Zagreb Seminar: WHERE IS HERE?

28.5.; 20h; Galerija SC
Seminar; Where is Here. Discussions on the Circulation of Culture in and around Europe” with Taru Elfving, Nicole Hewitt and Susan Kelly

Zagreb Exhibition: CENTRIFUGAL Sequence II

26.05.; 19.30h; Galerija SC
EXHIBITION OPENING: Centrifugal: sequence II

Zagreb Workshop & Bus Tour: TOURIST TRANSFORMATIONS

25.- 28.05. Galerija SC
Workshop : Tourist Transformations with Platforma 9,81

26.05
17-19h
BUS TOUR Platforma 981, depart front of SC

Zagreb: Book Launch CONTEMPORARY ART and NATIONALISM

Book launch followed by discussion on
CONTEMPORARY ART AND NATIONALISM

25.05.; 20h Galerija SC

Sezgin Boynik and Minna Henriksson will present the book ‘Contemporary Art and Nationalism – Critical Reader’, which is a collection of critical texts about the relation of nationalism and contemporary art. It analyzes the situations, and economical and political moments, in which contemporary art, which is always perceived as critical and anti-traditional, serves as a mechanism of materialization of regressive movements of authenticity and originality of nationalism.

Writers to the book are Boris Buden, Sarat Maharaj, Rastko Mocnik, Misko Suvakovic, Simon Sheikh, Mika Hannula, Marita Muukkonen, Margaret Tali, Marina Grznic, Kobena Mercer, Paul Wilson, Nebojsa Jovanovic, Ivor Stodolsky, Suzana Milevska, Erden Kosova, Sezgin Boynik, Branislav Dimitrijevic. Edited by Sezgin Boynik and Minna Henriksson. Published by MM-publication and Missing Identities -project, Kosova, May 2007.

Sezgin Boynik is a sociologist currently working in Istanbul on a book on punk and underground movement in Turkey in the late 80s and 90s. Previously he has worked on the Situationist International. With Minna Henriksson his ongoing project is on contemporary art and nationalism.

Minna Henriksson is an artist working broadly in the art field. Her artistic work is based on social research. In the recent years she has been working a lot in the South-East Europe.

Zagreb Talk: Sezgin Boynik: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF INTERNATIONALISM

Talk and discussion:
May 22nd, 20 – 22h; Galerija SC

The talk examines the disappearance of internationalism from the alternative cultural scene: how, although artists are now traveling much more now than what they did in the ‘70s or ‘80s, they are considerably less aware of the conceptual and historical importance of internationalism than before. For many artists ‘internationalism’ is only about friend-networks, gossiping and personal psychological stories. For example, in the ‘80s underground scene in Turkey and many similar countries, especially in the hard-core punk scene, even though they did not have many tools for communication, people knew what was going on in Peru, Poland, Stockholm, USA and Malaysia.

In his lecture Boynik will develop, with a number of visual examples, a theory about the disappearance of internationalism in the arts and the alternative cultural networks: what influence the non-critical post-modern approaches in the arts and culture had on this, how the optimism of cyber-futurism as well as nationalism are connected to this disappearance.

Sezgin Boynik is a sociologist currently working in Istanbul on a book on punk and underground movement in Turkey in the late 80s and 90s. Previously he has worked on the Situationist International. With Minna Henriksson his ongoing project is on contemporary art and nationalism.

Zagreb Workshop: RE/NAMING

Wed-Thu 23.-24.5.2007 at the Student Centre Gallery (approx. 10-17 daily)

The workshop will explore complex historical, political and cultural layers of our everyday environment with a focus on changing names. The aim is to unearth curious local histories underlying seemingly innocent, uninteresting or even meaningless names. These stories will then be reflected on in relation to some more general critical questions raised by these ongoing processes of renaming that continuously shape our surroundings and ourselves.

The workshop is thematically organized under the following two categories:
1) political, geographical and taxonomical point of view: streets, squares, cities, states, continents, planets, galaxies, etc.
- Why rename? Who renames?
- Does renaming change the object somehow?
2) Social, gender and identity point of view: ourselves, others, groups, gangs, neighbours, nations, etc.
- When do we want to change our name or hide behind a nickname? Why?
- How do we call ourselves and how do we call others? Why?

The work will take place in the gallery and out in the city. The products (drawings, stories, maps, snapshots etc) will be presented in the gallery as part of the Centrifugal exhibition (26.5.-10.6.2007).

The workshop is run by a Finnish artist Kalle Hamm, a participant in the Centrifugal project, whose work examines cultural encounters and their impacts both in historical and contemporary contexts. See e.g. www.spicetrade.org and www.afaryan.org

Zagreb Workshop: ALTERNATIVE CITY TOURS

Thu-Fri 24.-25.5. at the Student Centre Gallery (approx. 10-17 daily)

The workshop sets out to explore, map out and develop alternative city tours that give insights into the city of Zagreb based on unofficial information that reflect the everyday lives and interests of different groups of local people. Content might include nicknames for places or day-to-day practical information (child-friendly cafes and good public toilets, where to find free parking or good shortcuts, etc). The aim of the workshop is to collaborate with diverse groups of users, to discover and document overlapping and perhaps conflicting modes of inhabiting the city.

Types of information to be collected and compiled into the tours include:
Place nicknames: Unofficial place names that people use commonly for places, streets or local landmarks, but which do not appear on official maps and documents.
Changed geographies: Sites of significance that no longer exist; shortcuts by foot, bicycle and car.
Competing perceptions of urban spaces: Different readings of a space held by different groups, e.g. teenagers calling an area yuppie yet yuppies calling the same area rough because teenagers hang out there.
Changing demographics: For example, districts where groups of immigrants settle, or where foreigners buy up investment properties.

Contemporary vernacular information, the way that people describe their urban environment and use local knowledge to navigate it, reveals much about the politics of place. We take a view of the city as a dynamic social network, rather than a physical environment – the built environment is merely the setting, or backdrop, for social activity. Moreover, that environment is very often designed to contain, obstruct or exclude particular groups or individuals, and we’re interested in the ways people find of negotiating these structural exclusions and going about their daily lives.

Plan for the workshop:

The participants in the workshop can identify in advance colleagues, friends and relatives as contacts and sources, and begin to collect information. Everyone should bring to the workshop some initial material, e.g. hand-drawn maps of the areas/points of interest.

In the workshop these materials and ideas will be collated and explored further as a group, going out to the city, identifying and documenting places of interest. Tours will be produced then out of the collected material. These may take a variety of forms, from live sessions with local residents to podcasts, recorded tours on headphones, downloads for mobile phones or even radio broadcasts. The tours or initial drafts for tours will be part of the exhibition Centrifugal: sequence II at the Student Centre Gallery (26.5.-10.6.). The project will then be developed further, in collaboration also with the local residents in Helsinki and Belfast, into an online archive.

The workshop is part of an ongoing project, a collaboration between Belfast-based Aisling O’Beirn and Daniel Jewesbury, for Centrifugal exhibition series in Zagreb, Helsinki and Belfast:

Aisling O’Beirn is a Belfast-based artist, whose recent work is derived from a research into various informal accounts of place, e.g. urban myths, anecdotes, place nicknames, etc. See www.aislingobeirn.com

Daniel Jewesbury is an artist and writer, and works as a researcher in digital cultures at the Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster. He is currently making a new film about the fragility of memory and biography.

Centrifugal Participants

Sezgin Boynik is a sociologist currently working in Istanbul on a book on punk and underground movement in Turkey in the late 80s and 90s. Previously he has worked on the Situationist International. With Minna Henriksson his ongoing project is on contemporary art and nationalism.

Taru Elfving is a curator and writer, based in London and Finland, currently doing research on contemporary video installation, the space of address and the viewer as witness, at Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College. Her curatorial practice focuses on critical encounters.

Kalle Hamm in an artist based in Helsinki, whose work examines cultural encounters and their impacts both in historical and contemporary contexts. See e.g. www.spicetrade.org and www.afaryan.org

Minna Henriksson is an artist working broadly in the art field. Her artistic work is based on social research. In the recent years she has been working a lot in the South-East Europe.

Nicole Hewitt is an artist and researcher who lives and works in Zagreb and London. Her recent works are films concerned with the rehearsal, performance and recitation of self as manifested in the Ballroom dancing schools of Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro. She teaches at the Department of Animation and New Media, at the Art Academy of Zagreb and organises many workshops, events and exhibitions in Croatia ( Protokol 1- 5, Tip 1-3, ).

Daniel Jewesbury is an artist and writer, and works as a researcher in digital cultures at the Centre for Media Research, University of Ulster. He is currently making a new film about the fragility of memory and biography.

Otto Karvonen is an artist based in Helsinki. His work consists mainly of temporary performative actions and sculptural installations that are situated in public space. He runs a window gallery Alkovi as well as teaches at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki.

Susan Kelly is an artist and writer based in London. Her work is concerned with the relationship between art, rhetoric and the micro-political and has been included in exhibitions at the NCCA, St. Petersburg; the Prague Biennial; Mercer Union, Toronto; The Lenin Museum, Finland; Art in General and LMCC, New York; Krasnoyarsk Museum Siberia; pm Gallery Zagreb. She has published articles in Public Culture, the Journal of Visual Cultures, Chto Delat?, re-public art.net. She is a graduate of the Whitney ISP NY, and and is currently a lecturer in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, London

Aisling O’Beirn is a Belfast-based artist, whose recent work is derived from a research into various informal accounts of place, e.g. urban myths, anecdotes, place nicknames, etc. See www.aislingobeirn.com for previous work.

Platforma 981 is a non-profit organization based in Zagreb. Platforma 981 focuses on social and economic changes that occur as a result of Croatia’s efforts to enter the European Union and changes that affect the architecture and urbanism.

reading list

Jean-Luc Nancy “Singular Plural” (first chapter in “Being Singular Plural”), and maybe also “Inoperative community”?
Agamben “Becoming Community”?
Benjamin, Walter, Author as Producer (?)
Bhabha, Homi K. Kako novina ulazi u svijet : postmoderni prostor / postkolonijalno doba i ku‰nje kulturalnog prijevoda / Homi K. Bhabha ; s engleskog preveo Goran Vujasinoviç 2004
Deleuze, Gilles, A Conversation: What is it? What is it for?
Agamben, Giorgio, Homo Sacer
Jameson, Fredric, The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World System
Fanon, Franz, The Wretched of the Earth,
Hobsbawm, Izmi‰ljanje tradicije
nacije i nacionalizam..
Mbembe, Achile Provisional notes on the Postcolony
Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities, Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, 1983
Chakrabarty, Dipesh, Provincialising Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2000.
Fabian, Johannes, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object, Columbia University Press, New York, 1983
Sontag, Susan, Fotografije rata/ Fantom slobode 1-2, 2004. str 263.
Sassen, Saskia , Globalisation and Unsettlement, 9. Istanbul biennale katalog 9, str. 141
Babias, Marius, On the strategic use of politics and the contest of art, 9. Istanbul biennale katalog,
Jenks, Chris, Gledajte kamo hodate: povijest I djelatnost flaneura, Vizualna kultura, str. 203, jesenski I turk 2002
Groys, Boris, Povratak originala. O repolitizaciji umjetnosti, Katalog criss cross
Buden, Boris, Dislokacija kulture, Bastard 1998 decembar
Zizek, Slavoj, Denkverbot, Bastard 1998 decembar
Beck, Ulrich, Intervju, Bastard 1998 decembar
Giddens, Antony, Intervju, Bastard 1998 decembar
Said, Edward, Orjentalizam,
Said, Edward, Krivotvorenje islama
Foucault, Michel, Nadzor I kazna posuditi od Emine
Foucault, Michel, Znanje I moc, pogovor, nakladni zavod globus
Zovko, Jure Walter Benjamin, esteticki izazovi ,Status, 9
Benjamin Walter , Fragmenti, Status, 9
Hassan, Ihab, Kultura indetrminacij I imanencija: margine postmodernog doba, Republika br. 10-12, 1985
Holmes, Brian, Kultura jednakosti putem sudjelovanja, Nova novine 6
Ault, Julie, Izlozba kao politicki prostor, Nova novine 7

Finnish Institute London: First meeting

January 29th, 2006… My notes if they make any sense… Susan

Introduction of the Project. Nodal model. Europe as super-node.
Finland
- The postcolonial
- The recent ‘multicultural’:
- Russian history relationship
- Our mode of working. How to represent a process

Websites
TV broadcast
Movie insert
Public Events
Private process represented to the public
Private process kept private
More self conscious public ‘outputs’

Question of Portugal. Passionately pro-EU, saved their bacon.

Themes ideas/ specific to each place. ‘Expertise’ from each place? Expertise from each group/ person. (eg. Platforma’s diagramatics, architectural expertise, perhaps film/ video)

Taru’s White Sheet
Religion/ Church issues
Stories – vernacular/ unofficial histories (minor histories)
Fiction
Re-development
Transition/ speed – future space
Language, politics of language
Accountability/ stake in public/ civic sphere. Democratising old (hangover spaces) and new political forms.
Alignments/ affiliation. Political spaces
Europe as super node
Selective inclusion/ new border regimes, camps
East/ west, European internal colonialism. Shifting perceptions.
Non-EU Europe?

- Role/ Function of these practices – public practices, strategies for intervening in, constructing these new spaces/ societies.

Who are WE anyway. Different expertise. Citizens and artists with common cause.
Daniel: To work individually or to set up some collaborations/ collaborative frameworks? (seems positive)

Tellervo: what are the motivations? What does each want to get out of it? Personal angle? Specific work that might come out of it. Interesting to talk about it all now. To get excited enough about something to really take this up.

Daniel: Research process is an approach. How this would facilitate the approach. Ongoing, articulated in different ways.

- Something specific. Rural spaces – the changes.
- Aisling – stories that tell you how things are
- Dinko – undeveloped spaces of Europe. Condition of transition spaces. The dark bits on the light map (Taru – maybe they are just unrecognised)
- Dinko – exchanges between places – conditions of habitation. Tourists who live places for a while. Enjoying rurality without the ‘baggage’.
- Nicole – commuter tourists, and ex-pats. Inner tourism (excursions).
- Maybe – mode of inhabitation, condition of being there (temporary,

(Centri as a mode of connection, beyond dominant structures of articulation. Centri through operating a different mode of connection we might posit another space)…

Centri- diagrammatic. Contaminate the clean, outside positioning of the multiplicity type diagrams.

wiki map?
Through characters? Mobile. Frameworks for characters have changed in Croatia. Co-ordinates and reference points wrecked.
Aisling – morphing software – bedroom bigger at night.
Taru – points of view.
Nicole – verse. The vernacular of verse. Esperanto. Fiction, drama and scriptedness. Stage drama in Esperanto. Brechtian strategies. Stuttering in another language. Take them away from the anthropological purism.

A web-site. Keep it open. Plug into it. Space of play, hook up,

PRACTICALS

Project Space of Helsinki Kunsthalle Spring 2007? (Nifca)
Belfast – Splitting residency slot at Flax/ Interface Slot (2007 is full)
Colette, Grant Watson.
Croatia: Protokol. Would have to have a public appearance.2006 funding. £4,000. Lectures on EU policy! SPLIT also.
Commitments/ Conditions
…. Cash, travel grants.