COOP Academy ~ Curating Positions: Practicing Organisation Under Present Conditions from Month to Month
Seminar 7
Session seven of Curating Positions: Practicing Organisation Under Present Conditions will be led by Marwa Arsanios, Leire Vergara and Emily Pethick who will continue reflecting about the present conditions on which to practice organisation. In this session, we will focus on the question of editing and publishing as curatorial processes. The seminar will combine walks, visits to local independent structures and institutions, meetings with different groups and collectives, sessions led by the students and a seminar with artist Pedro G. Romero on his co-curated exhibition “Machines for Living. Flamenco and Architecture in the Occupation and Vacating of Spaces”.
Monday:
19.00-21.00: Walk led by Irati Irulegi and Yen Noh and accompanied with students from the Independent Study Programme of MACBA as special guests.
Tuesday:
10.00 -13.00: Session led by Irati Irulegi, Yen Noh, Ellen Nunes and Auremnari Ee
15.00-21.00: Editing and publishing workshop at the collective printing of Can Batlló, a self-organised neighbourhood space in La Bordeta, C. Constitució, 25 08014, Barcelona.
Wednesday:
10.00-13.00: Visit to La Caníbal Bookshop and meeting with Jesús Arpal, a non-profit cooperative association specialized in publication for the critical debate, C. Nàpols, 314 08025 Barcelona
16.00- 19.00: Visit to Fundació Antoni Tàpies and assistance to the Tosquelles Seminar, Carrer d’Aragó, 08007 Barcelona (timetable to be confirmed soon)
20.00-22.00: Flamenco evening (place to be confirmed)
Thursday:
10.00- 17.00: Seminar with Pedro G. Romero at La Virreina Center de la Imatge, La Rambla 99, 08002 Barcelona
Friday:
10.00-14.00: Curatorial meeting (Yok Casa C apartment. place to be confirmed)
Readings:
“The New Babylonians” by Pedro G. Romero in “Constant: Nueva Babilonia”. Edited by Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid 2015.
“Preparatory Notes for Poetics and Politics Among Flamenco and Modern Artists: A Paradoxical Place” by Pedro G. Romero in Afterall Issue 24 Summer 2010.
“Machines for Living. Flamenco and Architecture in the Occupation and Vacating of Spaces” an exhibition curated by Pedro G. Romero, María García Ruiz and Valentín Roma.
Synopsis: This project traces historical genealogy of the ways of situating oneself in the modern space, architecture and urbanism, developed between the middle of the 20th century and the present day has turned living into an administrative manner of dwelling. This formula front to make living a political mode of dwelling in the world. “Machines for Living. Flamenco and Architecture in the Occupation and Vacating of Spaces” takes its title form a comment made by Federico García Lorca to Manuel de Falla, recorded in Arquitectura del cante jondo (circa 1932), when the two of them were walking down a street in Granada and suddenly heard an old cante song, a voice and a guitar playing, issuing from within a house. As they peered in through the window, they saw “a white, aseptic room without a single picture, just like a machine for living in by the architect Le Corbusier”.
Seminar 6
Session six of Curating Positions: Practicing Organisation Under Present Condition will be led by Marwa Arsanios who will continue reflecting about the present conditions on which to practice organisation. In this session, we will focus on the question of building a structure following certain feminist politics, laws and ethics. The seminar will combine a reading session led by the tutor with sessions led by the students and it will also have writer Ghalya Saadawi as a workshop leader.
Monday:
19.00-21.00: Walk led by Ellen
Tuesday:
10.00 -10.30: Introduction by Ghalya Saadawi
10.30-12.00: Workshop (questionnaire)
12:00-13:00: Workshop (discussion)
14.00-16.00: Workshop continues
16:00-18:30: Drafting a contract exercise
20.00-22.00: Curatorial meeting (site to be decided on location)
Wednesday:
10.00-11.30: Discussion of the Athens projects
11.30-13.00: Reading group
14.00-18.30: Session led by Irati, Karina and Polly
20.00-22.00: Curatorial meeting (site to be decided on location)
Thursday:
9.00- 14.00: Face to Face with Marwa Arsanios
Readings:
Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher, Chapter 6
Suhail Malik, 2011, “Ape says no” Red Hook Journal http://www.bard.edu/ccs/redhook/ape-says-no/
Jo Freeman, “Tyranny of Structurelessness” http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
Victoria Ivanova, “Fractured Mediations.” DIS http://dismagazine.com/discussion/81973/fractured-mediations-victoria-ivanova/#ref19
(Subsequent reading list will be provided).
The Art Protocol
Workshop Synopsis
In 2017, Ghalya Saadawi and Bahar Noorizadeh began research around the possibility and form of a regulatory mechanism for the arts titled The Art Protocol. Envisaged in a number of chapters across locations, it is a speculative mechanism that determines and formalizes rights, responsibilities, terms of conduct, and alliances for those working in the field of contemporary art in its current materialization. The Protocol would act as a support structure, a code of ethics, a form of accountability, a call for determinacy, a potentially legal or advisory, positively binding framework that aids in regulating the field; as a platform and eventual think-tank, it deals with labour time, wage and monetary compensation, and the misuse of authority. It will also be applicable to counter the insidious operation of ideologies embedded in indeterminate language and practice such as the openness and informality of contemporary art structures and institutions; atomisation and individualism; the accordance of identity politics and representation prime political import; and more. Thus the Art Protocol hopes to implement new methods, skillsets, and criteria for judgment, making and participation. The one day workshop at DAI will consist of a focus group around the protocol in the form of written questions, group work and discussion.
Seminar 5
Session five of Curating Positions: Practicing Organisation Under Present Conditions will be led by Marwa Arsanios and Leire Vergara. In this session, we will concentrate on the notion of reading as a collective curatorial/artistic form and its potentiality for contemporary production. The seminar will combine sessions led by the tutors with sessions led by the students and it will also have the collective Read-in as special guest.
Monday
19.00-21.00: Walk led by Polly Wright
Tuesday:
11.00-13.00: Presentation by Read-in
14.00-18.30: Haunted Bookshelf Session: Read-in invites participants to a Haunted Bookshelf Session, during which we practice choreographies of memorizing, that is, practicing the act of collective memorizing. Haunted Bookshelf speaks to the missing pieces from our bookshelves. However, when something is missing, it does not mean that it is not (t)here. We rather refer to what Avery Gordon writes in Ghostly Matters, as:
Haunting as a way in which abusive systems of power make themselves known
and their impacts felt in everyday life, especially when they are supposedly over
(slavery, for instance), or when the oppressive nature is denied (as in free labour
or national security). (...) Indeed it seemed to me that haunting was precisely the
domain of turmoil and trouble.
Avery Gordon, 2008:xvi-xvii
For the Haunted Bookshelf Session, we ask each participant to bring a quote for us to collectively memorize. We ask that the quotes speak to the question: Why are the authors of the books I read so white, so male, so Eurocentric?, a question that Read-in recurrently asks in different iterations.
20.00-22.00: Curatorial meeting (site to be decided on location)
About Read-in
Read-in is a self-organized collective that experiments with the political, material, and physical implications of collective reading and the situatedness of any kind of reading activity. Some of the formats that Read-in experiments with include going door-to-door and requesting neighbours to host a group reading session spontaneously; memorizing workshops which focus on the links between reading and memorizing and experiments with memorizing collectively; and BookshelfResearch, for which Read-in examines specific private or public libraries according to categories such as gender, nationality, materiality. Current Read-in members: Hyunju Chung, Svenja Engels, Annette Krauss, Serena Lee, Sanne Oorthuizen, Laura Pardo, Ying Que—based between the Netherlands, Germany, Indonesia, Austria, and Canada.
Read-in’s contributions include: 2017 Research Pavilion, Venice; Zero Footprint Campus Utrecht; 2015 Made in Commons, SMBA Amsterdam, Casco Utrecht; and Made in Commons, Indonesian Iteration KUNCI, Yogyakarta; Chronopolitics, MuMok Vienna. Read-in started in 2010 in the context of Grand Domestic Revolution, Casco, Utrecht. www.read-in.info
Wednesday:
10.00 -10.40: Introduction of the seminar by Marwa Arsanios and Leire Vergara
10.40-13.00: Presentations by Marwa Arsanios and Leire Vergara on different forms of reading within their practice
14.00-18.30: Session led by Yen Noh and Eric Peter on “Island Thinking”
20.00-22.00: Curatorial meeting (site to be decided on location)
Thursday
9.00- 14.00: Face to Face with Marwa Arsanios and Leire Vergara
Readings
“Capitalist Realism”, Mark Fisher, chapter 6
“The voice of the dancing body”, Bojana Kunst
Seminar 4
Session four of Curating Positions: Practicing Organisation Under Present Conditions will be led by Emily Pethick and Leire Vergara who will continue reflecting on the present conditions in which to practice organisation. In this session, we will concentrate on the notion of walking as a contemporary artistic form and its potentiality for allowing a collective experience. The seminar will combine sessions led by the tutors with sessions led by the students, and it will also include a night-walk contribution by Nikos Doulos.
Monday
19.00-21.00: Walk led by Areumnari Ee
Tuesday
10.00-10.45: Introduction to the seminar by Emily Pethick and Leire Vergara, including some references to diagramming practices from Emily.
10.45-13.00: Reading group (continuation of the previous group on friendship with the same texts by Giorgio Agamben and Leela Gandhi).
14.00-18.30: First session led by Leon Filter, Eric Peter and Polly Wright, on walking as a contemporary artistic form.
20.00-22.00: Curatorial meeting (site to be announced soon).
Wednesday
10.00-13.00: Reading group on the notion of work, with text by Bojana Kunst “Dance and Work: The Aesthetic and Political Potential of Dance”.
14.00-18.30: Second session led by Leon Filter, Eric Peter and Polly Wright, on walking as a contemporary artistic form.
20.00-22.00: Evening walk with Nikos Doulos, followed by curatorial meeting.
Thursday
9.00-13.00: Recap of the seminar, plans for next seminar.
Readings
Agamben, Giorgio. ‘Friendship’, translated by Joseph Falsone, in Contretemps 5, 2004: 2-7.
Gandhi, Leela. ‘Introduction: Affective Communities’ in Affective Communities: Anticolonial Thought, Fin-de Siècle Radicalism, and the Politics of Friendship. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006.
Bojana Kunst 'Dance and Work: The Aesthetic and Political Potential of Dance'.
Seminar 3
Session three of Curating Positions: Practicing Organisation Under Present Condition will be led by Marwa Arsanios and Leire Vergara who will focus on thinking about the present conditions on which to practice organisation. For this, Marwa Arsanios’ artistic practice as for example her currently work on the domestic worker’s syndicate in Mexico City which deals with the relationship between work, union, the exhaustion of the body and how to take care of ones’ body will function as a trigger for the reflection of the seminar. Furthermore, Marwa will introduce 98 weeks “onpublications” research/projects and its online magazine and editions as a model to consider for the group.
Monday:
19.00-21.00: Walk led by Karina Sarkissova
Tuesday:
10.00 -10.40: Introduction of the minutes of the previous session by Eric Peter and Auremnari Ee.
10.40-13.00: Session led by the students on diagrams (introduced individually in relation to their own practice and interest).
14.00-18.30: Drawing a new diagram out of the session. Reading group (continuation of the previous group on friendship with the same texts by Giorgio Agamben and Leela Gandhi).
20.00-22.00: Editorial meeting (Fanzine/blog)
Wednesday:
10.00-13.00: Marwa Arsanios’ presentation on her own work
14.00-18.30: Marwa Arsanios’ presentation on 98 weeks (Beirut).
20.00-22.00: Editorial meeting (Fanzine/blog)
Thursday:
9.00- 13.00: Recap of the seminar, plans for next seminar.
Texts for the editorial meeting:
Bojana Kunst “Dance and Work: The Aesthetic and Political Pontential of Dance”
Steyerl, Hito: ‘The Terror of Total Dasein: Economies of Presence in the Art Field’ in dismagazine:
http://dismagazine.com/discussion/78352/the-terror-of-total-dasein-hito-steyerl/
Power, Nina: ‘The Wound Work’ lecture at Liverpool Biennial 2010.
https://www.artandeducation.net/classroom/video/65883/nina-power-the-wound-of-work
Seminar 2
Session two of Curating Positions: Practicing Organisation Under Present Conditions, will be led by Marwa Arsanios and Leire Vergara, who will each introduce their artistic and curatorial practices and the organisations that they have been involved in collaboratively developing: 98 Weeks, Beirut and Bulegoa z/b, Bilbao.
Two reading sessions aim to continue to build a discursive base for collaborative work, the first led by Leire focused on friendship with texts from Giorgio Agamben and Leila Gandhi, and the second led by Marwa on questions of work, labour and the body, with texts by Hito Steyerl and Nina Power.
The group will continue to develop conversation around shared concerns around their practices, extending a cartography of these that was produced in session 1, and plans for the shared platforms to be developed through the year.
Monday:
19.00-19.30: Collective Walk curated by a student. Each seminar, we would like to start with a curated walk by a student/s. We would like to propose a first volunteer for this first try.
19.30-20.00: Presentations by the students of the reports of the previous session. In this occasion, we’d like to ask the group to look at and discuss the diagram the group configured out of the first session.
We would like to establish the configuration of reports as a collective methodology to conform a memory of the course. Every group member should contribute with a curatorial/artistic report on each seminar.
The report will be shared out always on the first day (Monday evening) of the seminar and they will serve to allow a fluid continuity of the course, taking into consideration that the tutors will not be all present at the same time. The reports can be also thought to have an online presence through a blog. This proposal should be discussed collectively.
20.00-21.00: Presentations by the group of participants following the suggestion of introducing the person next to each of them in the diagram.
Tuesday:
10.00- 11.20: Presentation by Leire Vergara (on her personal curatorial trajectory)
11.20-11.40: Break
11.40-13.00: Presentation by Marwa Arsanios (on her artistic practice)
Seminar 1: 23-26 October 2017
Cologne
Timetable
Monday 19.00-21.00: Introduction with Emily Pethick
Tuesday 10.00-13.00: Presentation by Renan Laru-an and discussion
Tuesday 14.00-17.00: Introductions from the group participants
Tuesday 19.00-20.30: Open conversation with Marwa Arsanios and Emily Pethick about the project and texts circulated in advance of the week
Wednesday 10.00-13.00: Introduction to the work of 98 Weeks by Marwa Arsanios
Wednesday 14.00-17.00: One-on-ones with Marwa Arsanios and Emily Pethick
Wednesday evening: Open
Thursday morning: Reading session with Marwa Arsanios
Outline:
Monday
On Monday evening, the session will begin with Emily giving an introduction to the study group, and to her work at The Showroom, showing a few projects realized there and elsewhere that speak to the concerns of the study group, curating positions and the practice of organisation. The background texts to this session are:
‘Take Care’, Anthony Huberman, Circular Facts, 2012
‘Come in and Make a Place for Yourself: Instituting Along Lines of Self-Determination and Interdependency’, Emily Pethick, in How Institutions Think, MIT Press, 2017
Tuesday
On Tuesday morning we will have a presentation by curator Renan Laru-an.
Renan Laru-an is the founding director of Philippine-based DiscLab | Research and Criticism. He is jointly curating the 8th OK.Video Indonesia Media Arts Festival (2017) in Jakarta, and is a member of the founding team of the new public institution Philippine Contemporary Art Network temporarily housed at the Vargas Museum, where he leads and designs the research program Public Engagement and Artistic Formation. He directs the transregional project Herding Islands, Rats and the Anthropocene and the ongoing Lightning Studies: Centre for the Translation of Constraints, Conflicts, and Contaminations (CTCCCs). Recent exhibitions include From Bandung to Berlin: If all of the moons aligned, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (with Brigitta Isabella, 2016); and Lightning Studies: CTCCCs presents PASÁ PASÂ, Lopez Museum & Library, Manila (2016). Recently, he has been awarded with the Forecast Curatorial Development Grant to work on his project The Artist and the Social Dreamer with Hou Hanru. He is a member of SYNAPSE - The International Curators' Network at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.
Marwa will join us on Tuesday afternoon and we’ll use this session for the group participants to introduce themselves, their practices, and research interests.
We’ll use the evening session to talk openly and informally about the broader themes of our project: Curating Positions: Practicing Organisation Under Present Conditions and our respective ambitions for the project.
Wednesday
Wednesday morning we’ll have an introduction to the work of 98 Weeks by Marwa. In the afternoon Emily and Marwa do one-on-ones
Thursday
On Thursday morning Marwa will lead a reading group session.
‘For Slow Institutions’, Natasa Petresin Bachelez, e-flux Journal: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/85/155520/for-slow-institutions/
‘A Cheap Holiday in Other People’s Misery’, 5th May Group, 2017