A series of lectures, performances and artistic contributions on the topic of archiving
EDN members are looking into the field of artistic research related to contemporary dance. An example of research was the Atelier "Archives to come" organised at Tanzquartier Wien in 2016.
In that Atelier, we looked into questions such as the desire and agency of collecting and archiving in front of constantly changing artistic and political situations, under moving conditions, in states of transition. Or further: in which critical situations the need or even necessity of undertaking and inventory (of a presence) emerges, in order to relocate and establish new relationships towards the existing master narratives – as in many archives from below, where through changing the grammars of the past new paths and possible continuities get established? Which affects and desires are inscribed into such acting?
Find the full programme of the event here.
The artistic exploration of the conflict between Israel and Palestine by Arkadi Zaides uses film material from B’Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories). The footage was filmed by Palestinian volunteers in high-conflict areas, showing Israeli people in various confrontational situations. The Palestinians remain behind the camera. Nevertheless, their movement, voice and point of view are highly present, determining the spectator’s perspective. Zaides involves his own body with the moving-material of his community and re-enacts gestures, voices and moving-sequences by soldiers and settlers to develop a hidden living-archive out of the perspective from the controlled, which is focused on the question what potential for violence is embedded in the individual human body.
Arkadi Zaides was born in 1979 in the Soviet Union, immigrated to Israel in 1990. Currently spends his time between Europe and Israel while working internationally. Since 2004, Arkadi has been working as a free-lance choreographer. His works have been shown in numerous international festivals in Israel, Switzerland, Italy, the Czech Republic, India, Hungary, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Romania, Germany, China, Taiwan, USA, Canada, The Netherlands and Japan amongst others.Embedded in Arkadi’s work is a belief that the role of art is to challenge and inspire viewers, while simultaneously it has a larger universal role to reach out and bring together different communities and different sectors of society.
Documentation of the Atelier: videos of lectures and artistic discourses
CAA/CAA (Contemporary Art Archive/Center for Art Analysis) is a contemporary art museum in files focusing on art and its context, art theory and practice, cultural studies and critical theory. A comprehensive (international) database “a voice-activated” capsule of knowledge. A frame and platform for ideas, dialogue, communication and empowerment focusing on issues that reflect the current debate in the art field and new cultural theories — about the social and political relevance of art, its autonomy and its changes. Under different names, the CAA has been active since 1985 in Lia and Dan Perjovschi’s home in Oradea, in the frame of the experimental studio at Art Academy Bucharest, in Lia and Dan Perjovschi’s artist studio in Bucharest, in national and international museums, galleries, non-profit or artist-run spaces and in the mass media.
Lia Perjovschi was born in 1961 in Sibiu, Romania. She studied at the Art Academy Bucharest 1987-1993 and currently lives in Bucharest and Sibiu. Her activity can be summarised as a journey from her body to the body of knowledge and was shown in more than 500 exhibitions, lectures, workshops around the world.
In this discoursive detour Arkadi Zaides, Dan Perjovschi, Siobhan Davis with Scott deLahunta, Penelope Wehrli and Sandra Iché through artist talks, lectures, work presentations will open the space for reflections on the proposed “archives to come”. What will the archives be that describe our presence in the future; what will remain and how do we inscribe ourselves already into (our) future memories or even project a future through concrete acts – a potential grammar of an archive to be? Through which practices can we already rewrite our multiple and multi-layered (hi)stories from a present tense and relocate ourselves in the surrounding of ever-changing environments to negotiate and claim the presence of the oftentimes ephemeral manifestations of our (individual or collective) subjectivities?
Penelope Wehrli born in Zürich, currently lives in Berlin. Since 1980, she developed performance installations, films and videos, which were shown in New York, Belgrade and Bangalore. Since 1996, she defines her enactments and walk-in media spaces as “space scores”. They were shown at The Festspielhaus Hellerau in Dresden, the Paace of Republic in Berlin and the Staatsoper Saarbrücken, amongst others. She worked as scenographer with Johan Kresnik, Jossie Wieler, Dimiter Gottscheff, Robert Schuster, Reinhild Hoffmann, Barbara Frey and recently with Christiane Pohle, including the Schauspielhäuser Hamburg and Zurich, the Basel Opera and the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg Platz in Berlin.
Dan Perjovschi, born 1961 Sibiu, living and working in Bucharest, Romania, is a visual artist mixing drawing, cartoon and graffiti in artistic pieces drawn directly on the walls of museums and contemporary art spaces all over the world. His drawings comment on current political, social or cultural issues. He has played an active role in the development of the civil society in Romania, through his editorial activity with Revista 22 cultural magazine in Bucharest, and has stimulated exchange between the Romanian and international contemporary artistic scenes.
Scott deLahunta has worked as writer, researcher and organiser on a range of international projects bringing performing arts with a focus on choreography into conjunction with other disciplines and practices. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Dance Research, Conventry University and Deakin Motion. Lab, Deakin University. He is co-directing the Motion Bank Institute based in Frankfurt.
Siobhan Davies is a renowned British choreographer who rose to prominence in the 1970s. Davies was a founding member of London Contemporary Dance Theatre and in 1982 joined forces with Richard Alston and Ian Spink to create independent dance company Second Stride. Founding Siobhan Davies Dance in 1988, she works closely with collaborating artists to ensure that their own artistic enquiry is part of the creative process. By 2002 she moved away from the traditional theatre circuit and started making work for gallery spaces. Davies applies choreography across a wide range of creative disciplines including visual arts and film. Her artistic practice involves bringing together a collective of artists and choreographers to create within an environment that supports them to share common investigative concerns alongside their own work. Recent choreographic works have been presented at some of the most prestigious art institutions in the UK and Europe.
Olaf Nicolai questions the archive on its (own) capacity to produce, as a means of production. Via his work Szondi/Eden he shows, that documents and materials of an archive are not to be understood as static; rather as subjects they oscillate between their ascribed reference status and their potential to relocate themselves within communications, when their sources are understood as versatile.
Olaf Nicolai currently lives and works in Berlin and completed a PHD in comparative literature and linguistics at the Karl-Marx-University, Leipzig on the theme of The Vienna Group. Gesture Between Calculation and Expression (1992). He has exhibited in an international context since the early 1990s and in 1997 was invited to take part in documenta X. He develops diverse interdisciplinary projects which thematise the fundamental experiences of space, time and physicality.