thoughtsandtalks

report by regine debatty - we make money not art : how to save the world in 10 days!

Setting up an exhibition about today’s ecological and economical crisis is a delicate exercise: it seems that everybody has done one such exhibition before you and invited the same artists as you. This year’s edition of The Game Is Up! , a festival organized by one of my favourite art centers, the Vooruit in Ghent, Belgium, was brazenly titled How To Save the World in 10 Days.

Signals from the South’ is an annual showcase of projects from ‘the South’ (South America, Africa, Asia). This year’s exhibition features work by Venzha Christ / Yogyakarta New Media Art Laboratory (Indonesia), Geraldine Juaréz (Mexico), Annemie Maes (Belgium), Vanessa Gocksch & Juan Carlos Pellegrino (Colombia).

The exhibition is organised by Pixelache festival in collaboration with MUU Gallery.
Pixelache Helsinki (2-5 April) is a festival of electronic art and subcultures, organised since 2002.

signals from the south
pixelache.2009
MUU Gallery 13.3. - 5.4.2009 — Lönnrotinkatu 33, 00180 Helsinki

information on the projects and artists: (more…)

Global warming, the financial crisis, famine, drought and overpopulation… The end is near, but don’t despair: artists and experts from different disciplines will launch proposals to save the world, put the threat in perspective or blow up the whole thing.
Well-aimed happenings, bold statements, bizarre turns, sophisticated utopias and biodegradable references.

Vooruit/Ghent - 4/14 march 2009

So-on – Politics of change
Annemie Maes has made a documentary wall with pictures, videos, and interviews she gathered during her field research at Barefoot College. In this Indian community, illiterate grown-up women are technically trained so they can personally provide their village with sustainable energy with the help of solar panels. Their knowledge could inspire the West to find solutions for current climate and environmental issues.
Annemie Maes is a member of the So-on collective, consisting of artists, filmmakers, activists and researchers. They want to confront the public with different views and try to stimulate the public debate on economic, political and cultural sustainability.

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Thursday, september 11th, I met this gypsy women in Skopje. She was sitting on the sidewalk of a big street, and she was shouting and screaming as if she gave a very personal performance. Nobody of the passers by gave her any attention. I was struck by her behaviour. Completely free, the street was clearly her natural habitat.
The moment she noticed my attention for her, she was happy to have some interested public, finally. She grew in her performing role, singing, telling a lot of things that I did not understand. She became more and more sad, concerned. Still none of the passers by gave her any attention. They seemed to be ashamed for what she was telling. Once again, language was acting on a second level for me. Names of children (I guess), mostly girls. Words like mobsters, passports, abortus, dinars and deportation.
I made up my own story about her. The next day I asked Jasna, one of the workshop participants, to translate what the gypsywoman told me. I decided to film Jasna while she was making a simultaneous translation. I will edit both voices on top of each other, as a testimonial and a comment.

A city is a construction in space over a long timespan.

All experiences are related, all senses are mixed. Stories, sounds and images are contextualised into a dynamic database. The growth of the city is a continuous succession of phases.

The city as a shifting entity: from the frantic movement of rush hour madness to the slow giant’s pace of urban development, movement is the defining feature of a metropolitan environment. (more…)