REDRAW / REWRITE / RETOOL
Seminar November 30th, 13.00 – 17.30 at Hamnmagasinet, Västra Strandgatan 4, Umeå
Language: English
The seminar is a part of the exhibition series REDRAW / REWRITE / RETOOL curated by RAKETT at Vita Kuben during the Autumn 2011.
Through visual and narrative endeavors REDRAW / REWRITE / RETOOL engages in questions around how conflicting interest groups negotiate their positions, within existing or fictional societies, on arenas outside of as well as within constitutional frameworks. The works engage in an investigation of how laws are written, how the models of our societies are drawn and what political tools we have at our disposal. By looking at the situation at hand, arises the question of how to redefine the structures of our societies.
The last part of the exhibition series REDRAW / REWRITE / RETOOL will open December 1st at 19.00 with works by Chto Delat? and Johan Tirén. In conjunction with this exhibition we invite you to a half day seminar with the invited artists: Johan Tirén, akcg (Anna Kindgren and Carina Gunnars), Chto Delat?/Olga Egorova and Ivor Shearer. They will talk about their work and reflect upon the role of the artist.
We will also open up for discussions around Umeå´s city development. How do artists relate to the European Capital of Culture(ECC) 2014, and how do ECC 2014 relate to the artists? In what way can artists work with shaping the urban space, and do they want to take part as a included, constructive force in politically governed urban developments, and not by ornamenting the already constructed public space with ”Silent magnificent art objects” or with critical art that comments something already existing. How does such an approach relate to the how the artists sees itself as an actor of society?
13.00 – 13.15 Welcome
Introduction by Rakett/Åse Løvgren and Karolin Tampere
13.15 – 14.00 Ivor Shearer will present his background for making the film Last Things that was screened at Vita Kuben earlier this autumn, that relates to a fictional post Katrina situation in New Orleans. He will look into how the different levels of organization, both formal and informal were kept or changed after the hurricane Katrina.
14.00 – 14.35 Chto Delat? / Olga Egorova
Olga Egorova from the artists and activists collective Chto Delat? will present their work and how they are organized within the group and introduce their ongoing project in the north of Norway. As part of her talk she will screen an excerpt of their video Tower Songspiel where voices are heard from different interest groups in St.Petersburg, workers, immigrants, urban planners and youth who want renewel . Also it shows the speech of a corrupt politician of how he sees the development as a great opportunity for the city.
14.35 – 14.45 Screening of an excerpt of The Tower: A Songspiel, 2010, Chto Delat? Filmed in April 2010, The Tower: A Songspiel is based on real documents of Russian social and political life and on an analysis of the conflict that has developed around the planned Okhta Center development in Petersburg, where the Gazprom corporation intends to house the headquarters of its locally-based subsidiaries in a 403-meter-high skyscraper designed by the UK-based architectural firm RMJM. www.chtodelat.org
For the full film please see: http://vimeo.com/12130035
14.45 Questions and comments
15.00 – 15.15 Fika / Coffee break
15.15-15.45 Camilla Påhlsson, artist and curator based in Umeå, gives a short report from the artist- run-space Verkligheten´s Autumn program Get To Work, in which they have been focusing on the artist role and position in Umeå, and the importance of organizing oneself.
15.45- 16.15 akcg
The artist duo akcg (Anna Kindgren and Carina Gunnars) will present their book agorafobi/agorafobia/agoraphobia discussing public space and public sphere with both a Swedish and a Brasilian perspective.
”There has been a large common space, which we thought was protected by laws. Many Swedes imagined for example the right to public access (Allemannsrätten) and shoreline protection (strandskyddet) were stronger than they´ve proven to be. When one has found oneself in THE COMMON, it has been framed by agreements and norms that were possible to discuss and criticize.”
akcg will also present their most recent project ”Vägen hem” which through sculptural and conceptual means relates to how we organize our societies. www.akcg.org
16.15- 17.00 Johan Tirén will present his project Epilogues (Att dela ett samhälle) (2009) where he and a group of artists was part of a collaboration with the urban planning office of Stockholm. In what way could the artists take part in the process, and what possibilities and limitations are there within such a project? How to relate to the possible instrumentalization within this kind of collaboration? Tirén will talk about the background for why the urban planning office started the project, and discuss how the competence of artists can be useful or meaningful in such processes. www.johantiren.com
17.00 – 17.30 Discussion