SEMINAR & WORKSHOP

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»» Agenda | Trans-disciplinary seminar & research/ documentation workshop (pdf)

Period: 24 May – 7 June
Project organizer: KSAK- Center for Contemporary Art, Chisinau

Location: State University, Chisinau
Address: str. A. Mateevici 60, Main Building, Auditorium 137/141
Program: 10.00 - 17.30, open for the public

The transdisciplinary seminar and the workshop dedicated to documentation and research are a part of the CHISINAU- Art, Research in the Public Sphere - a cross-disciplinary platform that will investigate the connections between political and cultural symbols and propaganda and its impact on the urban environment, the interference between personal narratives and imported ideologies and cultural discourses in relation to the public sphere. The project aim is to explore the dominant institutional and political discourses that have shaped the society and the urban landscape of the city of Chisinau in the course of its recent history.

A number of visual artists, curators, historians, designers and sociologists from the Balkan (Romania, Serbia, Montenegro) and Baltic (Lithuania and Estonia) countries, as well from other EU countries (Poland, France, Austria, The Netherlands) that have experienced similar social and cultural processes and phenomena will present their research and case studies related to projects dealing with art and the public sphere and to the connections between the public and private acceptions of space placed in various cultural and ideological backgrounds.

The workshop the participants will examine how certain versions of the past are produced and given prominence in the public media, civic life and state politics, and in the flow of daily lives, from the former policies to the present political and economic discourses that dominates the society. Launching a project related to the public sphere today, in the middle of globalization and of an aggressive capitalist society that has reduced the role of art to that of mere decoration, means that public art should become a tool of critical engagement, with political and social connotations. What is the current look of the city and where are the real roots of the deep nostalgia for the former symbols and the ghosts that still haunt the society – these are some of the questions that the project participants will try to answer with their projects and contributions to the project.

Participanti:

Angela Serino – curator, art manager, The Netherlands
Klaus Schafler – visual artist, Austria
Vladan Jeremic&Rena Raedle – curators, social activists, Serbia
Danilo Prnjat – visual artist, Serbia
Joanna Rajkowska – visual artist, Poland
Kaja Pawelek – curator, Poland
Dumitru Oboroc – visual artist, Romania
Alina Popa&Irina Gheorghe (The Bureau of Melodramatic Research) – visual artists, Romania
Ferenc Grof &Jean-Baptiste Naudy (Societe Realiste) – visual artists, France/Hungary
Rael Artel – curator, art manager, Estonia
Floe Kasearu – visual artist, Estonia
Catalin Gheorghe – art critic, theorist, curator, Romania
Virgil Paslariuc – historian, Moldova
Ovidiu Tichindeleanu – philosopher, writer, Moldova
Tamara Nesterova – art historian, architect, Moldova
Indre Klimaite – visual artist, Lithuania
Ghenadie Popescu – visual artist, Moldova
Tatiana Fiodorova – visual artist, Moldova
Max Kuzmenko – visual artist, Moldova
Vladimir Us – artist, curator, Moldova
Ana Marian – art critic, theorist, Moldova

Projects partners: Alliance Francaise de Moldavie, German Cultural Center AKZENTE/Chisinau, the Goethe Institute/Bucharest, Polish Cultural Institute/Bucharest, Austrian Cultural Forum/Bucharest UNESCO Chair of South-East European Studies in the frame of Faculty of History of the Moldova State University, National Museum of History and Archeology, Direction for Culture of the Municipality of Chisinau.

CHISINAU - Art, Research in the Public Sphere is suported financialy by Allianz Kulturstiftung, Germany, , the Goethe Institute/Bucharest trough German Cultural Center AKZENTE/Chisinau, Polish Cultural Institute/Bucharest, Alliance Francaise de Moldavie and Austrian Cultural Forum/Bucharest.

Project partners:

E-cart.ro Association, Campina, Romania (www.e-cart.ro)
E-cart.ro is a cultural association that encourages and promotes independent artists and facilitates public access to contemporary art. Through a flexible and open structure, the E-cart.ro Association has a multi-disciplinary approach and addresses publics from many backgrounds. Participating in local, national or international projects, E-cart.ro stimulates cultural exchange and artistic production. Its current projects include a Department for Art in Public Space, initiated in 2009, consisting of a platform for debates, artistic interventions and publications.

MEEM- Rael Artel Gallery: Non-Profit Project, Tallinn, Estonia ( www.publicpreparation.org)
NGO MEEM is a non-profit organisation mainly dedicated to the production, distribution and promotion of contemporary art. The current project, Public Preparation, a platform for knowledge production and network-based communication focuses on the growing tendencies of nationalism in contemporary Europe and their critique in contemporary art.

Center for Contemporary Art - [KSA:K] (www.art.md)
[KSA:K] Center is a non-profit, independent institution registered in the year 2000. The new strategy of the Center is the development of cultural forms and art practices, which would reflect the dynamic of the social, political and economic transformations of the society. Center supports the advocacy activities in promoting of cultural policies suitable for the defining and the consolidation of artist position and contemporary art practices in the society.

Stefan Rusu- Project Director/Curator

Center for Contemporary Art-[KSA:K],
Str. Banulescu-Bodoni 5, ap-2, Post code 2012,
Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
tel: + 373 22 23 72 72