A three day
gathering to talk about socially-engaged, political, and
critical artwork, its international iterations, history, and future
This weekend we come together to look at and talk about the intersections between art and activism. We want to take this time to address a range of concerns, to look at past strategies of creative resistance and build on them, to address our frustrations and anxieties about what we do, to play and laugh together, share food, and discuss the possibilities for going forward.
These three days are organized by the Library of Radiant Optimism (Brett Bloom + Bonnie Fortune), YNKB (Kirsten Dufour-Andersen + Finn Thybo Andersen) and Mess Hall. This is part of an ongoing series that asks how we can have optimism in our politics and work in the face of neoliberal globalization, war, economic, environmental, and other global crises. Our activities have included a poster show in Copenhagen and Chicago, and an upcoming discussion-based event similar to this one in Copenhagen.
This
gathering is sponsored in part by the Danish Art Council and the Midwest
Radical Culture Corridor.
s
6:30-7:00 PM – Sunday Soup with InCUBATE
In an effort to find ways to fund art programming that is neither commercial
nor non-for-profit, InCUBATE is experimenting with developing new infrastructures
of support. They will be present to talk about their Sunday Soup fundraising
efforts and to provide soup for the evening.
7:00-9:00 PM – The I.W.W. and the Paterson Pageant: Blurring the
Boundaries Between Art and Life, By Nicolas
Lampert
This talk will examine the myriad of issues that surrounded the Paterson
Pageant, staged at Madison Square Garden on June 7, 1913 by 1,000 striking
workers, playing the roles of themselves as they reenacted the past three
months of their struggle. The talk will highlight the extraordinary collaboration
between striking silk workers, I.W.W. union leaders and New York avant-garde
artists that highlights the many positive, as well as negative aspects
of collaborations between groups with such divergent backgrounds, with
lessons that are applicable to today.
9:00
PM-12:00 AM – EXHIBITION RECEPTION: Celebrate Peoples’ History
Poster Collection, The Library of Radiant Optimism, Summoning a New Queer
Reality, & We Have Won! The Copenhagen Free University 2001-2007
This exhibition presents several projects that assess, each in their own
way, histories of political art and activism, to open them up as a resource
for action today.
The
Celebrate People’s History poster series, initiated
by Josh MacPhee, is an on-going project producing posters that focus around
important moments in “people’s history.” These are events,
groups, and individuals that we should celebrate because of their importance
in the struggle for social justice and freedom, but are instead buried
or erased by dominant history. The posters celebrate important acts of
resistance, those who fought tirelessly for justice and truth, and the
days on which we can claim victories for the forces of freedom. In the
past 7 years over two-dozen posters have been produced on a variety of
subjects from the Battle of Homestead to Jane, an underground abortion
service provided by a women’s health collective.
The Library of Radiant Optimism for Let’s Re-Make the World was started as a way to gather, look at, and catalog a groundswell of optimistic and visionary activities in the late 1960s and early 1970s represented by how-to books. Many people organized around freely sharing information and materials. The books they generated embrace a grass roots exchange of information and themes of self and community empowerment. These books are written from the counter-culture. Their authors were interested in communicating their direct experience as it related to their experiments for living in harmony with the natural landscape, building sustainable communities, and more. They offer practical applications of optimistic ideas for radical change.
Summoning a New Queer Reality. Chances was at Pride
‘07 and encouraged parade goers to “summon a new queer reality”
by following the example of revolutionary queers from the past and present.
Chances dancers passed out masks of 27 different queers and allies that
have all, in some way, made the world a brighter, safer, and more interesting
place. The float decorations and costumes had a witch theme and incorporated
the symbol of the phoenix, reinforcing the idea of looking to the past
(and rejecting the present state of affairs) to conjure revolutionary
and progressive ideas for the future.
We have won! The Copenhagen Free University 2001-2007.
The Copenhagen Free University was a self-organized research and knowledge
sharing facility founded in 2001. Based in a private apartment and in
the messy daily life of a household, the Copenhagen Free University was
a space treating the organization of knowledge in close relationship to
the personal and conflicting desires that shape contemporary urban existence.
Our main research projects have been ‘Women only organizations’,
‘Art and Economy’, ‘Escape’, ‘The Scandinavian
Situationists’ and ‘Activist Television’. As a self-institution
it is important to know when to self-abolish and we terminated the activities
of the CFU at the end of 2007.
x
10:00-11:00
PM – Brunchluck
Begin the day by bringing food to share with others.
11:00-12:00 PM – How to represent the other, By YNKB
12:00-1:20
PM – Short presentations
Marc Fischer, Sarah
Ross, Chances, Laurie
Jo Reynolds
1:30-3:00PM
– Short presentations
Ryan Griffis,
Material Exchange, Feel
Tank, Salem Collo-Julin
3:00-4:30
PM – What do we know of our past? What do we demand of our future?
There is an increased amount of discussion and anxiety about the current
state of critical art practices and their relevancy to larger social
resistance and change. This is an open group discussion about critical
art practices, where they are now, their histories, successes, frustrations,
potentials, and future.
5:00-6:00 PM – Mixed activities in public space, By Parfyme
• Dinner [Vegetarian Iraqi food will be served during the next talk] •
6:00-7:00 PM – Return, By Michael
Rakowitz
In 2007, Rakowitz reopened his grandfather’s import/export business
in the form of a package drop box, packaging center, and sorting facility.
Initially, members of the Iraqi diaspora community and interested citizens
were invited to send objects and goods of their choice that were to
be shipped, free of charge, to recipients in Iraq. The project expanded
to include the importation of goods from Iraq for sale and distribution
in the United States, sometimes through clandestine means necessary
because of prohibitively expensive import tariffs applied after the
fifteen-year embargo on these goods was lifted. The logistical difficulties
and roundabout methods of sending shipments to a country under provisional
government and foreign occupation illuminates the futility of “nation-building.”
For both the displaced sender and the occupied recipient, some sense
of statehood ceases to exist. A question of sovereignty thus becomes
the transaction: What return can be yielded?
7:00-9:00 PM – Never grow up: The eviction of Ungdomshuset
[The Youth House] in Copenhagen, Presentation and discussion with
Jakob Jakobsen and
Brett Bloom
For the last year Copenhagen has been on the verge of a youth rebellion.
The catalyzing event was the eviction of Ungdomshuset an anarchist social
centre in existence since 1982. The campaign for a new house has developed
into a movement against gentrification, neoliberal normalization and
control. A video presentation of the events in Copenhagen and an invitation
to a discussion about potential new front lines of social struggle in
Copenhagen, and Chicago, in the shadow of the global war on terror and
neoliberal control.
12:00-1:20
PM – Short presentations
Mike Wolf, Nick
Brown, CAFF,
Sarah Lewison
1:40-3:00
PM – Short presentations
AREA, Laurie
Palmer, Allium Collective,
People Powered
3:00-4:00 PM – Claire Pentecost talks about her research on food while we eat a snack
4:00-5:00
PM – Wrap up discussion
s
Sunday,
January 27
1:30-4:30 PM – Radios Populares presents Liberation Radio
Workshop
Radios Popularas – www.radiospopulares.org – is an organization
that provides equipment and technical training for low-power FM broadcasting
to communities working for social, political, economic, and ecological
justice throughout the Americas. Members of the group will give a hands
on workshop. We will assemble an antenna and broadcast from Mess Hall
during this workshop. There will also be brief lessons in web casting
and audio production. People attending this workshop will leave with
the basic knowledge about how to make their own independent radio station.
Spots are limited for this workshop. Contact Mike Wolf to register:
mistywoof-at-gmail.com or 773-368-5875
Sunday,
February 3
Dan S. Wang moderates a discussion between Feel Tank and AREA,
and the public
There has been an enormous amount of activity related to critical art
practices in the last year in Chicago making it an international hub
for this work. Feel Tank and AREA both mobilized large numbers of practitioners,
activists, and folks in other fields working and thinking in parallel
to make, talk, act, and learn together. What impact did this have? What
are the lasting implications of all this activity? What is next? Times
and location TBA.
Summer
2008
Continental Drift through the Midwest Radical Culture Corridor
The MRCC is both an idea about the region we live in and its potential
development, and a loose grouping of artists involved in socially-engaged
artwork throughout the area. Making a vibrant space in our region for
advanced art practices is a necessity. This includes inviting people
to come to our region and move through it. We have invited Brian Holmes,
Claire Pentecost, and16 Beaver to implement a roving art and experimental
seminar called Continental Drift. It will wind its way through cities
and towns, parks, vacant urban spaces, go on trains, meet in diners,
in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin for 14 days. Dates and detail TBA.
