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Paradise: Lost or Under Construction?
Venice-Brussels, September 2007 -- Interpreted respectively as expressions of a ‘transnational community’ and of an ‘historical globalized nation’, the Roma Pavilion and an Armenian exhibition – presented for the first time ever at the current Venice Biennale – have inspired the terms for a discussion on transnationalism in art and society.
By speaking of mixed feelings of belonging, of temporary rootedness, and using a plurality of cultural references (social, geographical, political and linguistic), the artworks in “Paradise Lost” (Roma Pavilion) and “Under Construction” (Armenian Exhibition) suggest models of community representation and identity processes unbound to traditional concepts of national boundaries, homogeneous cultural core and mono-linguistic competence, which are commonly used to determine the political visibility and representation of a modern nation state and its community. Instead they embody a very inspiring idea of identity as something that is intimately constituted by hybrid processes and that is not given but built and expressed in each new circumstance, according to personal choices, specific contexts of action and concrete possibilities of expression. In a broader European political context, characterized by the crisis of nation-state models, increased mobility and new forms of community dynamics and spatial affiliation, these above-mentioned characteristics make the Roma and Armenian examples particularly relevant to the current discourse about national identity and community representation.
By bringing together practitioners from Roma and Armenian communities and from more traditional state-models (exemplified by the Dutch and Italian contexts), this public event seeks to reflect on issues of growing identity at the political level as well as in the artistic field, and to offer an opportunity to challenge ideas of ‘nation’ and ‘identity’.
What useful and inspiring insights can the history of cultural blending, adaptability and the continuous process of identity-testing of the Armenian and Roma communities provide? Can the challenge of framing Armenian and Roma artistic production within the context of an event like the Venice Biennale offer some clues and critical points that could be of operational value in trying to accommodate transnational dynamics within the still-prevailing context of national representation? Can we combine the conventional comfort of community belonging (as in the Italian and the Dutch context) with traumatic/adventurous movement in a way that transcends a modern vision of geographic and social space? And how can artists help in imagining different ways of community representation, which resolutely resist national affiliation?
Discussing these questions are: Katia Anguelova (independent curator), Daniel Baker (artist featured in the Roma Pavilion), Silvina Der-Meguerditchian (curator of “Under Construction”), Annie Fletcher (curator of “Becoming Dutch”, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven), Timea Junghaus (curator of “Paradise Lost”), Guido Tintori (resident researcher at FIERI International and European Forum on Migration Research) and Angela Serino (moderator).
Admission is free but space is limited. Please register by email: press.romapavilion@osi.hu
Scroll down to see the bios of the round
table participants
PROGRAMME:
Date: September 17, 2007, 3-7pm.
Palazzo Pisani S.Marina (Piano
Nobile), Cannaregio 6103, Calle delle Erbe, Venezia.
Tel: +36 302006031
3pm: Doors open
3.30: Welcoming by Gottfried
Wagner, ECF Director
3.40: Introductory dialogue (35
min)
Timea Junghaus,
curator of “Paradise Lost”
and
Silvina Der-Meguerditchian,
curator of “Under
Construction”
Two curators will contextualize and locate the issue of
trans-national identity inside their curatorial practice, especially in
relation to the Roma and Armenian exhibitions featured in the Venice Biennale.
4.15- 4.30 coffee-break
4.30: Individual statements
by participants - response to the opening dialogue (60 min)
Annie Fletcher (Netherlands/Ireland),
curator of Becoming Dutch, Van Abbe
Museum
From the perspective of
“Becoming Dutch”, a large project on Dutch national identity in the globalized
world, conducted by Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, Netherland.
Daniel Baker (GB),
one of the artists presented in the Roma Pavilion (confirmed)
From the perspective of
transnational artistic practice based on his ongoing PhD at the Royal College
of Art, “Site Unseen: Camouflage and Passing in the Construction of Gypsy
Identities”
Katia Anguelova (Bulgaria/Italy), an independent curator based in Milan (confirmed)
From the perspective of her
transnational experience as a curator from Bulgaria involved in cross-cultural
and community- based projects in Italy (Isola Art Center in Milan)
5:30: General discussion involving
the public (90 min)
7 pm:
Informal reception inside the space of the Roma Pavilion.
Katia Anguelova
Katia Anguelova is an independent
curator based in Milan. Born in Bulgaria, Anguelova graduated in History and
Theory of Culture at the University of Sofia and afterwards moved to Paris,
where she attended DEA and the first part of a PhD at Ecole des Hautes Etudes
en Sciences Sociales. In 2003-2004, she attended the Curatorial Training
Programme at Magasin-CRAC, Grenoble, France.
Her recent projects as independent
curator include: “Con altri occhi” (with Roberto Pinto), Milan; Migre (2006,
with Alessandra Poggianti), in Grenoble (F) and Milan (It); “Stazione Livorno”
(with Stefano Boccalini and A. Poggianti); “Artética. Descrivere il resto”
(with A.Poggianti) in Lecce.
Anguelova also works as associate
curator for Isola Art Centre in Milan, for which she has recently curated “Made
in”, a project in which New York-based artist Daniela Kostova and Vienna-based
artist Plamen Dejanoff were invited to rethink their common Bulgarian origin.
Isola Art Centre is a project
founded in Milan in 2002 by a group of international and national critics,
curators and artists, with the objective of working with the neighborhood
associations for the defence of public spaces and the creation of an art
centre. By organizing challenging art projects and hosting site-specific
artworks by international and Italian artists (such as Marjetica Potrc, Tania
Brughiera, Seamus Farrell, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Stefano Arienti, Luca
Pancrazzi, Massimo Bartolini), Isola Art has now gained official recognition as
an Art and Community Centre. As such, it is involved in the current X Istanbul
Biennale curated by Hou Hanru.
Daniel Baker
Daniel was born in St Mary Cray in
Kent in 1961, the youngest son of a family of Romanichal Gypsies, which has
existed in the area for many generations and represents the largest
concentration of Gypsies in England. Daniel studied painting at Ravensbourne
School of Art from age 17 to 21. His art practice has become increasingly
contextualised by an ongoing exploration of his cultural positioning. Having
completed a Sociology MA specialising in Romani Studies, Daniel began his
Doctoral Research at the Royal College of Art in 2006. He is currently serving
as Chair of the Gypsy Council and editor of The HUB, the newsletter of the
Gypsy Council. He exhibits widely both in the UK and abroad. He lives and works
in London. Baker states: “My current work explores the imagined space occupied
by the Gypsy, offering a window onto the marginal area allocated to Gypsies -
outside of, yet surrounded by, connected, yet dislocated from a society that
they have existed within for hundreds of years. The imagined space here refers
both to the symbolic space of myth and misconception held in the popular
imagination, as well as the absence or disappearance of geographical space for
Gypsy habitation in the light of recent legislation. These works use painted,
etched and gilded glass to produce illuminated mirrored surfaces, or looking
glasses. These looking glasses seek to highlight an ambiguity and confusion in
the way that Gypsies are seen – a state of obscured likeness and masked
visibility that has been internalized by the Gypsy over time, making it
difficult for Gypsies to fully see themselves in the world.”
Silvina Der-Meguerditchian
Silvina Der-Meguerditchian is the
granddaughter of Armenian immigrants to Argentina and was born in Buenos Aires
in 1967. She grew up in Argentina and now lives in Berlin. A recurrent theme of
her work is the remembrance of the ethnic dislocation of the Armenian people
and the genocide they suffered. She uses photographic memorabilia and official
documents and merges them in her crochet collages into individual painful
stories. Silvina Der-Meguerditchian ties a net. She connects the disparate,
builds bridges between separate worlds and seeks a dialogue with the unknown.
Her main focus is always on the actual process of joining and dissolving,
constructing and deconstructing identity. Silvina Der-Meguerditchian’s work
represents a type of mnemonics, namely the individual and collective art of
commemoration.
She is the curator of “Under
Construction”, the first Armenian Pavilion at the current Venice Biennial.
http://www.underconstructionhome.net/underconstr_venice/bienal_intro.htm
Annie Fletcher
Annie Fletcher is an independent
critic and curator who lives and works in Amsterdam.
She is interested in investigating
the potential of curatorial practice (what it means to show and mediate art)
and believes in the potential of dialogues and knowledge production and
examining how any space marked for art (a museum, art school, a kunsthalle or
residency programme) sets up such a dynamic.
Her current and recent projects
include co-curating with Charles Esche the project "Be(com)ing Dutch in
the Age of Global Democracy" at Van Abbemusuem (2006-2008), co-curating
with Frederique Bergholtz "If I Can't Dance - I Don't Want To Be Part Of
Your Revolution" at various locations from 2005 to 2008 (www.ificantdance,org), 'Cork Caucus' with Charles Esche, Tara Byrne
& Sean Kelly (NSF) and Art/Not Art in Cork, Ireland 2005 (www.corkcaucus.org).
Be[com]ing Dutch is a two-year
project, developed both inside and outside the Van Abbemuseum, which consists
of debates, reading groups, artists' projects, exhibitions, residencies, and
forms of collective participation and production. Be[com]ing Dutch asks whether
art might offer alternative examples of thinking about how we might live
together today. It seeks to put our ideas of cultural identity under pressure
and examine the processes of inclusion and exclusion in the world today.
Be[com]ing Dutch is developed by
Charles Esche and Annie Fletcher and others in- and outside the Van Abbemuseum.
Institutional partnerships: BAK [Utrecht], New Museum of Contemporary Art [New
York], Goldsmiths College [London], Kosmose [Eindhoven] and Stichting Interart
[Arnhem].
The project Be[com]ing Dutch by
the Van Abbemuseum has been awarded the Development Award for Cultural
Diversity 2006 by the Mondriaan Foundation.
Timea Junghaus
Timea Junghaus is an art historian
and cultural activist. As the first Roma art historian in Hungary and an
acknowledged advocate of the cultural rights of minorities, she plays an active
role in defining inclusive cultural strategies. In 2002 she founded the János
Balázs Gallery, which is located in the 8th district of Budapest, Hungary (an
area known for its large Roma population), and she curated several exhibitions
that raised public awareness of the cultural oppression of Roma people. In
March 2004 she was co-curator of the exhibition “Hidden Holocaust”, through which,
for the first time, Roma artists entered the official art scene and exhibited
in Budapest's Kunsthalle (Contemporary Art Museum). She generated interest,
exhibitions and conferences on Roma culture internationally: “We are what we
are - Aspects of Roma Life in Contemporary Art” (exhibition, Minoriten Galerie,
Graz, Austria, October 2004); “North and South LAB, Culture and Colonization”
(conference, Tanzquartier, Vienna, Austria, March 2005); “Common Space,
Exhibition about the Hungarian minority representation” (exhibition, Ernst
Museum, Budapest, Hungary, 2006); “About the Absence of the Camp” (exhibition,
Kunsthaus Dresden, Germany, 2006). She is author and co-editor of the first
comprehensive publication on European Roma visual art, “Meet Your Neighbours -
Contemporary Roma Art from Europe” (OSI Publication, 2006). Since 2005 Junghaus
has been affiliated with the Open Society Institute, where she is the Program Officer of the Roma Cultural Participation Project. RCPP as a component of
the Open Society Institute's Arts and Culture Network Program emphasizes the
cultural inclusiveness and empowerment of Roma as well as changes in the
majority societies' attitudes.
She is the curator of “Paradise
Lost”, the first Roma Pavilion at the current Venice Biennale.
Angela Serino
Angela Serino is an independent
curator based in Amsterdam. She is interested in curating as an exploratory
mode of dealing with reality, and sees art as a discipline connected to other
fields of knowledge. After graduating with honours in Mass Communication at the
University of Siena (Italy) in 2003, she worked on different exhibitions and
public programmes as a member of Synapser, a collective of young Italian curators,
and independently. She moved to Amsterdam to attend de Appel Curatorial
Training Programme in 2005/06, which completed with the collaborative
exhibition Mercury in Retrograde. She has been pursuing a research approach in
curating through the following projects: Catalyst (exhibition, publication and
artist-in-residence programme), with graduate students from Rietveld Academy
and St.Lucas Academy - co-curated with Tessa Giblin at De Brakke Grond,
Amsterdam (2006); Beauty Unrealized: personal universe seeking a form,
(exhibition, performances, screenings, lectures) as guest curator, PSWAR
(artist-run space), Amsterdam (2006-2007); and the solo show of Ursula Mayer, a
collaboration between Impakt Festival and Centraal Museum, Utrecht (2007). More
recently, she developed Contemporary Passages: temporary roots and interweaving
paths (exhibition, public talk and film screening on issues of mobility and
temporary residency), as guest curator at TENT., Rotterdam.
She has collaborated with various
Italian art magazines (e.g. Arte e critica, Neural) and has organized various
video and film programmes in Italy (Villa Serena Bologna, Visionaria Festival
in Siena) and in the Netherlands (Impakt Festival Utrecht).
Guido Tintori is resident
researcher at Turin's FIERI (International and European Forum on Migration
Research), and external contract advisor to the Office for the Social Cohesion
at the Presidency of the Italian Republic. He has a Ph.D. in the History of
European Society. Since 2003, he has been a member of the Network of Excellence
IMISCOE (International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe),
funded by the European Commission.
He has worked extensively on
Italian nationality laws in a comparative framework, and on the historical and
legal aspects of migrants' transnational political activities.
His publications includee:
"Cittadinanza e politiche di emigrazione nell'Italia liberale e
fascista" [Citizenship and Emigration Policies in Liberal and Fascist
Italy] and "Come si diventa cittadini italiani" [Access to Italian
Citizenship] in G. Zincone (ed.), Familismo legale. Come (non) diventare
cittadini italiani, Rome-Bari, Laterza, 2006.
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