
 21 May at 14:00-20:30 6 June at 10:30-16:30
Feminist Gathering is a gathering for sharing feminist knowledge. Knowledge can be shared in verbal or for example in a performative or other artistic methods. The gathering is consisting of reading, bodily practices, listening, observing, sharing and eating.
The gathering is not a concept but a site specific meeting with the historical approach of the space/ place, relaying on its participants. The gathering can be a research method for bringing up something which is not clear and resolved, yet and to start thinking together and alone.
On the 6th of June we start the gathering with two texts from very different point of views. The text by Silvia Federici is focusing on anti-capitalist, feminist struggle in contemporary society. The text by Elaine Scarry is concentrating on imagination. How could these two elements, that are affecting to our lives, be thought as supportive methods in the shared struggles?
Silvia Federici’s text ’Precarious Labor: A Feminist Viewpoint’. Please ask for ’Pain and imagining’ by Elaine Scarry by e-mail.
For more information: jaana.kokko(at)uniarts.fi

Ajauksia – Sensory Experiences in Urban Space
12 June at 18:00-21:00
13 June at 15:00-18:00
14 June at 7:00-10:00
15 June at 10:00-13:00
 
Ajauksia group invites people to join an excursion of sensory bodily actions in an urban environment. In the workshop we visit places that we are not likely to enter otherwise. We will explore urban nature, sense our surroundings and examine different ways to experience the city. The core ideas of our practice are shared responsibility and respect with space for diversity and dissidence. We ask: What is bodily energy and how is it generated? What does the encountering between two or more subjects or between subject and object produce? What is the importance of corporeality and embodiment? What will happen when the spoken language is excluded, and what language does the body use in these situations?
The workshop consists of collective exercises based on bodily sensations. During the exercises we pay attention to our senses and let them guide us. The exercises are opening different ways of observing and experiencing the environment. Sensory input offers possibilities to variety of experiences, a dialogue and encounters with the environment. Our aim is to understand sensory experiences from the perspective of human and through that open up the question of non-human experience, which leads to the question of existence and ecology.
We explore the ethical power structures of authorship and the politics of body. What is shared authorship? How does it come about? What is the role of ownership and power in the context of authorship? Can they be deconstructed, and if so, how?
Ajauksia group explores and delivers experiential knowledge with artistic tools. Its working methods are based on equal decision making and anonymity, bodily and sensory exercises. Art can interrupt, suspend and penetrate the everyday life of the consumer-experiencer. Together we can deconstruct and re-liberate the construct of art and discover a polyphony of voices.

The starting point and gathering place is Temporary Agora of Sala del Camino. Please, make sure that you have own drinking water. Registration by email: ajauksia(at)gmail.com

where did art go? / get lost!
10, 12 & 15 June at 10:00-13:00

What is the force that constantly follows us everywhere, even when we sleep? That craves for our creativity, our dreams and doings.
Here we are in Venice – the city on water. How did this imagined force create this city? The hot spot. The epicentre and the historical source of the art world as we know it. The perfect backdrop for extraction of value. The tsunami of creativity and thinking connected, here by ducats*. Art and the City, the sources to extract in this locality.
The space in the place is a sculpture, Temporary Agora. How will remain immaterial until the moment we gather to reflect upon this relationship. How to resist while bureau-crazy tries to kill us with boredom.
We propose a collaborative workshop with invited guests on where and how art can happen, at a time were systemic tools are used to govern. Venice will be the focus of losing ourselves in a (re)search for historical and contemporary examples. We will walk and talk, find crucial spots and traces. We will be inspired by sharing experiences. Meet with people, think and do together.
Temporary Agora is the starting and end point of this riddle. We will use the construction to exfoliate the confusion. We ARE all Venice! We are WATER!
*Ducat (it. ducato) is a gold coin, first made in Venice by the doge Pietro Gradenigo (1289-1310).https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukat(2019-02-08)

Workshop part I: HOW to disrupt a necrophilic system? 
10 June, 10:00 – 12:00 + joint lunch/sum up 12:00- 13:00
The art scene is run by the same economic system that relentlessly enhances inequality which grows into fatal climate change. We will all be affected! akcg therefore ask participants to reflect upon how we all transported our bodies/minds/souls/hearts to Venice. Disrupting a logic that has been mandatory ever since industrialism, even considering bourgeois artistic ‘trends’ like the Futurists, their fascination for speed, the machine, new technology and later the political fascist movement.

Workshop part II: learning from Venice
12 June, 10:00- 12:00 + joint lunch/sum up 12:00- 13:00
Our wish is to share local struggles. Guests and collaborators from Venice are invited to discuss urgent concerns. We will look into the consequences of tourism and more than 20 million visitors per year. What lessons do we, as artists/art workers need to learn? How can we live beyond the spectacles and the devastating effects of CO2 emissions, wherever we are? Is there a need for building alliances between different localities? Where and how can art happen beyond art as consumption? How can we together explore what climate justice means in this context?
 
Workshop part III: get lost!
15 June, 10:00-12:00 + joint lunch/sum up 12 :00-13:00
We start and end the workshop in Temporary Agora by altering something together. Get lost in the maze – find new ways. The third workshop will be developed from the findings of the first and/or the second workshop. Let us think the unthinkable – do the undoable – beyond NPM, tourist guides, beyond the race of market driven life – curriculum vitae – where did art go? We bring in more stuff to the Temporary Agora! Lost and found, trash to repair…put things and thoughts together!
To be continued.

The workshops take place in Sala del Camino. The workshops are open for the public but advance booking is required for each session. Please, be sure to bring water and snacks.
To inquire or to join the workshop, please e-mail the organisers at workshops(at)akcg.org

Wording – Collaborative Writing in Public Space
12–14 June

Wording – Collaborative Writing in Public Space is a collective exercise in how we perceive while being in public space. The aim is to study how we respond to public space and to notate what we observe. Since it is undoable to write down everything that happens in one’s surroundings, the writing becomes a series of choices. This workshop is about learning to be aware of these choices and questions if the physical senses perceive in a categoric mode.
The aim of this collective attempt at writing is to shape a public space using words and to position ourselves in shared spaces and reciprocated texts.
The writing during Wording has a performative quality as the writers in public space are observed themselves, and the workshop asks if this collective writing experiment acts as a countertext to the commodification of our corporeal selves.
Wording – Collaborative Writing in Public Space is inspired by Georges Perec and his experimental book Tentative d’épuisement d’un lieu parisien, or An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris. Perec observed Place Saint-Sulpice in October 1974. His idea was to pay attention to the seemingly insignificant, and to notice what is taking place when nothing special is happening. Perec noted down the date, time of day, place and weather, and then went on to write a list of what was happening within his field of vision. He returned on three successive days, and was himself gradually transformed into one of the recurrent figures in the square. His writing work, in turn, successively altered what he was observing; the square became a text and a written rendition of a public space.

Participation can take place in any language, including made-up ones, from any public space during 12-14 of June 2019. A commitment to enrol for 3 days/72 hours is required but each participator decides on the amount and time of observations. To inquire or to join the workshop, please e-mail the organisers at wording2019(at)gmail.com

where did art go/get lost!

akcg could participate through the support of IASPIS and Kulturfonden för Sverige och Finland