Upon returning to Slovakia in 2009, after finishing her studies in France, Zuzana Pacáková was playing with the idea of establishing a contemporary art festival that had been missing in her hometown of Košice. Inspired by Paris’s Nuit Blanche, she enthusiastically decided to enter a fascinating circle, introducing the now-renowned and popular festival of contemporaryart, Biela noc, to Slovak audiences.
Originally published in KLAXON #8 - The Augmented City
Ici-Même [here-itself], a Paris-based group founded by Mark Etc in 1993, produces a wide range of theatrical interventions and urban scenographies that question our relationship with our social and urban environment. After having established a reputation for itself, and being recognized for its agility to infiltrate reality and to mystify, Ici-Même has adopted a diametrically opposed approach in its recent creations, by placing spectators at the core of the narration, and, in the unequivocal words of Mark Etc, “are now at ease with inviting the general public.” After an initial attempt of a “video-guided tour of the city” in Allo Ici-Même in 2010, First Life was launched in 2013.
The streets are a place of protest and sometimes of concern. In Paris, despite the small number of protesters, taking to the streets is a legitimate expression of the people’s democratic rights. In Barcelona, protests from both sides fill the streets on the question of Catalonian independence. But across the Pyrenees, Benjamin Vandewalle’s latest participatory performance in public space brings us back to art history.
Sat in Pristina International Airport waiting for my flight to Vienna, and on to London, I’m wondering what this week has been all about: why do I feel so damned tired, and why do I have a photograph of a boy-mannequin, wearing a crocheted waistcoat, posed in front of a badger pelt on my phone?
In Hull, recently voted the “least romantic city in England”, Freedom Festival celebrated the 210th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. It strikes an appropriate political tone, in the wake of recent racist incidents and discourse in Charlottesville, Virginia. Thought-provoking debates and shows combined with lighter entertainment, which were also steeped in the city’s history.
In summer, the air in the border city of Graz (which takes its name from “grad” or “gradec”, meaning “town” in Slavic languages) ripples with the sounds of Croat, Slovak and Slovenian. A generation ago, the city was at the border of “the other Europe”. Today, the La Strada festival is peacefully celebrating its 20th anniversary. But other borders still need to come down in people’s minds.
Players pool their money but they cannot use it if they cannot agree how to spend it. Other sums are exhibited in full view in the public space... In a world where European policy sometimes seems to come down to questions about budgets, the British studio Kaleider offers an interesting small-scale take on money.
With the unexpected elections of Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, Brexit ... Political news seems more and more difficult to read. What do artists offer? More participation and a redefinition of the collective that may imply a change of scale. At the very least, a new paradigm.
In contrast to the productivity-based, consumerist model which dominated the 20th century, more contributory systems are now emerging. It is within this context that certain artistic creations are presenting another economic approach, in order to more equitably share the richness of our imaginations.
Jay Wahl is the artistic director of the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. Vladimir Us is a curator with the Oberliht Group in Moldova. Both organisations are members of the IN SITU platform. They examine the concept of popular art and compare their approaches to working in public space.
In the face of increasing authoritarian trends, demagogy, discredited elites, and public indifference, public opinion and political leaders are oscillating between popular and populism. Join us as we delve into the modern challenges of democracy.
The Metropolis 2007-2017 initiative, launched by IN SITU member Københavns Internationale Teater (KIT), aims to link the world of the arts and theatre with city life and urban development. The ambition is to forge continual collaborations crossing the disciplines of art and architecture, culture and urban planning – across local, regional and national borders.
Published by CIFA, this sixth issue of Klaxon continues in a similar dynamic vein to our previous issue, which was also devoted to the theme of social justice. We would now like to introduce you to new forms of thinking on or artistic practices aiming to restore public space/s to bodies usually relegated to the margins: here, we will focus on experiences by women, by Roma, by young people and immigrants, by the homeless and the sick, by transgender people.
This article makes no pretence of being an exhaustive account of everything that happened during the Neerpelt Hot House, but offers a specific and partial perspective from a curator and artist who has recently become a network partner. It offers a periscopic perspective, much like that of a submarine – enough to identify what is on the surface, and maybe even to target what is under the surface.
It breaks down into three parts: examination, diagnosis and cure. First I will endeavour to identify what struck me in the artists’ personalities and in their projects, then what bringing together these personalities and projects can tell us about the context and the broader situation in society, and finally what could, perhaps, be refined in the Hot House approach.
In one of our previous columns, we discussed the Leviathan monster, without dealing with Thomas Hobbe’s notion of “commonwealth”. The idea of a commons is coming back to the fore. Just what does it mean exactly?
“Art in the face of terror”. After the terrorist attacks of last spring, this burning issue was explored by participants over four days at the International Centre for Training in the Performing Arts (CIFAS) in Brussels, through both discussion and actions.
The Paris, Brussels and Nice attacks remind us that public space can also be a place of mourning, an aspect covered by some artists at the Travellings festival in Marseille.
Wherever you find the artist Frank Bölter, who we just read about in column #1, you’ll find his simple paper-made artistic creations in public space… and that’s no accident.
Mathieu Braunstein travelled in the Balkans during the 1990's and is the author of the book: François Mitterrand à Sarajevo, le rendez-vous manqué, éd. L'Harmattan, 2001
One week after the horrific terrorist attack in Nice, reading Thomas Hobbes’ “Leviathan” (1651) is disorientating. This English philosopher puts the natural and political body at the centre of his reasoning, and underlines the fact that political forms and gods are mortal. In particular, he clearly states that destroying one’s own life contravenes “natural laws” (chapter 14). Disorder and religion are seen, at least, as an “infirmity” of the state (chapter 29) and the best that can be said of suicide attacks is that they are a poison.
How can you write about art in public space in Europe, while keeping a critical distance and avoiding eulogistic praises? How can you analyse the performing arts, something that, by its very nature, is temporary, while keeping your ears open to what's going on in the world? As always, books are a precious aid for staying focused on what matters.
The event which took place in Prishtina and Junik brought together artists and IN SITU members as part of the inquiry on "The sense of belonging in a participative artistic creation". The entire event was organized around the concept of ODA. In Albanian culture, ODA is a special room in communities, where the community gathers for a discussion on common issues. The specific of traditional ODA's is a dialogue through stories. The member of the community presents the positioning by telling a story, either adapted or original. For opposing or approving a point you also tell a story. In the first day each artist had his/her time to present him/herself and the artistic project, while in the next days, ideas and presented projects were discussed in ODA way. The intention in the second part of the event was to adapt or reinvent stories that relate to the project idea, aiming to create a collective story with contributions from everyone.
The European network IN SITU, an advocate for site-sensivite art, has organised yet another edition of Emerging Spaces, a series of intensive workshops. On paper, the seminar’s opening days in Budapest focused on post-industrial areas, with the ruined but beautiful Csepel Industrial Park as its central location, although the set topic would go through various changes throughout the three days of the workshop.
How can artistic creation in (post-communist) Europe continue in a context of economic crisis and democratic regression? We discuss the current climate with three festival directors from Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia, and Polish Theatre Director Krzysztof Warlikowski.
This Emerging Space was a strange experience, with a strange title, open to many interpretations, especially in English: "breaking down barriers"… At this time of acute migrant crisis, challenges to the European project and the re-establishment of national borders, this idea promised stirring speeches on the modern world in societies threatened by isolationism and the temptation to close in on ourselves. But in the end, it was the artist Anne Corté (Roure Company, Belgium) who launched this discussion on the third day of the event. The meeting had already had a very strange beginning though, held the day after the major terrorist attacks on the Brussels metro system and airport, which meant that our Belgian partner, Hugo Bergs, and his guest artist only “emerged” in Marseille after a heroic battle.
How do new technologies affect creation in public space: in Norwich, European artists have explored new opportunities offered by these innovative tools.
A garden begins wherever a human foot touches the ground to step into a space that is both vegetable and mineral. That’s the moment when the memory of his presence is first settled in that place.” According to Giuseppe Penone, one of the most outstanding contemporary artists in Italy, the boundaries between the natural and artificial worlds need nothing more than a footprint to be established. It is the powerful, even cumbersome reflection accompanying us while walking among the bronze trees and installations made of stone and marble he created for the Baroque-style gardens surrounding the Royal Palace in Venaria Reale, near Turin.In spite of the sun shining on the Piedmont Alps in the background, we feel we are experiencing more than just the dawn of a wonderful, spring day.
Neil Butler is the head of UZ Arts, an independent organisation based in Glasgow (Scotland) that initiates a number of cultural programmes worldwide. Amongst other work, Werner Schrempf heads the La Strada festival in Graz (Austria) which he founded in 1998. These two IN SITU network members’ directors provide together their account of art in public space today.
Olivier Grossetête and Zimmerfrei collective (Massimo Carozzi, Anna de Manincor et Anna Rispoli) build “fleeting” cities. "Fleeting City" by Olivier Grossetête and "Temporary Cities" by Zimmerfrei are two IN SITU projects. As one creates common sense by building real cardboard walls, the other offers a dream version of the city. Artists' reflection about the invisible walls dividing our towns.
Licensed city planner Trevor Davies is the director of the Metropolis biennale of art in the public space, organized by Københavns Internationale Teater in Copenhagen. He is also the head of the application committee for the city of Åarhus in the run to host the European Capital of Culture program in 2017. Davies talks about art and play as instruments of social engineering and urban ecology. From flash mobs to more elaborate artistic performances, playful happenings in the city innocently engage the fundamentals of society and politics.
"Arab revolutions" on one side, xenophobic withdrawal of European countries on the other, and moving from one to the other, immigrants holding on to glistening hope. On the European stage, artists are seeking to present and help us to identify with the ambivalent experiences of migration and exile.
Gigantic portraits of Palestinians and Israelis plying the same trade, stuck face to face in public areas, on either side of the Dividing Wall. That was Face2Face, a daring project which brought fame to its authors, JR and Marco. Since then, the two authors have pursued their work, springing surprises in daily city life to change our way of seeing things.
