Public Seminar, curated by the 2021-2023 MA Curatorial Practice students, KMD Bergen
November 3rd 2022, 10:00-15:00
KMD Auditorium Knut Knaus, Møllendalsveien 61, Bergen
Free entry
Can we think of solidarity amongst artworkers not just as a symbolic notion, but as a practical and pragmatic process? How can we create more equal opportunities by implementing solidarity care economies? What are some methodologies and good practices we can share with each other in order to create more resilient communities?
During this public seminar, including a workshop and a series of online lectures, these questions will come to the fore. In the first part of the day, participants can join the workshop by Verdensrommet, represented by Prerna Bishnoi and Rodrigo Ghattas-Pérez, an artist-powered mutual support network by and for non-EU / EEA creative professionals in Norway. The workshop “What is not but could be if” is a gathering of collective intelligence, a dialogical exchange to engage in a reconsideration of the economic relations we form and maintain as artists.
This is experiential research that focuses on reflection, fiction, and a shared policy to dive deeper into the labor relations and conditions in the field of art. From a grassroots point of view, we ask artists and creative professionals what kind of new economic arrangements, cooperative and atypical relations we want in the future, and how it could be different from today”. The workshop is a collaboration with a ‘ghostwriter’ and witness from the year 2050 and a quirky DJ at The Center of the Universe.
The lunch break will be followed by an online lectures series, with participants who are connected to the MA Curatorial Practice students' own background and who are both working within the intersection of art, activism and creating sustainable and solidarity economy models, focusing on community needs and social justice. Márton Szarvas from Solidarity Economy Center (Budapest, Hungary), maximiliano from Nat Turner Project (Portland, OR) and Patrick Mudekereza from Centre d’art Waza (Lubumbashi, DR Congo) will share their insights and ideas in a 25 minute lecture, followed by a Q&A.
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— > Schedule
Part 1 Workshop
9:30 - 10:00 - Arrival
10:00 - 12:00 Workshop “What is not but could be if”, Concept by Prerna Bishnoi and Rodrigo Ghattas-Pérez [Verdensrommet]
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch Break / Soup + Socializing
Part 2 Online Lectures
13:00 - 13:25 Patrick Mudekereza (Centre d’art Waza)
13:25 - 13:40 Q&A
13:40 - 14:05 maximiliano (Nat Turner Project)
14:05 - 14:20 Q&A
14:20 - 14:45 Márton Szarvas (Solidarity Economy Center)
14:45 - 15:05: Q&A and closing remarks
Responding to the recent developments in higher education in Norway, we have invited Anne Szefer Karlsen, Curator and Professor of the MA in Curatorial Practice to make a short intervention, during the second part of the day, focusing on the current suggestion by the government to introduce fees for Non-EU/EEA/Switzerland students.
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– > Credits
Seminar Graphic design: Thale J. Math. Meisfjord
Workshop Concept: Prerna Bishnoi and Rodrigo Ghattas-Pérez [Verdensrommet]
Workshop Visuals: Stacey de Voe
The seminar is curated by: Josephine Boesen, Itzel Esquivel, Flóra Gadó, Jaleesa Johnston, Noura Salem, Kabila Stéphane, Kirsti van Hoegee, Niovi Zarampouka-Chatzimanou
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– > A few words about our guests
Verdensrommet is an artist-powered mutual support network by and for non-EU/EEA creative professionals based in Norway. The network is a grassroots and volunteer-led group of 200+ creative professionals across the country. The network was initiated in March 2020 to address the precarious conditions of visual artists whose citizenship led them to slip through the state’s support net. The low-income levels, highly bureaucratic regimes, unrealistic immigration policies, limited accessibility to social assistance, and the cultural deficit in public life accentuated by the Covid-19 pandemic have worsened the already precarious cultural workers’ economy.
Rodrigo Ghattas-Pérez (b.1989. Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian-Palestinian artist and 'restivist' based in Oslo, Norway. Ghattas is a vernacular socialist with an artistic exploration at the intersection between cooperative networks, performativity theories, solidarity economies, and decentralized art futures. www.rodrigoghattas.art
Prerna Bishnoi is an artist who works with the interrelations between spatial production, labour and climate concerns through the medium-method of documentary filmmaking. She is currently a PhD candidate at Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, NTNU.
Andrea Spreafico is a performance director based in Bergen with a background as a historian, philosopher and visual artist. He studied Philosophy at the Universities of Bologna and Reims and has a PhD in Ethics and Aesthetics and a Masters Degree in Art and Public Space from Nürnberg. In 2011 he formed the theater production company Spreafico Eckly together with Caroline Eckly.
Patrick Mudekereza is an author, curator and art historian born in 1983, who lives and works in Lubumbashi (D.R.Congo), he is the director of the Waza Art Centre. He is a member of many international professional networks such as Arts Collaboratory, Another Roadmap for Arts education and Liboke, a network of independent Congolese cultural centres. He co-founded and directed the first three editions of the Rencontres Picha, Biennale de Lubumbashi (2008-2015). He participated in the foundation and was on the board of directors of the International Biennial Association and ARTerial Network. He has organised exhibitions such as Prise de Terre (Bozar, 2010), Close Openings/Vernissage Fugaces (Lubumbashi, 2011), Mining Lubum (VANSA, Johannesburg, 2015), Silimuka (Museum of Contemporary Art GfZK Leipzig, 2017), Aire d'oiseaux imaginaires (Biennale du Congo in Kinshasa, 2019, and Bogardenkapel Brugge, 2019). He has participated in various education and publication projects in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America (Lagos Biennale, Berlin Biennale, collaborations with art spaces in Colombia, Costa Rica, Indonesia, India, Germany, Switzerland, etc.). He teaches at the University of Lubumbashi and the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg).
NAT TURNER PROJECT was created in 2016 by Melanie Stevens & maximiliano, as an alternative to established gallery modalities. NTP showcases & celebrates Black & POC artists and serves as a fugitive art space working in mutual aid, curation, publications, and a long running podcast series WHO ALL GON BE THERE. NAT TURNER PROJECT, more than just a name... LES GET FREE
natturnerproject.co
Márton Szarvas is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology and social anthropology at Central European University, Budapest. His dissertation interrogates the changing relationship between state, civil society, and culture in contemporary Hungary in rural houses of culture. In 2019 he co-curated with Kristóf Nagy the Left Turn, Right Turn – Artistic and Political Radicalism under Late Socialism exhibition at the Blinken OSA Archives He is a member of the Working Group for Public Sociology “Helyzet” and a founding member of the Solidarity Economy Center, Budapest.