Open Dialogues and Edge of Europe - ANTI

photo (c) Maija Hirvanen

Open Dialogues has been invited by Edge of Europe to write from the ANTI Festival seminar on writing, language and site.

About ANTI Festival

ANTI - Contemporary Art Festival is the only international contemporary arts festival in the world presenting site-specific works made for public space. ANTI – festival presents live, sonic, visual and text-based art from today’s most exciting and innovative artists in the Finnish town of Kuopio. Free of charge ANTI - festival is a meeting place for artists and audiences fascinated by how art shapes and responds to the places and spaces of everyday life.

The concept of ANTI is unique in the Finnish and international art scene.

About the seminar

This year's seminar asks: How does writing operate in public space? What are the performative possibilities of thinking about writing and reading in an expanded sense? What compositional techniques and methodologies allow artists to engage with the written and spoken word when working contextually? An international group of academics, artists and writers will discuss these issues through prepared papers, artists’ talks and performance lectures. The seminar is co-curated by Larry Lynch (Department of Performance and Performance Writing Research Group at University College Falmouth); artist and editor Pilvi Porkola (Esitys journal), artist and coordinator Maija Hirvanen (Edge of Europe) and ANTI Festival. The ANTI seminar is chaired by Maija Hirvanen.

Presenters are:

Wed 28th Sept -Larry Lynch, Kira O’Reilly, Emma Cocker

Thu 30th Sept - Jane Jin Kaisen, Pilvi Porkola, John Hall, Rosie Dennis

Fri 1st Oct - Caroline Bergvall, Timo Heinonen, Maija Hirvanen

http://www.antifestival.com/2010/eng/programme/seminar/

About Edge of Europe

Edge of Europe is social, pedagogic and experimental project in the areas of performance and writing. The project explores the artistic and critical possibilities of writing and other forms of textual work in their relation to contemporary performance.

http://www.edgeofeurope.net

Mary will be reporting from the festival in the form of a play's script. She will also be functioning as the Department of Micro Poetics (Finland) for EXCHANGE VALUE and WRITNG/EXHIBITION/PUBLICATION, both curated by VerySmallKitchen.

http://open-dialogues.blogspot.com/2010/09/department-of-micro-poetics-at-ac.html

http://open-dialogues.blogspot.com/2010/08/writingexhibitionpublication.html

WORK IN PROGRESS

VerySmallKitchen publishes WORK IN PROGRESS by Mary Paterson - the third chapbook to emerge from ART WRITING FIELD STATION.

WORK IN PROGRESS is available for online consumption and PDF download here.

Open publication - Free publishing - More open dialogues

'Mary’s text reveals what can be at stake in the notion of WORK IN PROGRESS: the texts, books, writings such WORK-PROGRESS is constituted by, and the libraries, book cases, and archives that they become part of; the relation of material objects to memory; written and oral; private thought and event; transformations wrought when one process, person, media makes space for and invites another into its own WORK-unfolding. Other PROGRESS-ions, too, for the reader to decide. ' Read more about the Chapbook and ART WRITING FIELD STATION here. See Rachel Lois Clapham's Chapbook 'Notes', for the same series, here.

WORK IN PROGRESS is the result of research carried out for ART WRITING FIELD STATION and Mary's residency at the Live Art Development Agency - see 'Notes towards a navigation through Unbound: from U for Unbound to A for Authority.'

TALK: Art Writing Field Station at Lecture.Free School

How do memories create the future? When does fiction become imaginary? What do you remember?

A small part of Mary Paterson's talk, a small part of ART WRITING FIELD STATION at LECTURE.FREE SCHOOL, at Bethnal Green Library on Thursday 24th June, 10am - 12pm.

ART WRITING FIELD STATION is curated by VerySmallKitchen, and includes contributions from David Berridge, Tamarin Norwood and Marit Muenzennberg with live broadcast by Karen di Franco and Concrete Radio.

LECTURE.FREE SCHOOL is curated by Edward Dorrian/ Five Years Gallery
More information on both is here.

(Henry) Moore Please

written by Mary Paterson

Henry Moore’s scultpures used to cause a stir. ‘A monstrosity,’ said one reviewer from the Daily Mirror, about the Leeds Reclining Figure in 1931. The general public disliked his work – sculptures were vandalised and protested against; one in the Ruhr was even tarred and feathred. And the establishment didn’t rally behind him either. Two former presidents of the Royal Academy, Alfred Munnings and Charles Wheeler, were still throwing insults at Moore by the late sixties, even though he’d been known as a major artist for over thirty years.

Yes, that Henry Moore. The artist who’s large, bronze shapes you have walked past, sat under, used as landmarks, or ignored. What happened? Did we become inured to Moore – familiarity breeds contempt. Did we stop seeing scultpure as a site for radical experimentation? Or did we just stop seeing at all? The question asked by the organisers of Moore Outside is: how can we make Henry Moore interesting to a 21st century audience?

Moore Outside is an interactive game produced by Coney in conjunction with the Moore collector John Deedham. Participants are invited to visit one of 8 Henry Moore sculptures on public display in London, listen to an mp3 downloaded from the project website (http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/henrymoore/grandexperiment.shtm) and submit their personal responses. For every sculpture you visit, you receive a discount on the ticket price for the retrospective at Tate Britain.

Moore said, ‘Everyone thinks that he or she looks, but they don’t really you know.’ So here is a stimulus to keep looking – and to look in a certain way. But the aspect that makes Moore Outside most interesting to a contemporary audience, has nothing to do with education; or even the twin carrots of technical adventure and financial incentive. Instead, it is about space and mutuality. By provoking people into looking and listening to other interpretations (the mp3 I listened to made my hair stand on end in disagreement), Moore Outside blasts open a space to concentrate on the sculpture. And by inviting audience responses, it constructs that concentration as a reciprocal gesture.

Audience responses will be fed into the game itself, which means that it is a system built over time and out of collaboration. The net result is a shared, growing body of knowledge inspired by Henry Moore. Coney, which describes itself as an 'agency of adventure' is known for creating work that places the audience at the centre of an engaging world. I suspect that this is also what Moore meant when he talked about looking – not just a way of seeing what is in front of you, but of approaching the whole world anew. Sometimes, a work of art makes you recalibrate the world. Moore Outside begins by recalibrating public sculpture - let’s see where it takes us.

Moore Oustide runs until 8th August, as does the Henry Moore show at Tate Britain. For more information:
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/henrymoore/grandexperiment.shtm

For more information on Coney: www.youhavefoundconey.net

Call for Proposals for two new Live Art commissions, from the Live Art Development Agency

Restock, Rethink, Reflect Two:

A series of activities on Live Art and Disability 2010

The Live Art Development Agency is delighted to invite proposals for two new Live Art commissions from UK-based artists who identify as disabled. The two new works will each receive an award of £2,000 and be presented in the Restock, Rethink, Reflect Two: Live Art and disability programme of events in Autumn 2010.

If you are interested in this opportunity and have an idea for a new work, please go to the Agency’s website for the background to the project and details of how to apply.

Deadline for applications: June 24, 2010

Dates of events: Autumn 2010 (exact dates to be confirmed)

www.thisisliveart.co.uk

PEDAGOGY, PERFORMANCE AND FEMINISM

Friday 21st May, 12pm - 2.15pm at the ICA

A rare screening of 'Interview with Martha Rosler' by Performance Saga.

Followed by a conversation between David Berridge, Rachel Lois Clapham, Sonia Dermience, Martin Hargreaves, Theron Schmidt and chaired by Mary Paterson.

• How can you communicate about past performances?

• What is it about performance that you might want to communicate?

• What roles can an artist/ art practice play in creating knowledge about the past?

• What kind of framework do you need in order to understand the past?

• What role does writing have in the debate?

MARTHA ROSLER is an American artist who works across performance, collage, video and writing. In her Performance Saga interview she talks about her work and the conditions under which it came into being.

PERFORMANCE SAGA tells and updates the histories of performance art, and has created a series of DVD interviews, essays and festivals.

OPEN DIALOGUES produced writing programmes for the Performance Saga festivals (

led by Mary Paterson, with Rachel Lois Clapham and Theron Schmidt,

2008 and 2009) that responded to its themes of history, influence and cultural exchange.

Notes on the participants:

David Berridge lives in London, and makes language works for exhibition, performance, print and on line publication. The Moth Is Moth This Money Night Moth is published by The Knives, Forks and Spoons Press. Recent projects include The Shadow of a Train, a script for an exhibition at the Totalkunst Gallery, Edinburgh, in June 2010, and a residency at The Pigeon Wing, London, in September exploring relations of writing, exhibition and publication. Work online in Soanyway, Jacket, Streetcake, Otoliths, Rubric and fillip. He curates VerySmallKitchen at http://verysmallkitchen.com/.

Rachel Lois Clapham is a writer and Co-Director of Open Dialogues. Recent work includes Inside Performance, a regular column for Dance Theatre Journal, Writing Live, an experiment in art, writing and performance with the Performa Biennial New York, Re- a live reading at PSL Gallery Leeds and Essaying Touch a writing residency at Islington Mill Salford. Current fascinations are the porosity of text, improvisation and live writing. She her bio page here.

Sonia Dermience founded Komplot in 2002, a curatorial collective concerned with nomadic creative practices, trends of specialisation and the infiltration of spaces. Projects such as 'Vollevox' or 'Architecture of Survival' explored new terrain in relation to objects, spaces, artists and the public. She has conducted extensive research into post '68 collaborative art practices in Belgium; organizing seminars and making two documentary films with Kosten Koper. This research is on-going with 'Marcel', a collective film and 'Y-The Black Issue', an itinerary exhibition, workshop and publication initiated during a residency at 'Far Away So Close', Sweden. Komplot founded The Public School in Brussels, November 2009, in a joint venture with a residency program at Nadine. The current committee members of The Public School Brussels are Heidi Ballet, Constance Barrère Dangleterre, Sonia Dermience, Sébastien Ricou, Ive Stevenheydens, Ronald Van de Sompel.

Martin Hargreaves is the Editor of Dance Theatre Journal and the Programme Leader of the MA Dance Theatre: The Body in Performance at Laban. His research interests lie between boredom and hysteria and he has learnt and performed Yvonne Rainer’s Trio A in a variety of contexts.

Mary Paterson is a writer and producer, and Co-Director of Open Dialogues. She is currently fascinated by metamorphosis and time travel. See her bio page here.

Theron Schmidt is a writer and performer based in London. As a solo artist he has presented work at Artsadmin, Camden People’s Theatre, Chisenhale Dance Space, and Roehampton University, and his performance collaborations have included projects with Julia Barclay, Lucy Cash, Nicola Conibere, and Chris Goode. He is currently completing a PhD thesis on theatricality and the politics of spectatorship at Queen Mary, University of London. His critical writing on live art and performance has been published in Dance Theatre Journal, The Live Art Almanac, Platform, RealTime, and Total Theatre.

/ / / / / / /

Part of FUTURES AND PASTS, a long weekend of live art at the ICA exploring the diverse pasts and possible futures of live art and performance. The weekend is curated by writer, artist and performance maker Tim Etchells with the aid of artist Ant Hampton and Lois Keidan (Live Art Development Agency)

http://www.ica.org.uk/24606/Live-Art/Live-Weekends-Futures-and-Pasts.html

Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH,

+44 (0)20 7930 3647

A conversation with Sonia Dermience, Friday May 21st, 7 - 9pm

Mary Paterson will participate in a conversation with Sonia Dermience, Friday May 21st 7 - 9pm.

VerySmallKitchen, in collaboration with Short Term Solutions, will hold a public conversation on connections of writing, exhibition and publication, with Sonia Dermience on Friday May 21st 7-9pm.

The conversation will unfold from a consideration of ‘Y-The Black Issue’, a publication and exhibition project curated by Sonia Dermience /In residency at Far Away So Close, which she describes as follows:

The exhibition Y is a decor, a mise-en-scène for action whilst the publication Y is a script for a project motivated by the desire to combat the darkness and cold. For the exhibition, which takes place in the context of a small seaside city, deserted in the winter by tourists, the artists assembled material to create a large scale installation. The publication Y is conceived as a collectively created artists book, a black and white reader in which the contributions overlap to mirror its process of creation. In pocket book form, it highlights the relationship between the curators, artists and designers through the gathering of fragments of conversations, poetry and images about SAD (seasonal affective disorder), melancholy, northern lights, weather, countryside, second residencies…

All welcome. The conversation will be a round table facilitated by David Berridge, Karen Di Franco, Marit Muenzberg and Mary Paterson.

This is a semi-public event at the Short Term Solutions studio space in Bethnal Green. To reserve a place and receive directions please email David at verysmallkitchen@gmail.com

For more information, please see Very Small Kitchen