Art intervention at the G8-summit 2007
May 24th – June 9th, 2007 in Rostock
Curator: Adrienne Goehler
Silverpearl Congress Center & Spa
"Silver Pearl Congresscenter & Spa" is the heart and center of ■ ART GOES HEILIGENDAMM. The characteristics of the Silver Pearl presentation is closely related to the language of the Kempinski Heiligendamm website but also in its appearance, as this temporary installation plays with the spatial arrangement of this year's G8 summit venue. Silver Pearl is the conference and information centre of the project ■ ART GOES HEILIGENDAMM. The Silver Pearl is a place where one can participate in debate and discussion about art and its possibilities. It is a location where reflection about current events can take place in various forms. They can happen in form of lectures or presentations as well as organised debates or personal discussions at breakfast or during a coffee-break. The Silver Pearl is a cocoon, a forum and a sleeping place for participants and guests. The architecture of the Silver Pearl is assembled from various mobile rooms designed by Raumlabor for different projects. This will be the first time, that they will form an entity. Joined together by a frame structure, surrounded by a sparkelling skin, bound together by railings, these rooms offer a multifunctional centre for an alternative summit. www.raumlabor-berlin.de
Art Interventions
Asylum Container … Thorbjørn Reuter Christiansen, Berlin/Kopenhagen
According to German law, a dog should have 9 to 12 QM living-space, asylum-seekers should have 4,5 QM. There have been suicide attempts by prisoners trying to swallow razor blades or hang themselves to avoid a deportation. The isolation-cell is the state’s response to the issue of containment prior to deportation to >a safe third country<.
Soziale Geräusche G8 Heiligendamm … Judith Siegmund, Berlin
The artist is going to interview the local residents about their opinion regarding the preparation, execution and impact of the G8 summit. These interviews are planned to be sufficiently comprehensive to be used as a reference regarding the general opinion about political and social development in this post-socialist region. The artist comes from this region and she is familiar with the residents. The purpose of these enquiries is to bring the Eastern German perspective to the internationality of the art project.
Kneippness … chitrakarkhana (Shaina Anand, Ashok Sukuraman), Bombay
A CCTV system was installed at this site using 4 surveillance cameras. The live feed switching every 5 seconds from location to location was interrupted at random with recorded video. These 'inserted' clips comprised of footage of security infrastructure and de-escalation build-up in the run-up to the G-8, shot close to site in Rostock and also along the fence at Heiligendamm.
The 4 cameras were located: Livestreams
1. Overlooking the main gate to the exhibition and the entrance to the Videohalle
2. Inside the bar and catering tent.
3. Close to the roof of the Kurhaus shed, overlooking the back lane, the fence and the toilets.
4. On a lamp post overlooking the 'hotel' and the banks of the Warnow.
This feed switching every 5 seconds from location to location could be viewed at 4 sites: Video
1. On a projection screen in the Video halle.
2. On a TV placed on the food table inside the bar and catering tent.
3. On a TV placed Inside the Kurhaus.
4. On a TV in the reception area of the Hotel.
The titled of the work comes from the hoarding of a hotel in Rostock: "Kneippness ® - another form of wellness", this region being known for healing baths and wellness resorts.
Here Shaina Anad plays with the therapeutic benefits of 'Kneipp kur'- a form of preventive remedying through often extreme endurance - and the idea of 'safety' ; Preventive and preemptive surveillance as deterrent - a measure of 'safeness' in society.
Finally, in the context of the g-8 and protest, the exhibition site itself is perceived as 'safe' - safe for the local Rostocker who shut shop and business for fear of vandalism, 'safe' for the protester and 'safe' for the State.
more about the project
Time notes … Lost Time refund … Gustavo Romano, Buenos Aires The office for the return of the lost time stands as a place for the reception and classification of the time transferred involuntarily, under pressure or for arbitrary reasons, (being employed at not wished job, serving in the army, waiting for the right man or woman, etc).
In the mobile office, a representative of Time Notes House will take receipt of the description of how the deponent has lost his time, and the officer will restore it with a time note of the corresponding value, in whose reverse, the cause of the loss will be printed in the office on that moment, and a copy will be part of the Lost Time Data Base.
see a video here
visit the time notes House
Postcardgreetings from other walls | borders | summits
■ ART GOES HEILIGENDAMM will place 12 advertising columns throughout the city, that will be used on one hand to mark the path between the expositions and on the other to form an exhibition of their own. The columns will allow art works to be exhibited in public places instead of being exhibited in location where they will only be seen by an art public. The exposed works will be originals or narrations.
Martha Rosler
Sebastian Bolesch
Susan Meiselas
Klaus Mettig
Katharina Sieverding
Bringing the War Home … Martha Rosler, New York
In cooperation with the collection Falckenberg
The New York based artist is primarily working with socias issues in images and texts.
Julian Röder (Berlin) For many years Julian Röder has been documenting protests by the critics of globalisation. He renounces the illustration of the political and economical images and concerns of the delegates and focuses only on the opposition. This explains why one can find both intimate portraits of individuals and pictures of big demonstrations and violent confrontations in his repertoire. Röder shows an intense confrontation with political iconographic documentary photography on one hand and contemporary fashion and lifestyle photography on the other. Julian Röder uses a form of aesthetics with cool poses that was established by fashion photos and commercials. The discussion about radical chic, on how revolutionary and militant references - icons like Che Guevara being used by publicity and fashion- is shown to have an influence on the symbolic.
Jules Spinatsch, Zürich - Temporary discomfort documents Davos, Genoa, New York and Evian/Geneva in a transitory state of emergency lock-down during the global economic summits. It combines different photographical genres: landscape photography, photojournalism and police photography, though here with the camera lens turned back at the security forces.The photo-series and videos aim to achieve a speculative reconstruction of the situations in those cities. The work is speculative not only in terms of these facts but also in regard to the use and expectations of documentary photography. Further, it raises questions about the conditions under which photography is and can be produced today.
Kai Wiedenhöfer, Berlin
Kai Wiedenhöfer, born 1966 in Schwenningen Germany, studied Photojournalism at the Folkwangschool Essen and Arabic in Damaskus. Since 1989 the Near East is his main working topic. The Photo shows a cabage-field at the wall between Israel and the Palestinian autonom areas.
G.M.B. Akash, Bangladesch, Hamburg
In his series G.M.B. Akash shows documents about child-labor and about the life on garbagefields. The work of children is not a new phenomena in Bangladesh: 17,5 percent of children between 5 – 15 are involved within economical activities. Besides hole families are living on the sale of ‚Bhnagari’, small pieces of rubbish. Akash received the second prize from UNICEF PHOTO OF THE YEAR CONTEST, 2007, GERMANY for his images of Child labour in Bangladesh.
Susan Meiselas, New York
From her serie: CROSSINGS, USA. San Diego, CA. 1989. US/Mexican Border, 7:30 am Arrest of undocumented worker by U.S. Border Patrol in downtown San Diego ©Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos
Susan Meiselas joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and has worked as a freelance photographer since then. She is best known for her coverage of the insurrection in Nicaragua and her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America, which were published widely throughout the world. Currently she is documenting the situation around the US-Mexican boarder.
Larry Sultan, San Francisco
For more than 30 years, Larry Sultan has explored the boundaries of documentary practice. Working both collaboratively and individually his previous bodies of work have taken many forms, including books, public art projects, and installations. His photographic work has been shown internationally, including exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Barbicon Gallery in London , the Museum of Modern Kunst in Frankfurt, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Haus der Kunst in Munich. He has been the recipient of numerous rewards and grants , including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Louis Tiffany Comfort Foundation among others.
Stephen Gill, London
Since 1997 Stephen Gill works freelance focusing on the London Hackney topics. His work hybrids between documentary and conceptual photography.
Quoting Martin Parr: "Stephen Gill is emerging as a major force in British photography. His best work is a hybrid between documentary and conceptual work. It is the repeated exploration of one idea, executed with the precision that makes these series so fascinating and illuminating. Gill brings a very British, understated irony into portrait and landscape photography."
http://www.stephengill.co.uk/index2.htm
Besides the German artists Franz Ackermann, Klaus Mettig and Katharina Sieverding present works within the column project.
Mobility at Heiligendamm
kein carKEIN.TVInterface between protest and art repräsentation as an artmobile and TV studio … Multitude e.V., Florian Schneider, Susanne Lang in cooperation mit slobodnakultura.org Belgrad, NOMAD theatre Wien and others
Overlapment protest and art representation forms. Minivan as artmobil and TV_studio … Multitude e.V., Florian Schneider, Susanne Lang, Anette Busch a.o.
KEIN.TV is a framework for publication and documentation of the various activities of ART GOES HEILIGENDAMM and around the G8 summit. KEIN.TV consists of multiple program formats such as live coverage, talkshows, soap operas, but also documentaries and short
films.
KEIN.TV will be available online during and fater the summit, all material will stay online under a Creative Commons share-alike license and therefore be available for further use.
KEIN.TV is open source and open content, allowing its users to show and distribute, re-mix, re-program and re-arrange the video published. It is widely available and comes in a fair resolution, using bit-torrent technology for distribution, the first open-source multi-media encoding suite and the video peer-to-peer syndication technology v2v.
V2V distributes open source video material, films and documentations using RSS-syndication of video metadata (podcasts) and peer-to-peer technology: you can upload and distribute your films through v2v.
kein talkKEIN PROGRAMM
-feature film program, newscast, talkshows, daily soaps, school television: Everything from workshops to locally produced "dictionary of war" is being broadcast.
Reporter on-site .... Gesine Danckwart, Berlin
Gesine Danckwart, director and author, broaches the issue of places in conflict, areas between public and private, dominated, "tabuised" or manipulated spaces. She relocates the question of domination and being controlled, as well as varieties of subversive non-compliance, to within the structures of language. The relocation of trade and news language, of politically superficial discussions into the art world is an examination and an experiment with the hope of finding and applying a counterpoint. Gesine Danckwart is going to report quickly on site in collaboration with the media. The resulting texts will later be re-edited for a representation in a theatrical context.
Two German text are available here: Ich war dabei, Gesine Danckwarts Bericht im Hanse Anzeiger (pdf)
Stimmung auf dem Weg nach Rostock (pdf)
Osama Dawod
Fotoreportage … Osama Dawod, Cairo and Andreas Rost, Berlin
With the Townhouse project, the Egyptian photographer Osama Dawod, in cooperation with Andreas Rost, compiles a photographic record for the duration of the summit, in which he will capture themes and information about the G8 in order to bring them back to Cairo. With neither press accreditation or official point of view, Dawod willrelate his experiences to us.
Andreas Rost
This project,to be realised in Rostock, will be presented at the same time as the exhibition about photo reportage | Barbara Klemm and Dr. Erich Salomon in the institute for foreign relations (IFA) in Cairo.
The Townhouse gallery is situated in the heart of Cairo, in a mechanic’s garage in an ordinary neighborhood and devotes itself to international contemporary art projects. It is an open studio with an international Residency-program but is also engaged in social projects (such as refugee issues in Darfour). The gallery is like a microcosm of the city in that it has a special bond to the streets and their residents which allows them to have an almost anthropological approach in their work. Meetings with the residents are being conducted, regularly where decisions that might have an influence on the local dynamic are discussed while the basement is used as a prayer room by local community. (Koop. GI Kairo / ifa / The Townhouse Gallery Kairo)
Julian Röder
Kai Wiedenhöfer
Sebastian Bolesch
Heimat Heiligendamm … kroko, Hamburg
Jutta Konjer and Manfred Kroboth stage themselves with their dog Nike under the name Kroko in bizarre poses in front of memorials in the city. They use their pathos and significance in a playful way. Kroko takes an ironical and elegiac look at our cultural landscape, where the public appears either cast in bronze or as apparently immaterial medial pictures. The work tells very subjective and personal stories from home.
G8 Gipfelmusik … Christian von Borries, Berlin
This spring, before the beginning of the summit, the voices of the eight heads of government, as well as the sounds of previous G8 summit debates will be recorded in the Kempinski Hotel in Heiligendamm. The re-recording combines the original recording with the specific acoustic of the location. This way, a musical reflection is created about empty words, communication and mutual understanding difficulties due to different languages or interests. A central part plays the G8, a tone that cannot be heard by the human ear. The eight compositions will be freely downloadable from the Indymedia and Attac websites. A CD-production will allow a larger distribution, initially to the heads of Government’s themselves (through their respective embassies), then to the radio stations and the media- all this simultaneously to the ongoing summit.
G8 summit music mp3 download.
Aktionen von Andreas Liebmann, Zürich und Jan van Loh, Berlin
The project "Powerdolls – let's talk about it" was first realised during Wladimir Putin's visit to Germany in October 2006. People on the street were asked to continue the German-Russian dialogue. In order to facilitate the debate, Liebmann and van Loh installed images of Angela Merkel and Wladimir Putin through which people could stick their heads and talk to each other. This concept is going to be developed further during the G8 summit.
Stefanie Zeiler, Köln During her travel with an art-caravane from berlin to Benin called "nawarak lelmal" in 2005, Stephanie Zeiler exchanged travelplans with people she met on her journey. With a worldmap and one from germany she invited people from Marocco, Westafrica to travel to her berlianflat in their phantasy. Six photos showed her room, kitchen, bath and the view from her balcony. The routs which the people draw she printed on postcards and now kcontinues to tell their stories today with an belly-shop. With the money she gains from selling this cards she supports projects of human rights watch in Marocco und Westafrica.
Presentations
Of all the people in all the world ... Stan's Cafe, Birmingham
Stan's Cafe was founded 1991 by a group of artists from a variety of disciplines. Of All The People In All The World (UK) premiered in 2003 with 989kg of rice. In June 2005 a version incorporating the whole world (and using over 100 tonnes of rice) was seen at Stuttgart's Theater der Welt Festival. Stan's Cafe is a world class creator of theatre events and have appeared in widely across Europe, in the USA and Australia. Michael Jackson's shoesize, why Brad Pitt divorced, Moosehammer's dog’s mental state. It all only takes a few minutes to google. Internet, cable tv and mobile phones create an "information infarct" that paralyzes our questions to the earth. Stan's Café has invented a homeopathic art remedy: a vast rice world landscape. Each one of the approximately 6.4 billion human beings on earth - whether their name is Bush, Bin Laden, Smith, Johnson or Rice- is represented by a single grain of rice. These artists from Birmingham have developed a catalogue of thousands of headstrong questions about the world. The answer is weighed in rice grains and placed in the installation according to a ritual. The public’s questions and answers create a new perspective in the form of the daily changing rice-landscape. Having these abstract statistics so clearly explained in front of you is an astonishing experience and the disposition and different sizes of the "answer piles" mark the installation's power and sharp humour. The rice map is full of strange surprises and shocking discoveries about our home planet and its population.
The installation responds to the questions that children and adolescents have in relation to globalisation. These questions will be prepared in advance in the participating schools.
Cooperationpartner: St. Marienchurch Rostock, Pastor Tilman Jeremias
Fences, Dugouts … Francis Zeischegg WILDGATTER 2004 refers to the procedures of forestry. Without gates and doors the forester can gain access to any enclosure. The artist wants to demonstrate the process of transition. The video WILDGATTER insists on the action of switching over. Since it isn't clear how and why the protagonists get to the other side of the fence, the visitor can only imagine the transition with help of the resonating sound of footsteps. This makes clear that one is always about to change place. The artwork hide, that serves as logo for ART GOES HEILIGENDAMM, is being realised with the help of local employees and will be exhibited in the city centre.
Love Sum Game … Eytan Heller, Jerusalem 2006 – Video - 4:20 min.
Shot in Abu Dis (East Jerusalem), ‘Love Sum Game’ shows a tennis game taking place on both sides of the Separation Wall. As opposed to the transparent waist level net in real tennis games, the wall prevents any form of view, its monumental height acting as a grand barrier between the two sides, limiting ‘exchanges’ and dialogue. The game mirrors the absurd situation lived by people in their neighborhood, separated, and left ‘imagining’ what is happening on the other side of their own street.
The film was only made possible by the cooperation and dialogue established with local Palestinian activists and artists over the past few years in the framework of ‘Artists Without Walls’. ‘Love Sum Game’ is the first chapter of a three films series.
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Frontier Clothes … Azra Aksamija, Sarajewo/Wien The Bosnian-Austrian artist Azra Aksamija focuses on the development of clothes as "wearable architecture" representing religious and cultural identity in this globalised era. The artist developed a "frontvest" for the LIMINAL SPACES project which allows the wearer to worship either the Jewish, Christian or Muslim religion in public. The garment can be used as a talit (a Jewish prayer shawl) or as a Islamic prayer-rug. Through the constant metamorphosis of the vest, a religious space is created for a short period before being dissolved and re-defined when the garment mutates. With help from this hybrid vest, the artist demonstrates the differences but also the common roots and traditions that connect the three monotheistic religions: this metaphor illustrates not only the artist's longing for an understanding in her multi-cultural hometown of Sarajevo but also hope for the lives of minorities or migrants all over the world. Further more the Dirndl-mosque, the Frontvest and the Suit-mosque is presented in the videohall.
Solo for Ramallah … Andreas Rost, Berlin
Video installation. Andreas Rost's photos are between categories, they can't be described either as documentary photos in a traditional sense nor do they fit easily into an art context. His approach is based upon the observation and consolidation of unique moments, these are pictures taken on the street which do not shun directness in order to clarify conflict. The project Solo für Ramallah evolved from a trip to Palestine. Since 2003 the Berlin based artist has conducted workshops for the project European Understanding with Islam in Algeria, Cairo, Isfahan and Ramallah organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Germany
Black Sea Files … Ursula Biemann, Zürich
Video Essay in 10 Parts: Files 0-9 | 34'. Black Sea Files consists of territorial research on the geography of Caspian oil, the world’s oldest extraction zone. A giant new subterranean pipeline traversing the Caucasus will soon pump Caspian crude to the West. The line connecting the resource fringe with the terminal of the global high-tech oil circulation system runs through the video like a central thread however the trajectory followed by the narrative is by no means a linear one. Circumventing the main players in the region, the video sheds light on a multitude of secondary activity. Oil workers, farmers, refugees and prostitutes who live along the pipeline are profiled and contribute to a wider human geography that displaces the singular and powerful signifying practices of oil corporations and oil politicians. Drawing on investigatory fieldwork as practiced by anthropologists, journalists and secret intelligence agents, the Black Sea Files comment on artistic methods in the field and the ways in which information and visual intelligence is detected, circulated or withheld. The BSF are part of the visual research project B-Zone by Ursula Biemann, Angela Melitopoulos and Lisa Parks.
migration–audio–archive … Sefa Inci Suvak and Justus Herrmann, Köln
The migration audio archive is a gathering of various migration stories told by over 100 men and women of all ages from all parts of the world. This growing archive is being kept for them as a legacy for the public. Why and how they came to Germany, how they were received and accepted, and how the found their way. By this means the migrants relate a part of German history which is subjective, personal and authentic.
Stitching the wound … Arahmaiani, Yogjakarta, Indonesia
Arahmaiani’s Bangkok project Stitching the Wound focuses on Muslim issues as a basis for a broader exploration of marginalisation, identity and communication, actively involved young women from the Baan Krua weaving community located across the canal from the Jim Thompson House. Through interactive performance organized in close proximity with members of the Muslim Baan Krua enclave, Arahmaiani takes aim at the assumptions and stereotypes that are often responsible for fanning the flames of misunderstanding and fear at the heart of contemporary Muslim/non-Muslim relations in our region and beyond.
Steps for the future … Day Zero, Don Edkins, Cape Town
The South African Don Edkins produces documentaries in order to cause debates in the audience. His latest movie directed by his son tells the story of the HIV-positive population in Lesotho. He lets them talk about their life and catches the entourage's reactions. Doing this he manages to create public debates about delicate subjects such as this one. In addition he has also initiated the "Democracy" contest and is involved with the "Steps for the future" project. STEPS FOR THE FUTURE is a co-production by various movie directors, editors, private supporters and organisations from all over the world. Together they have shot a range of movies about the HIV-infected: positive, provocative, full of humour and brave.
M8 - Summit of Micronations … YKON, Helsinki
YKON: Sasha Huber, Tellervo Kalleinen, Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Tomas Träskman and Petri Saarikko, is a artgroup based in Helsinki preoccupied with the "micro-nation" ( viz. groups of like-minded people that want to act independently from all established power structures) utopia. The Ykon-members are especially fascinated by the numerous references that can be found to alternative social structures different micro-nations. You can find anything from utopian societies to appropriation-strategies. These invented kingdoms, idealistic states, cybertopias, freedom oases or existing miniature states have all one thing in common, they all want to establish an independent zone which deconstructs ideological and spatial barriers. These political and social realities are highlighted by a mix of playful and informative documentation that is enlisted in complex clusters of social structures and ideas such as nationhood, nationalism, authority and democratic debate.
reale reste … bankleer (Karin Kasböck, Christoph Leitner), Berlin
Real Rests is an attempt to project the central aspects of Slavoj Zizek’s work, "The subject's malice", onto the phenomenon of economic expansion. When the statistics are full, the rejected return. Their search for deliverance brings them back to the place where they symbolically died. Thanks to the antetypes of the zombie-motive, that have found their way into our cultural memory through stories from Homer's Odyssey or Hollywood productions, we search for direct confrontation with generality. Real Reste wants to clarify what is being excluded by post-politics.
Beautiful World … Typofilm, Mieke Gerritzen, Amsterdam
Recurrence, sampling and visual branding are techniques that have been structured by the graphic designer Mieke Gerritzenand in collaboration with the philosopher Henk Osterling, the media-oriented Geert Lovink and the designer and artist Koert van Mensvoort for their typo-movie Beautiful World. The mere mass of citations and symbols that flood the viewer with information overwhelms and puts him into a near to psychedelic state. Over six chapters individuals such as Theodor W. Adorno, George Soros, Jeremy Rifkin, Gilles Deleuze, Slavoj Zizek and Saskia Sassen are invited to talk, sometimes supported sometimes countered by, a wild but carefully selected music soundtrack. Beautiful World's theme is the intellectual pleasure that globalisation made possible and at the same time the danger of fading access to knowledge and culture through the "economisation" of the world. In cooperation with Hartware MedienKunst Verein Dortmund.
Theatre goes Heiligendamm
the barrier: the distance: the difference … Dietmar Mues und sonorfeo, Hamburg
Dietmar Mues and Sonorfeo propose a live audio drama based on the novel " The third book about Achim" by Uwe Johnson, for one voice, two live musicians and one bicycle frame. ‘The Barrier: the distance: the difference’ deals with the division of Germany. What was, what is, this barrier. What sense can be made of it? Where can this barrier still be found today?
Global Heros Improvisation Theater in collaboration with students
The project takes place in three laboratories and is being prepared in a kick-off performance and a guided preparation phase. The Kick-Off and the laboratories will be recapitulated in a central closing show.
Each laboratory comprises: - a school group from Mecklenburg Vorpommern, teaching assistants for the subject’s "impersonative acting" and "political education" - four improvisation actors, each group having one actor from the ensembles "La Gata" (Bogotá, Columbia), "Crumbs" (Winnipeg, Kanada) and "Die Gorillas" (Berlin). The important thing for the contents and themes of the G8 summit is the relation to individual reality as well as the meeting of professional improvisation actors from Columbia, Canada and Germany.
The Improvisation theatre group >Die Gorillas< from Berlin will organise an interactive show for three schools in Rostock, that introduces important information about the history and structure of the G8 as well as the subjects that will be discussed this year in Heiligendamm, with help of theatrical instruments. In a second phase these two subjects will be linked. The students will work with "Die Gorillas" theatrical improvisation methods after an initiatory workshop.
Three laboratories, in the form of weekend workshops, each one with artists from the different ensembles and students from the three school groups, will perform improvisations about the most important subjects related to the G8 summit. The artists will share, remarks, experiences and reports from their respective hometowns of Harare, Bogotá, Winnipeg and Berlin
The intention is to bring together the personal everyday experiences of all the participants and the "worlds" of the others in order to sample the opinions, prejudices, hopes and fears of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern students regarding the global development that is being discussed during the G8 summit.
Stories Under the Occupation … Al Kasaba Theatre, Ramallah
From beneath and between piles of newspapers, Palestinian actors emerge to tell their stories – stories of a youth with aspirations for Hollywood… of an old man living under contstant occupation, moving from one disaster of his life to the next… of young lovers sweeping up the tokens of love in the form of bullet casings… of a two-story homeland two up and two down, settlements and villages… a phone call from abroad, a son calling home… a mother losing a child… a mad pet circling around trying to make sense of the nonsensical…. The AL-KASABA Theatre and Cinematheque is a cultural NGO that was founded 1970 in Jerusalem.
Workshops | Lectures go Heiligendamm
■ ART GOES HEILIGENDAMM is interested by textures "in between certainties" of the constantly changing world.
unitednationsplaza, Berlin
The unitednationsplaza is exhibition as school. Structured as a seminar/residency program in Berlin, it involves collaboration with approximately 60 artists, writers, theorists and a wide range of audiences for a period of one year. In the tradition of the Free Universities, most events are open to all those interested to take part. In this way unitednationsplaza functions as a research institute or a >kitchen< which develops public events, publications, symposia and other activities on numerous topics related to contemporary art, politics and critical theory. Today, in contemporary art, political commitments are scant, not only due to apathy, or precarious working conditions allowing little room for engagement but also due to the notion of helplessness and failure prevalent in society at large. All of which resonates strangely with what Martha Rosler has termed >every artist’s messianic aspirations deep down<, the artists’ desire to have a socially transformative effect. This combination has spawned a wide range of anachronisms, including the scourge of passionate lip service to activism and political change.
In preparation to G8, unitednationsplaza will offer an intensive 3 day seminar on the topic of contemporary economic theory for the artistic community in Berlin, in mid-April and will offer a full day program including different lectures, the participants will be announced soon.
Lectures
in collaboration with speakers from the anti-globalisation summit
Art and global economy, workshop, Rudolf zur Lippe, Hude/Berlin
Immanuel Kant established his concept of "eternal peace" upon the theory of free trade, a doctrine based on profit and advancement for everyone. Universal flourishing and universal dependence. This should still be true today, in reality however, globalisation is a system based upon threats; Violence is directed in three different directions: The capitalist and profit centered strategies put all forms of economy under a lot of pressure. Sciences and law are being instrumentalised. Even the military is being used: for example, they are deployed in bases in the big water reservoirs. Common properties of humanity such as water, air, atmosphere and not least knowledge are at the mercy of private interests. A common wealth for humanity is not only a possibility it is essential for our survival.
The Bangalore Phenomenon, Lawrence Liang
Lawrence Liang is a legal researcher and an Indian lawyer of Chinese descent, based in the city of Bangalore, who is known for his legal campaigns on issues of public concern. He is a founder of the Alternate Law Forum, and as of 2006 has emerged as a prominent spokesperson against concepts like >intellectual property<.
