How to Compose?
Spa.al dynamics of collec.ve ac.on 15 November – 31 December 2012
AIM OF THE PROJECT Under the recent global developments related to the growing urban protests, this exhibi@on aims at bringing ar@s@c prac@ces from the two countries (The Netherlands and Turkey) to point out to the reac@ons and responds to the liberal democra@c apparatus in rela@on to the poli@cs of space. The exhibi@on will include various media like installa@on, photography, drawings/ pain@ngs and video-‐works, and par@cipatory methods like workshops & performances and socially engaged collabora@ve projects to bring out mul@ple approaches and voices together. By juxtaposing the ar@s@c perspec@ves from two different cultures, we aimed at looking into the changing dynamics of the Dutch and Turkish socie@es, poli@cs and their urban policies as well as developing long-‐term rela@ons and networks between diverse plaNorms, ar@sts and socie@es.
TARGET GROUP
The exhibi@on is foreseen as an event rather than purely a spectacle, involving ac@vely diverse publics/audiences, networks, NGO’s, officials from the municipal bodies and ac@vists groups as well as ar@sts, students, academics and the art lovers, who claim and demand social jus@ce and spa@al equality. Besides the exhibi@on, there will be workshops, film programme, lectures and panels to unfold the theme of the exhibi@on in different formats to appeal and aUract diverse audiences.
CONCEPT How to Compose? Spa.al Dynamics of Collec.ve Ac.on “Somebody is stealing our revolu@on.” The so-‐called “Arab Spring” has struck a set of reac@ons and protests all over the world that exemplified in the Western world by the recent “Occupy Together” movement. The credit crunch of 2008 followed by the bank bailouts had crucial impact on the rise of such reac@ons. The adverse effects of the crisis have been basically compensated by cuts that increased the pressure on the low-‐income ci@zens, which in turn, pushed the limits to the extreme. Likewise, in the Northern Europe and Britain, it resulted in eradica@on of social rights and considerable reduc@on in the public services. Although it is not easy to capture the diverse demands and claims and their outcomes in different countries, such protests undoubtedly point out to the power of collec@ve ac@ons and their capacity of transforma@on and social change. The major paradigm that fostered the social change has been shi_ing. Globaliza.on and Urban Policies Although the urban context and city life has always been a par@cular interest for ar@sts, it has become a central point for ar@s@c and theore@cal research during the last two decades, especially together with the process of re-‐birth of the ci@es due to the phenomenon of Globaliza@on.
The massive global transforma@ons from na@onal to trans-‐na@onal, analogue to digital, welfare state to neo-‐liberal condi@ons that we have been going through, have had an undeniable impact and unfavorable consequences on urban development and public spaces. Two major issues are at stake: urban poli@cs and the representa@on of mul@tude in the ci@es. Actually, it is ironic to talk about neo-‐liberal urban policies now when this global economic system is going through such a serious crisis. Though this crisis manifested in the economic sphere recently, it has been alarming in social and urban structures for such a long @me, exemplified by the protests and rio@ng of third-‐genera@on immigrant youth in Paris suburbs. It has been manifes@ng as various social illnesses and severe socio-‐economic divides in many other ci@es. When we say neo-‐liberal poli@cs, we are not only talking about the priva@za@on of the major public property like energy supply, telecommunica@on, transporta@on or social housing, which is also subject to the process of gentrifica@on, but also, the rules and opera@ons of the free market economy and corpora@sm that is promoted by urban policies in the development/transforma@on of the ci@es. According to these policies, the decision-‐making mechanisms for the urban development mainly depend on market parameters and consequently, the central city is reserved for commercial concentra@on, entertainment/tourism and business, which par@cularly illustrates how ci@es transform around the culture of consump@on.
We know that the physical urban “public” spaces are under nego@a@on, however, when we talk about “public sphere” as a no@on of poli@cal forum, it needs to be redefined and reinvented from a radical perspec@ve. Since the ‘90’s, the concep@on of the bourgeois public space of Habermas has been revisited and cri@cized while new concepts such as “civic space” or “post-‐public” (Simon Sheikh) were coined to understand and define the term “public” or “public space” in the contemporary context. Today, it is not possible for us to talk about a unified and consensualized public sphere, nor a single “public” united under a “general will”. The fragmented public spaces are facilitated by a mul@tude of publics with different cultural, ethnic, religious and socio-‐ economic backgrounds. Here the ques@on is how to live together and how to organize the urban public spaces to represent the mul@tude? Social Jus.ce and Spa.al Poli.cs Alongside the growing discontent with the exis@ng regimes, governance and ideologies, urban public spaces became a stage for the expression of conflict and unrest. For instance, the recent social movement against corpora@sm “Occupy Together” reclaims the streets as a project for social jus@ce and spa@al equality. Struggles over space are central for any social movement to challenge the status quo. However, we can ask: what is the specific role of spa@al dynamics vis-‐à-‐vis the progress of such a social movement?
In diverse formats, ar@sts have been inves@ga@ng and ‘tes@ng’ the recent socio-‐ economic and poli@cal transforma@ons and their impact on social jus@ce, civil rights and spa@al poli@cs. Through their projects, ar@sts research and ar@culate diverse ways and processes in which the democra@c apparatus – freedom of speech, debate, demonstra@on / protest and poli@cal staging – operates. Furthermore, how neo-‐liberal urban policies accommodate diverse claims by diverse publics on a common ground, how urban public spaces incubate sociality, and specifically, how they allow collec@ve ac@ons become urgent topics for a growing number of ar@sts.
Exhibi@on Venue: Akbank Art Center Akbank Art Center is a pres@gious ins@tu@on that supports the most prominent contemporary art ac@vi@es in Turkey since 1993 and has hosted many highly acclaimed events in visual arts, music, theater and dance. Akbank Sanat has established a permanent role in the cultural and ar@s@c life in İstanbul. Exhibi@ons, concerts, theatre and workshop ac@vi@es, dance shows, panels, film screenings are some of these main ac@vi@es that Akbank Art Center organizes in its central building in Beyoglu. Also, ac@vi@es such as Akbank Jazz Fes@val, Akbank Chamber Orchestra, Akbank Short Film Fes@val, and Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project are being presented to art-‐lovers in different spaces around Istanbul and as well as other ci@es in Turkey. As Akbank Art Center has different possibili@es in terms of space for workshops and other educa@onal and public ac@vi@es, all floors including the cafe area will be ac@vated by ar@s@c projects and programmes. It is located at one of the most vivid urban centers in Istanbul, the Is@klal Street, we would like to enlarge the audience profile through two performa@ve and interac@ve projects involving directly the passers-‐by from the street where an average of 1.500.000 pedestrians are passing daily.
• Counterpart 2013: Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA), the Netherlands Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (SMBA) is a project space of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, located in the city centre. The objec@ve of SMBA is to present contemporary art from an Amsterdam context and therefore to create an interna@onal plaNorm by organizing exhibi@ons, lectures, debates, publica@ons and residency programmes. Jelle Bouwhuis is the current curator of SMBA. Apart from exhibi@ons, this space is also regularly suited for lectures, debates and (book) presenta@ons. In addi@on to the home base there are other projects ini@ated by SMBA scaUered around the city at various loca@ons. Since 2008 the Bureau organizes the annual interna@onal visi@ng programme for curators called Close Connec)ons. SMBA is also involved in projects like the lecture series Now is the Time (2008/2009), the manifesta@on My Name is Spinoza (2009) and is also co-‐organizer of the regular BijlmAIR residency projects, the South Axis Ar@st in Residence and, in 2009, the Red Ar@st in Residence in the city centre. These residencies enable the selected ar@sts to reflect on various aspects relevant to the respec@ve urban districts.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS The selec@on of ar@sts is in the research phase. It is intended to invite 12 -‐14 ar@sts from The Netherlands and Turkey to explore and ques@on the spa@al dynamics of collec@ve ac@on. Ar@sts like Aernout Mik, MaUhijs de Bruijne, Nicoline van Harskamp, Jonas Staal, Wouter Osterholt & Elke Uitentuis, Christoph Schaefer, Oda Projesi, Sulukule PlaNorm (Nejla Osserian), Murat-‐Fuat Şahinler, Emre Hüner, Cevdet Erek, Nasan Tur, X-‐urban and Freee are under considera@on for this exhibi@on as their research overlaps with the theme of the exhibi@on and their methods of working are in line with the aim of the exhibi@on. Eight ar@sts will be commissioned to produce new works for the project, two of which will be collabora@ve projects developed through workshops with the local communi@es, ar@sts, students, ac@vist groups and local authori@es. As the prac@ces of MaUhijs de Bruijne, the ar@st collec@ve Wouter Osterholt &Elke Uitentuis and Sulukule PlaNorm (Nejla Osserian) are based on working ac@vely with the local communi@es, two of them will be invited to develop new projects directly engaging with the specific publics. Furthermore, Nasan Tur and Jonas Staal are considered to develop performa@ve and par@cipatory projects that involve the passers-‐by in the Is@klal Street.
MaUhijs de Bruijne
Together with the ar@st MaUhijs de Bruijne, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam organised an evening with presenta@ons by ar@sts and groups focusing on the effort to create greater social solidarity. One of the points of departure for this evening is the lecture by Joost de Bloois, about precarity, art and poli@cal ac@vism. Among the ques@ons De Bloois posed in the lecture was whether ar@sts could fulfil a different role in society. In that new role they would be less oriented to individual crea@ve behaviour and affiliate more with groups in our society whose posi@on can be regarded as precarious, and which, as such, share a comparable social posi@on with that of ar@sts. A joint presenta@on by Ron Meyer of the FNV Bondgenoten / Cleaners' Union; a representa@ve of the Domes)c Workers Nederland; ar@st MaPhijs de Bruijne and the designers of Detour. In part on the ini@a@ve of Ron Meyer, the FNV some@mes takes a new tack in its campaigns. This could be seen last March at the celebra@on of the successful cleaners' strike of 2010, with the Trash Museum at Utrecht Central Sta@on. For it the FNV called in the assistance of ar@sts like MaUhijs de Bruijne and the design bureau Detour. Together with several domes@c workers they made clear what this new approach includes. An example of their collec@ve work is also part of the Informality exhibi@on.
• You are so nice! Could you work two more hours today?, 2011 Domes@c Workers Nederland (with MaUhijs de Bruijne and Detour )
• You are so nice! Could you work two more hours today?, 2011 Installa@on
MaUhijs de Bruijne and Domes@c Workers Nederland (Cleaners Union/FNV Bondgenoten) filmed a approximately 10 minutes shadow play. The video shows the invisible work, most of the @mes executed by people from out of the European Union.
• I will not ask anything about you, you will not ask anything about me, 2011 Domes@c Workers (Cleaners Union/FNV Bondgenoten) , concept and edi@on by MaUhijs de Bruijne
Shadow play -‐ Could you come today?
I will not ask anything about you, you will not ask anything about me, 2011
Domes@c Workers (Cleaners Union/FNV Bondgenoten), concept and edi@on by MaUhijs de Bruijne Shadow play – I have 21 house keys
• I will not ask anything about you, you will not ask anything about me, 2011
Domes@c Workers (Cleaners Union/FNV Bondgenoten), concept and edi@on by MaUhijs de Bruijne Shadow play -‐ I have 21 house keys
Ma#hijs de Bruijne’s mul@media installa@ons are o_en a reflec@on of anthropological research, in which encounters and exchanges based on the principle of reciprocity form the basis. He wants to limit his own role as much as possible and uses sound, voices and series of slides to create non-‐interpre@ve factual accounts. December 2001 and his first working period in Argen@na can be seen as a major and radical turning point in his method of working. MaUhijs de Bruijne landed in the middle of the social reality of a bankrupt state. He made contact with the 'cartoneros': the poorest group of Buenos Aires that lives from collec@ng and selling garbage and designed for them a post order website where their objects and dreams are offered for sale. This experience proved how tangible and personal poli@cs can be and confronted the ar@st with the Western dilemma to always be able to come and go again. Recent Exhibi.ons “Liquidacion.org”, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven (2003) “Ex-‐Argen@na”, Ludwig Museum, Cologne (2004) “¿Com volem ser governats?”, MACBA, Barcelona (2004) “o.T. [City IV]”, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig (2005) “Be what you want, but stay where you are”, WiUe de With, RoUerdam (2005) “El Comedor”, VRIZA, Amsterdam (2005) “La normalidad / Ex-‐Argen@na”, Palais de Glace, Buenos Aires (2006),
Aernout Mik
• A Survey – ShiJing, SiKng (for Spinoza), 2009 Video installa@on
A Survey – Shi4ing Si6ng is a preliminary study for a video to be made with en@rely stage-‐managed materials. Mik selected and examined raw documentary material from different interna@onal press bureaus such as ITN/Reuters and AP. They are images of gatherings of groups of people, varying from court si}ngs, parliamentary si}ngs, public hearings, spontaneously organized representa@ve associa@ons of representa@ons, local authori@es, etc. In this three channel work, Mik will be manoeuvring between two extremes, from loose, open gatherings to more coercive, repressive structures; showing individuals striving for power versus coopera@ve ways of taking decisions and organizing; lack of free will and being taken over by collec@ve tendencies versus sincere considera@on and tolerance. Moments materialize in which the one extreme appears to absorb the other, where the situa@on seems to be ambiguous and suddenly in the other be able to turn things around. The emo@onal errors, compulsiveness and dependency of people are visible, but also clearer moments of reasonableness, human equality and peace will appear.
• A Survey – ShiJing, SiKng (for Spinoza), 2009 Video installa@on
Nicoline van Harskamp
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Any Other Business, Amsterdam, 2009 Scripted conference / mul@-‐channel video installa@on 6 hours (live) / 45 mins (video)
From a private archive of recorded public debates, Van Harskamp selected ten recordings that each have a cri@cal moment or ‘plot’ in them. She compiled the script for the staging of Any other Business. Uniquely structured as an ordinary conference, and set in a commercial conven@on centre, every single item on the program was scripted and staged. In three different rooms, thirty-‐five actors performed ten mee@ngs over the course of six hours. An intriguing narra@ve developed over the course of the a_ernoon, as the speakers increasingly struggled to suppress their urge to act rather than talk. A debate on public conduct ended up in a dog fight; an ac@vist denounced nonviolent tac@cs; and when an unexpected event shook up the conference, the self-‐proclaimed ‘vanguard of the poli@cally conscious class’ was unable to keep its calm or find words for what had happened. Together, they demonstrate the physical forces and desires at play in regular poli@cal debates, and subtly present impossibility of limi@ng poli@cs to a ra@onal process of verbal interac@on.
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Any Other Business, Amsterdam, 2009 Scripted conference / mul@-‐channel video installa@on 6 hours (live) / 45 mins (video)
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Any Other Business, Amsterdam, 2009 Scripted conference / mul@-‐channel video installa@on 6 hours (live) / 45 mins (video)
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Any Other Business, Amsterdam, 2009 Scripted conference / mul@-‐channel video installa@on 6 hours (live) / 45 mins (video)
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Any Other Business, Amsterdam, 2009 Scripted conference / mul@-‐channel video installa@on 6 hours (live) / 45 mins (video)
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The New La)n, Bucharest, 2010 Scripted ar@st talk and video Romanian, English sub@tles, 30 mins
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Tes)ng the Collec)ve, Amsterdam, 2008 Installa@on with computer surveys
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The Power of Listening, Amsterdam / RoUerdam, 2009 Live events and installa@on
Jonas Staal
• Allegories of Good and Bad Government, 2011 Installa@on and series of lectures and debates Four day debate, related to an exhibi@on and lecture series in W139, in which four poli@cians and four ar@sts lived and worked together during four days and three nights. In this con@nuous conversa@on, they collabora@vely searched for what could be a shared agenda between both their disciplines, depar@ng from the convic@on that art and poli@cs are intrinsically connected through their roles as co-‐designers of society. During the four days, no audience was allowed to aUend the conversa@on, which instead was transcribed in real @me by municipal clerks. The wriUen transcrip@on of the conversa@on could be followed on a large screen in the exhibi@on space as well as online on the website. The clerks were asked not to men@on any of the partcipants’ names, which resulted in a shared discourse, in which all par@cipants took responsibility for what the others said. This Gesamtkunstwerk will take the final shape of a book, which will form the basis for future collabora@on. The exhibi@on in the front space of W139 consisted of the visual presenta@on of different cases, supplied by the par@cipants, which addressed a specific element of the rela@onship between art and poli@cs. These presenta@ons comprised poli@cal programs, artworks, and ar@cles. Together they made up the blueprint for the four day conversa@on. The project was framed by a series of three symposiums in which respec@vely the past, present, and future collabora@ons between art and poli@cs were discussed, en@tled: What Project Will Art and Poli)cs Share? Past-‐Present-‐Future
• Allegories of Good and Bad Government, 2010 Installa@on and series of lectures and debates
• Allegories of Good and Bad Government, 2010 Installa@on and series of lectures and debates
• The Missing Link, 2010 Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa Interven@on on the monument en@tles The Seven Pillars of the Cons)tu)on, part of the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Seven Pillars represent the cons@tu@onal values propagated in South Africa since the aboli@on of the apartheid regime. The monument and museum were built by the Gold Reef Resorts corpora@on, which is also responsible for the theme park and casino next to it. By placing the word “capitalism” on the wall surrounding the museum, the capitalist system and the constant social divisions that it implies are interpreted as a sophis@c con@nua@on of apartheid poli@cs. Through the capitalist system, apartheid is s@ll opera@onal within South African society. Whereas during the apartheid regime, the separa@on clearly ran along race divisions, in the current, “democra@c” system, the same actual separa@on is sustained without it being an explicit element of the founda@ons of the country, i.e. the cons@tu@on. This interven@on foregrounds the constant role of capitalism in both periods. At the same @me the interven@on acknowledges that contemporary Western ar@sthood is a mirror of the privileges that are offered by the capitalist system, and the type of ar)st that it produces. The interven@on ini@ates a cri@cal discourse concerning the capitalist system situated within the disaster of capitalism itself, in other words: through the desire to break with the presump@on that art would be able to operate outside the capitalist system and to confirm that art – and the ar@st himself – is in fact modelled on this system.
• The Missing Link, 2010 Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
• The Missing Link, 2010 Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
• Be Free! Or Else…. , 2010 Libera@on day, 5th of May
On 5 May 2010, Libera@on Day, two airplanes were circling above the center of Amsterdam for the dura@on of four hours. Banners, aUached behind the planes, featured the texts ‘BE FREE!’ and ‘OR ELSE…’. The project addressed the paradoxical character of the concept of freedom. In our current society, this concept is increasingly acquiring a fundamentalist character, and can therefore best be interpreted as the impera@ve ‘Be free!’ Addi@onally, the work addressed the representa@on of freedom: during the last decade, the blue sky and the two airplanes have lost their meaning as signs of liberty, and have instead become associated with imminent threat and sudden erup@ons of violence.
• Be Free! Or Else…. , 2010 Libera@on day, 5th of May
• Be Free! Or Else…. , 2010 Libera@on day, 5th of May
• Be Free! Or Else…. , 2010 Libera@on day, 5th of May
Jonas Staal studied monumental art in Enschede (NL) and Boston, Massachusets (USA). His work is on display interna@onally through interven@ons in public space, exhibi@ons, lectures and publica@ons. In his work, Staal explicitly engages with poli@cal themes and developments, and through an interpreta@on reminiscent of Beuys he approaches the concept of democracy (as democra@sm) as a Gesamtkunstwerk, in which a co-‐ authorship with poli@cs is key. In his essay “Post-‐Progaganda” (Fonds BKVB, 2009), he explained the theore@cal framework of this par@cular approach, which led to immediate collabora@ons with various poli@cal par@es. Staal lives and works in RoUerdam (NL).
Wouter Osterholt & Elke Uitentuis
• Model Ci)zens, Cairo, Egypt, 2009
The Model Ci<zens – Con<nuum project is the result of an ar@st-‐in-‐residence project taken up by ar@sts Wouter osterholt and Elke Uitentuis in the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo. Intrigued by social changes taking place within an urban se}ng, Osterholt and Uitentuis created an astonishingly true-‐to-‐life scale-‐model of the An@khana district of Cairo. Downtown Cairo is in the midst of tremendous changes, as businesses, ins@tu@ons, and individuals are reloca@ng to new developments on the outskirts of the city. Now, some speculate, the government has plans to transform An@khana into a more tourist-‐ friendly district. Model Ci)zens proposes an alterna@ve vision for the future of the neighborhood: One imagined by the community itself. Collabora@ng with local ar@sts, the personal wishes of local residents were assimilated into the model. As a result of which the once so realis@c model was gradually changed into an utopian Lillipu@an landscape.
• Model Ci)zens, Cairo, Egypt, 2009
• Model Ci)zens, Cairo, Egypt, 2009
• Model Ci)zens, Cairo, Egypt, 2009
Christoph Schäfer
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The City is Our Factory, 2010 Visual essay of 158 drawings
Schaefer tells a rhizoma@c story in six chapters of urban life from the primordial sludge of ci@es to the Right to the City movement in Hamburg in 2009. He traces the concept of landscapes from Henri Lefebvre, from "The revolu@on of the Ci@es", which the French philosopher saw looming in the 1970s post-‐industrial age, to the theory that the city itself is the central produc@on site. In the urban fabric today, subcultures, ar@sts, and designers play an important role as producers of collec@ve spaces, as the inventors of places of desire. In a society where passion and work, privacy and professionalism are increasingly difficult to dis@nguish, the baUle for the city is a struggle for the means of produc@on: a struggle for the right city. What alterna@ves to the neoliberal urbaniza@on model can be developed? You know, the model that con@nues producing black holes, financial crises, buried city archives, marke@ng idioms? A giant, singing Pitbull in The City is Our Factory has the answer: "Señoras y Señores, the ci@es of the mul@tude will be places of passion, or Ladies and Gentlemen, they will be nothing!"
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The City is Our Factory, 2010 Visual essay of 158 drawings
Christoph Schäfer is an ar@st whose work is commiUed to issues of the urban domain and comprises strong visual, spa@al, performa@ve, theore@cal and ac@vist strategies. He engages in long term projects within the urban contexts as well as in social movements. Since 1995, he is part of the Park Fic@on Project, a self-‐organized ini@a@ve that brought together a group of residents of St Pauli district of Hamburg into a collec@ve process of produc@on of desires, deriving in the delving, aUaining and development of a public park at the riverbank, managing to break from the grip of real estate developers an expensive piece of land. Schäfer par@cipated in DOCUMENTA 11 with this project. Other projects include the research of irregular seUlements and gated communi@es in Delhi and Bangalore (developed as guest of the Sarai Media Lab), the installa@on Auslaufendes Rot, an@-‐monument for the Red Ruhr Army (in the context of RUHR.2010) or the subcura@on of the congress Unlikely Encounters in Urban Space. His book The City is Our Factory tells the story of the city in 156 drawings from the Neanderthaler to the Right to the City -‐movement in Hamburg. He is also part of Es Regnet Kaviar (It’s Raining Caviar -‐ Ac@on Network against Gentrifica@on), and the neighborhood organiza@on NoBNQ.
Murat-‐Fuat Şahinler
• Quay, Istanbul Biennial 2001
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Park Kafes (Park cages), 2002 -‐ 2004 Installa@on
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Park Kafes (Park cages), 2002 – 2004 Installa@on
• Bu Da Geçer Ya Hu – This Too Shall Pass Installa@on
Murat and Fuat Şahinler who designed the calligraphic installa@on that reads What a pleasure and This Too Shall Pass on the side façade of the post office building in the square, designed sea@ng units with the saying What a Pleasure and installed them at several points in the overtly beau@ful and neglected Persembe Pazari Park and on the dock plaNorm on its con@nua@on. At the car park the saying This too shall pass in light box leUers, was installed in between the floors by reinterpre@ng this calligraphy in La@n leUers. As the Persembe Pazar iPark is situated across the most picturesque view in Istanbul, the historical peninsula with Suleymaniye Mosque at the top, it has a sublime eleva@on and sorrow simultaneously. What a pleasure refers to the pleasant experience in the parkas a public space on the coastline of the Golden Horn, not yet priva@zed, so it can s@ll be enjoyed. Wri@ng This too shall pass on the car park, the group is referring to actually breaking down the seven floor car park to create a small square at the entrance of the Mari@me Company for the passengers, at the same @me, points to the invasion of the overblown automobile culture and the Karakoy area which exemplifies this condi@on.
• Bu Da Geçer Ya Hu – This Too Shall Pass Installa@on
• Bu Da Geçer Ya Hu – This Too Shall Pass Installa@on
• Bu Da Geçer Ya Hu – This Too Shall Pass Installa@on
• Bu Da Geçer Ya Hu – This Too Shall Pass Installa@on
Fuat Sahinler (architect) and Murat Sahinler (ar@st/urban interior designer) o_en work together and mostly in collabora@on with other ar@sts, architects, musicians, thinkers and writers. Sahinler's work is a result of their daily prac@ces, focusing mostly on the cultural, socio-‐economic, spa@al and architectural 'diseases', 'accidents' and 'wonders' of urbanism, especially of Istanbul. The axis of their research is based on the conflict between public and private spaces, and fragmenta@on and spa@al con@nuity. They do not privilege any medium or material to another, but they facilitate all types of media and materials from a mul@-‐lingual approach in accordance with what the project necessitates and also with the availabili@es. Separately and together, they par@cipated in various workshops and exhibi@ons and produced several projects on urbanism and public domain. Selected exhibi@ons are the 6th and 7th Interna@onal Istanbul Biennials (1999 and 2001), 1st Interna@onal Beijing Biennale (2003), Beijing, “Call Me Istanbul”, ZKM, Karlsruhe (2004), “Istanbul Pedestrian Exhibi@ons 1 and 2” (2002 and 2005), Istanbul, “Urban Reviews”(2004), ifa gallery, Berlin and StuUgard, “Dynamics of the Urban Culture”, 9th Havana Biennial (2006), Havana, “Wandering Lines: Towards A New Culture of Space”, the 5th Scape Biennial of Art in Public Space (2008), Christchurch and “Bridges to Istanbul” (2010), Centro Cultural De Belem, Lisbon.
Nejla Osserian (Sulukule PlaNorm)
• Canim Sulukule.. / My Beloved Sulukule.. Film, 10 min
This photo-‐reportage witnesses the last 2 and a half years of Sulukule, a gypsy neighborhood in Istanbul now completely demolished as part of an urban transforma@on project carried out by the Fa@h municipality, during the years 2005-‐2010. The people of Sulukule themselves wanted to have their pictures taken and they posed for the camera desiring to have one last memento of their homeland. In the background is the voice of Gulsum Abla, whose house in Sulukule was under the threat of demoli@on at the @me, but now also demolished. She tells us her feelings about being a gypsy, living in poverty and discrimina@on. She talks about the old happy days of her childhood in her beloved Sulukule. Her song at the end sums it up: ‘I’m All Alone’.
• Canim Sulukule.. / My Beloved Sulukule.. Film, 10 min
• Canim Sulukule.. / My Beloved Sulukule.. Film, 10 min
• Canim Sulukule.. / My Beloved Sulukule.. Film, 10 min
Oda Projesi
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Migra)ng Gardens, 2009
Migra@ng Gardens is a collabora@ve project by Oda Projesi and Nis Rømer reflec@ng on the rela@on of micro-‐scale farming and migra@on. It is an inves@ga@on of why people move from one environment to another and how they manifest themselves in the city with their prac@ces/professions from where they come from. The collabora@on of Oda Projesi and Nis Rømer started with an inspira@onal visit to a Bostan, (old vegetable gardens of İstanbul) situated along the old walls of the city, s@ll lying in its space of origin as a way of trea@ng the land. The "bostan tradi@on" exists in the city of Istanbul since the Byzan@an Period and was run by different people men@oned to be “minority” and is now run by the immigrants from the other regions of Turkey. The project looks at the usage of city space in different terms and point out to the micro scale interven@ons. The show was accompanied by a free newspaper with ar@cles around the Bostan effect and the situa@on in Denmark both from geographical, NGO’s, historical perspec@ve and with interviews with the gardeners from İstanbul and Copenhagen. The exhibi@on shared the documenta@on of the research while the lake hosted the floa@ng gardens in inflated tractor tubes, a reference to the prac@ce by some refugees aUemp@ng to cross the Mediterranean using inflated tubes as vessels.
• Migra)ng gardens
• Migra)ng gardens
Oda Projesi is an ar@st collec@ve based in Istanbul, composed of three members, Seçil Yersel, Özge Açıkkol and Güneş Savaş, who turned their collabora@on into an art project in 2000. The project members met in 1997 and decided to rent and share an apartment as a studio. Although not intended, the apartment they rented in Galata eventually evolved into a mul@-‐purpose, private and public place. Between 2000-‐2005 the group worked in the neighbourhood and was invited to many events and projects abroad in the mean@me. Due to the gentrifica@on process in the region, the group had to leave their place, so they are now mobile and thinking about the possibili@es concerning new places. On each project, Oda Projesi works with different tools and strategies; working with “neighbours” and with people from different disciplines, producing posters, adver@sements, stories, postcards, newspapers, broadcas@ng on a local radio channel, working in a minibus … Istanbul as a city has a great effect on the project and on the tac@cs the group produces.
Emre Hüner
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The New Horizon, 2011 Installa@on
Following his breakthrough at the Manifesta 7 (2008), Emre Hüner presents The New Horizon at Stroom Den Haag, his first solo exhibi@on in a European ins@tute. In his work Hüner deals with shaUered dreams of modernity -‐ of social utopia, historical progress and material plenty for all -‐ in the form of a re-‐assembled universe. The New Horizon is shaped a_er American designer Norman Bel Geddes' imagina@ve futuris@c visions of social utopia in the 1930s and Paul Virilio's hypermodern readings on the transformed world percep@on caused by changing human modes of locomo@on and warfare. It brings together very recent work including the film Juggernaut (2009) in an exclusive environment prepared by Diplomacy in Reflex (Can Altay, Asli Kalinoglu, Nilufer Kocabas) in response to his work, both hos@ng the pieces and forming an addi@onal layer.
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The New Horizon, 2011 Installa@on
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The New Horizon, 2011 Installa@on
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The New Horizon, 2011 Installa@on
Born in Istanbul at 1977, Emre Hüner is an ar@st producing drawing, video and spa@al works following different techniques. He now lives and works in Amsterdam as resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten a_er being in Milan for eight years and three years in Istanbul. Central to his oeuvre are over technological, industrial progressions and the concept of society of risk in this respect and the themes such as the affini@es of the modern man with architecture and nature. Huner creates a common language in his works through using an archive he formed out of various sources such as internet, found out pictures and books. In 2008 he has par@cipated in two special projects, The Marmara Pera Screen, Yama, Istanbul where he realized “Total Realm” (2008) , a public screen video made of tableaux showing totalitarian imaginary and symbols, referring to the modernist utopia and to the Bidoun Project, Creek Art Fair, Dubai with “Panop@kon” (2005). Hüner lastly also par@cipated to “ The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art” Gallery of Modern Art of Queensland, Brisbane , Australia (2009) , “ The Genere@onal : Younger then Jesus”, New Museum , New York , USA (2009) , at “Manifesta 7 – The Rest of Now” South Tyrol Italy (2008) , to the “10th Interna@onal Istanbul Biennial” Istanbul (2007) and he published an ar@st book “Bent 003” through BAS in Istanbul (2007) Istanbul , Turkey.
Cevdet Erek
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1st of May, 2010 Taksim Square
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Rulers and Rhythm Studies, 2011 Installa@on
Rulers and Rhythm Studies relates to the ar@cula@on of @me and space. His collec@on of rulers, made since 2007, bears inscrip@ons of years in La@n and Arabic, as well as "0" and "NOW." A key piece in this series is Ruler Coup (2009), upon which he has inscribed "1923," "1960," "1971," "1980," and "2009," which for a Turkish person will stand out as the dates of founda@on of the Turkish Republic, the three military interven@ons, and the date the piece was made.
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Rulers and Rhythm Studies, 2011 Installa@on
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Shading Monument for the Ar)st, 2009 -‐ 2011 Installa@on
Shading Monument for the Ar.sts honours those who, voluntarily or not, have 'le_ their homelands to create freely in the heroic struggle for art'. Is it possible to call an act of ar@s@c crea@on heroic? Erek raises this ques@on in his work. The physical proper@es of the installa@on betray the subjec@ve nature of this ques@on: the work is composed of three-‐dimensional leUers which cast changing shadows on adjacent walls, depending on the amount and direc@on of light that reaches them. The text is from monuments dedicated to the an@fascist Interna@onal Brigades of the Spanish Civil War. Using the flee@ng shadows of appropriated monumental inscrip@ons to pay tribute to ar@sts brings us back to the shi_ing essence of the very no@on of the 'struggle for art'.
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Shading Monument for the Ar)st, 2009 -‐ 2011 Installa@on
Cevdet Erek was born in Istanbul in 1974. He studied architecture at the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts between 1992 and 1999. While prac@cing as an architect and performing with the Istanbul avant-‐garde rock group Necropsy, he finished his master’s degree in sound engineering and design at the Center for Advanced Studied in Museum of Istanbul Technical University in 2003. He then con@nued his doctoral degree in Sound at the Centre for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM) of Istanbul Technical University Istanbul. During 2005 and 2006, he studied at the Rijksakademie Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Erek received prizes such as Garan@bank Award (2005) and the Uriot Prize, Rijksakademie Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam (2006). Erek’s work is characterized by a marked use of rhythm and site specificity. He combines video, sound and images, o_en in an aUempt to alter the viewer’s percep@on and experience of a given space. The result func@ons as a hypothesis, probing the viewer’s ins@nc@ve logic and thus appealing to the senses. Erek manages to combine ra@onal components such as references to architecture and linear @me with ins@nc@ve impulses, thereby leveling the gap between two supposedly opposing spheres. Erek has had several solo exhibi@ons and par@cipated in many group exhibi@ons in Turkey and abroad. In 2008, he published his book, SSS-‐Theme and varia@ons for carpet (Istanbul: BAS Ar@st Books, 2008). Currently, he lives and works in Istanbul.
Nasan Tur
• Demo-‐, Cooking-‐ and Speaker Backpack, 2006
Each backpack has a certain/special func@on. They consist of an omnium gatherum of objects that allow for the use of each backpack in it's thought for way. During the exhibi@on the visitors have the possibility to borrow the backpacks und use them in public. Where and for what they demonstrate or sabotage, for whom they cook or whom they are fan of is their own decision. The work "backpacks" only puts the materials at their disposal and allows for the necessary mobility.
• Demo-‐, Cooking-‐ and Speaker Backpack, 2006
Nasan Tur was born in Offenbach, Germany in 1974, lives and works in London and Frankfurt. He studied at the HfG Offenbach and the Städelschule Frankfurt/Main. Tur uses the mediums of photography, video, installa@on, performance and interven@on in the public space for the inves@ga@on of social behavioural paUerns and the influence of poli@cal ac@ons. He o_en creates his work in the form of an art plaNorm where the viewers can take an ac@ve role, such as in a recent work featured in the 10th Istanbul Biennial @tled 'Backpacks'. Here visitors were invited to borrow specially composed mul@-‐task backpacks, that combined a selec@on of materials and props for par@cular acts. On leaving the exhibi@on venue and entering the public realm with the backpack the par@cipants could use the items they found in their chosen bag for acts such as forming a demonstra@on, making a public announcement, cooking on the side-‐walk etc., Tur's videos o_en document planned but unusual acts by himself or other protagonists. Tur's work has been included in exhibi@ons such as Tac@cs of Invisibility, Thyssen-‐Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria and Tanas, Berlin, Germany (2010); The Only One, Trieste Contemporanea, Italy (2010); The Disasters of Peace, Umspannwerk Berlin-‐Tiergarten, Germany (2010); Nishiko-‐Nasan Tur-‐Chris Burden, Walden Affairs Gallery, Den Haag, The Netherlands (2010); Starter, Arter, Istanbul, Turkey (2010); Journey’s with No Return, A Founda@on, London, UK (2010); Studies&Theory, KWADRAT, Berlin, Germany (2010); Transit: Istanbul, Passage de Retz, Paris, France (2010); Nasan Tur-‐Frischzelle, Kunstmuseum StuUgart, Germany (2009); Playing The City, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (2009); Collec@on Dubai, SMART Project Space, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2009); SCAPE Biennial, New Zealand (2008); 6th Taipei Biennial, Taiwan (2008); Becoming Istanbul, Deutsches Architektur Museum, Germany (2008). Nasan Tur lives and works in London and Frankfurt.
Xurban Â
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Evacua)on #1 : The Sacred Evacua)on, 2010 Installa@on
Xurban_collec@ve’s Evacua.on Series, begun in 2010, explores the idea of global social spaces as they relate to the ques@on of distributed localiza@on. Each instance examines the par@cular typology of a specific built environment. In short, Evacua@on Series specifically inves@gates office spaces, houses, mar@al arts and religious centers according to their common denominators across na@onalized territories. Based on this research, the project involves designing, building, and furnishing par@cular social spaces. These spaces are incomplete and func@on as a form of evacua@on of some of their culturally recognizable ar@facts and objects, revealing the ‘bare space,’ its poten@al and limita@ons for democra@c par@cipa@on. The first installment of this series at T-‐B A21 in Vienna is based on modern concep@ons of mescids. The Turkish mescid—originally from the Arabic word masjid (mosque)— designates smaller prayer rooms that are usually installed in haphazard ways in ‘modern’ buildings. They can be found in shopping malls, business centers, schools, hospitals, and apartments in almost every city around the world. Most of these spaces do not exist in the original architectural plans, but are carved out from garages, basements, warehouses, or empty apartments and storage spaces. Their spa@al configura@ons differ from the architecture of the tradi@onal mosque, which is conceived and designed as a monumental building.
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Evacua)on #1 : The Sacred Evacua)on, 2010 Installa@on
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Evacua)on #1 : The Sacred Evacua)on, 2010 Installa@on
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Sea of Marble, 2010
Sea of Marble: A Naviga)onal Convergence project is conceived in three parts. First, xurban_collec@ve’s exhibi@on is based on the visual research in ci@es including Athens, Marseille, Istanbul, Izmir and New York. Second, a symposium took place on December 4th, 2010 at Antrepo No:5, an old warehouse in Istanbul port. Par@cipants of this symposium include Ursula Biemann (Zürich) and Shuruq A. M. Harb (Ramallah), TJ Demos (London), John Palmesino (London), Vyjayanthi Rao (New York), Alex Villar (New York) and Relli De Vries (Tel Aviv). xurban_collec@ve and their project partners took the role of moderators and respondents for each presenta@on along with Aslihan Demirtas (New York). The third part of the project is a book and the website which gather and archive the project’s visual materials, presenta@ons and discussions in a unified format.
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Sea of Marble, 2010
xurban members are stalkers of the urban landscape, looking for what is desolate, neglected, ruined and derelict in the metropolis as the sign of the @mes. They live in Ankara/Istanbul/New York, and their work incorporates photography, video, computer graphics, installa@on and interac@ve digital media. They sign their collabora@ve projects as a collec@ve and claim that collec@ve work overcomes and excludes the problem of the ar@st’s iden@ty from the prac@ce of art. In past years, their work has been exhibited in Istanbul , the US and Germany, and at the Venice Biennial and the Istanbul Biennial. For the 8th Istanbul Biennial they set up a mission to acquire a defunct fuel tank from Southeastern Anatolia and transport it from Istanbul to the region and back, documen@ng the phases of the transna@onal transport of oil using photography, video, and sound recordings.
Freee
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Adver)sing For All; Or For Nobody At All; Reclaim Public Opinion, 2009 Billboard Installa@on
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Protest Drives History, 2008 Poster Installa@on
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Protest Drives History, 2008 Poster Installa@on
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Protest is Beau)ful, 2008
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How to be Hospitable, 2008 Digital Print
Freee is a collec@ve made up of three ar@sts, Dave Beech, Andy HewiU and Mel Jordan, who work together on slogans, billboards and publica@ons that challenge the commercial and bureaucra@c coloniza@on of the public sphere of opinion forma@on. Freee occupies the public sphere with works that take sides, speak their mind and divide opinion. Dave Beech, born Warrington 1965, studied Fine Art at Leicester Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art. Beech is a member of the art collec@ve Freee, writer and lecturer at Chelsea College of Art. He is also a regular writer for Art Monthly and other art magazines. He co-‐authored the book The Philis)ne Controversy, Verso (2002) with John Roberts. Andy HewiP, born Hull 1966, studied Design at Staffordshire Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art. HewiU is a member of the art collec@ve Freee and lecturer at University of Wolverhampton. He is currently undertaking a PhD in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art. He has co-‐authored the forthcoming book Futurology, New Art Gallery Walsall (2008) with Mel Jordan. Mel Jordan, born London 1966, studied Fine Art at Leicester Polytechnic and Birmingham Polytechnic. Jordan is a member of the art collec@ve Freee and teaches at Loughborough University. She co-‐edited the book Art and Theory aJer Socialism, Intellect (2009) with Malcolm Miles and she has co-‐authored the forthcoming book Futurology, New Art Gallery Walsall (2009) with Andy HewiU.
Freee’s recent projects include: Nought to Sixty, at the ICA, London; Terms Of Use, Centro Cultural, Montehermoso, Vitoria, Spain, curated by Lisa Rosendahl; How To Be Hospitable, solo exhibi.on at the Collec.ve Gallery, Edinburgh; How To Make A Difference, solo exhibi.on at Interna.onal Project Space, Birmingham and Protest is Beau.ful, solo exhibi.on at 1000000mph Gallery, London. Past projects include: Gavin Wade’s Strategic Ques.ons: 31. What Are Aesthe.cs? at the Venice Biennale 2005, B+B’s Real Estate at the ICA London 2005, and the Guangzhou Triennale curated by Hou Hanru in China 2005.
FILM SCREENING PROGRAM
A selec@on of documentary and feature films will be weekly screened, layering the concept of the exhibi@on by providing an overarching perspec@ve to the crisis of global capitalism.
Mark Boulos
All That is Solid Melts into Air, 2008 All That Is Solid Melts Into Air highlights the distance between global capital specula@on and its local effects. The work consists of two videos projected which confront the viewing audience with conflic@ng yet inextricably emeshed forces. One screen presents frenzied stock traders at the Chicago Mercan@le Exchange— the largest commodi@es exchange in the world—specula@ng on the futures of oil; the other shows documentary footage of guerrilla fighters from the Movement for the Emancipa@on of the Niger Delta (MEND) preparing for baUle against oil companies that extract and export oil from their land.
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All That is Solid Melts into Air, 2008 Video
Imre Azem
Ecumenopolis, 2011
Ecumenopolis aims for a holis@c approach to Istanbul, ques@oning not only the transforma@on, but the dynamics behind it as well. From demolished shantytowns to the tops of skyscrapers, from the depths of Marmaray to the alterna@ve routes of the 3rd bridge, from real estate investors to urban opposi@on, the film will take us on a long journey in this city without limits. We will speak with experts, academics, writers, investors, city-‐dwellers, and community leaders; and we will take a look at the city on a macro level through animated maps and graphics. Perhaps you will rediscover the city that you live in and we hope that you will not sit back and watch this transforma@on but ques@on it. In the end this is what democracy requires of us.
• Ekümenopolis, 2011 Documentary
Helena Norberg -‐ Hodge Steven Gorelick, and John Page
The Economics of Happiness, 2011 The film features many voices from six con@nents calling for systemic economic change. The documentary describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing direc@ons. While government and big business con@nue to promote globaliza@on and the consolida@on of corporate power, people around the world are resis@ng those policies and working to forge a very different future. Communi@es are coming together to re-‐build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm: an economics of localiza@on
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The Economics of Happiness, 2011 Video
Paula van der Oest
The Domino Effect, 2012 (In the Post Produc<on Process) If global economy came to a sudden stop what would be the effect on families worldwide? People in different countries or con@nents might not seem to be interrelated but there is more than meets the eye and we might be more connected than we some@mes like to think
Allan Sekula and Noel Burch
The Forgo#en Space, 2010 The ForgoUen Space follows container cargo aboard ships, barges, trains and trucks, listening to workers, engineers, planners, poli@cians, and those marginalized by the global transport system. We visit displaced farmers and villagers in Holland and Belgium, underpaid truck drivers in Los Angeles, seafarers aboard mega-‐ships shuUling between Asia and Europe, and factory workers in China, whose low wages are the fragile key to the whole puzzle. And in Bilbao, we discover the most sophis@cated expression of the belief that the mari@me economy, and the sea itself, is somehow obsolete. A range of materials is used: descrip@ve documentary, interviews, archive s@lls and footage, clips from old movies. Sekula and Burch do not present the problems of globalisa@on as an inevitable truth, but as a puzzle; a mystery that gradually becomes clearer as the film moves on, but for which they merely hint at a solu@on. The result is an essayis@c, visual documentary about one of the most important processes that affects us today. The ForgoUen Space is based on Sekula’s Fish Story, seeking to understand and describe the contemporary mari@me world in rela@on to the complex symbolic legacy of the sea.
The makers came up with the idea for The ForgoUen Space following the construc@on of the Betuwe route, a dedicated freight railway line that runs from RoUerdam to the German border. The ini@al commissioning party for the work was the Municipality of Lingewaal. SKOR | Founda@on for Art and Public Domain subsequently came up with the ini@a@ve of a film produc@on with Allan Sekula and Noël Burch. The film was produced by Doc Eye with WILDart Film as co-‐producer. Other co-‐ financiers are the Austrian Film Ins@tute, Eurimage, the VPRO and CoBO.
PANEL DISCUSSIONS AND LECTURES There will be workshops, lectures and panel discussions on the topics of urban policies, collec@ve ac@ons and social-‐spa@al jus@ce, which are urgent topics considering the incredible pace of urban development in Istanbul. As it is a burning issue related to daily lives and rhythms of the majority of the popula@on living in Istanbul, these events are planned to func@on as public forums. Through these ac@vi@es, it is intended to open up the event in different levels so that various layers of social strata can involve ac@vely. The main goal of the educa@onal ac@vi@es is to raise consciousness and influence the percep@on and experience of the publics/audiences on the issues related to public domain, democracy, ci@zenship and spa@al jus@ce from a radical point of view. Hence, they can take a poli@cal stand concerning the development plans of their neighborhoods, the city and society at large. In order to create a debate plaNorm that puts across and ar@culates the conflicts and contrasts between different posi@ons and perspec@ves, the panels are planned accordingly to bring together official, academic, ac@vist and ar@s@c standpoints. In addi@on to the ar@st talks with the par@cipa@ng ar@sts, 2 speakers from the Netherlands, such as Ernst van den Hemel (Philosopher / Ac@vist), Arnold Reijndorp (Urban Historian / Academician) or Merijn Oudenampsen (Poli@cal Sociologist) and 2 speakers from Turkey such as Pelin Tan (Urban Sociologist), Deniz Incedayi (Chair of the
Chamber of Architects, Istanbul) and Hade Türkmen (Ac@vist) are considered to give lectures, take part in the panels and make workshops with different NGO and ac@vist plaNorms on the recent urban policies and reac@ons to it. Ernst van den Hemel is part of the ar@s@c collec@ve that runs De Schijnheilig, a squaUed, independent cultural center in the heart of Amsterdam. Merijn Oudenampsen is animator of the cri@cal plaNorm Flexmens.org. He has been involved in organising poli@cal projects and debates around flexibility and precarity, such as the PrecairForum in 2005, and a Mayday symposium at de Balie in 2006. At the moment he is wri@ng his thesis on crea@ve city branding, entrepreneurialism and gentrifica@on in Amsterdam. Hade Türkmen is a researcher at Urban Policy Planning Department at Middle East University and a member of IMECE-‐Urbanism Movement. She regularly writes ar@cles about urban policies for Birgun Newspaper. Deniz İncedayı is the Chair of the Chamber of Architects, Istanbul and the head of the Architecture Department at Mimar Sinan Fine Art University.
CATALOGUE An exhibi@on catalogue will be published as a part of the project. In the catalogue besides the introduc@on of the conceptual framework and ar@st projects, there will be commissioned papers from selected thinkers/writers, spa@al planners, poli@cians, ac@vists and academicians.