02/02/2012

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16 and 17 April 2012: The Invisible Hand, Workshop, B-open, Bergen, NO

Adam Smith

Location: HKS / Hordaland Art Centre, Bergen, NO
Initiated by: Toril Johannessen (B-open) and Marjolijn Dijkman (ERforS)
Supported by: Bergen kommune, Stiftelsen Fritt Ord, Norsk kulturråd, Hordland fylkeskommune, NKVN and BKFH
Speakers: Richard Sheldon, Ove Jakobsen and Charles Esche
Public debate: 16 April 2012, Hordaland Art Centre at 19:00h.
Participate: please register before the 15th of March: erfors@gmail.com (participation is free of charge. (Kindly note that B-open is not able to provide travel or accommodation)

Major contemporary thinkers keep repeating that it is easier to imagine the end of the world then the end of capitalism. Simultaneously, protest movements all over the world are exploring and evaluating the core principles of capitalism, believing there are alternatives. These movements make visible a dismay that has been almost invisible for a long time in the western world. In front of banks and financial institutes people express their discomfort with the way the financial world has control over daily life and politics.

In the workshop The Invisible Hand, we will explore the way Adam Smith (the first major theorist of what we commonly call Capitalism) has influenced contemporary rhetoric's around Capitalism. His term 'The Invisible Hand' has been used and appropriated by many speakers, with contradicting points of views, and it became an important metaphor in the discussions on the influence of the free market. Together with a historian and an economist, a group of artists will explore the roots of the capitalist way of thinking by discussing and researching Adam Smith and the way his ideas have influenced other thinkers. The group will be challenged to take a stand in the discussion and develop a response towards these rapidly emerging global issues.

Norway has a very special position in Europe at the moment. Due to its wealth there is not the same urgency to rethink the value system like there is in other European countries or the United States at the moment. Its wealth if not its welfare system seems to be secured for another few generations to come. How does this particular situation affect the way Norwegians think about Norway´s role in the global economy, not to say the global environment, as the Norwegian economy is heavily dependent on oil as a commodity?

The workshop will be in the form of a seminar group limited to 15 registered participants, plus a panel discussion with historian Richard Sheldon, economist Ove Jakobsen and curator Charles Esche in the afternoon. The panel discussion will be open for the public.

27 January - 11 March 2012: Back to the Future, Exhibition, CBKU, NL

Louis de Cordier, Golden Sun Disk

Location: CBKU, Plompetorengracht 4, Utrecht, NL
Curated by: Wout Hoogendijk & Enough Room for Space
Participating artists: Kristina Benjocki, Louis de Cordier, Edhv., Michael Johansson, Anton Ginzburg, Bruno Mouron & Pascal Rostain, Toine Klaassen, Frank Koolen, Fleur Thio, Leonid Tsvetkov, Maarten Vanden Eynde
Supported by: Province of Utrecht, City of Utrecht, J.E. Jurriaanse Foundation

"This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours." - Jimmy Carter (Voyager Golden Record)

In 1977 the ‘Voyager Golden Records’ were send into space. The LP’s contain sound and image material that reveal the variety of life and culture on earth that could become exposed to any form of alien life. How will others in the future look back at our times? What will remain for future generations? To what extend does the past influence the present? These are questions that deal with the construction and manipulation of history writing. The exhibition ‘Back to the Future’ presents the artist researcher, who interprets history according to his/her own point of view and who constructs a possible future or imaginary past. Archeology and archaeological sites are an inspiring world for artists. The conclusions made by archaeologists and artists responding to the current state of affairs with fragmented knowledge allow space for interpretation and speculation. By connecting elements of the past with the present the artists develop the heritage of the future and are to a certain extend excavating the future past.

2011 - 2013: Present Perfect!, Publications, Residencies and Exhibitions

Moussa / Vanden Eynde: IN_DÉPENDANCE, off-program/SUD 2010, Douala

Curator: Annette Schemmel
Coordination: Annette Schemmel, Marjolijn Dijkman and Pauline Doutreluingne
Partners: Enough Room for Space, Brussels BE / Gueststudio DCR, The Hague, NL / ArtBakery, Douala Cameroon, CM / diARTgonale, CM / Doual'Art, Douala, CM / NEST, The Hague, NL / SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin DE / IWALEWA-Haus, Universität Bayreuth, DE
Support: Arts Collaboratory, Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam, NL / Stroom, The Hague NL / IFA, DE
Artists: Marjolijn Dijkman, Beate Engl, Justine Ngaga, Christian Hanussek, Achillekà Komguem, Salifou Lindou, Vincent Meessen, Alioum Moussa, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Nicolas & Rosa Eyidi
Critics: Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Dominique Malaquais, Lionel Manga, Ruth Afane Belinga, amongst others

“Present Perfect!” explores current and historic relations between Europe and Cameroon from five intercultural perspectives from within the visual arts. The art journal diARTgonale will be repositioned during an editorial residency of Ruth Afane Belinga, Achillekà Komguem and Salifou Lindou in The Hague at Gueststudio DCR in Sept/Oct 2011. Throughout 2012 and 2013, a sequence of special editions will present the research projects of mixed artist teams from Cameroon and Europe (Moussa/Vanden Eynde, Dijkman/Eyidi, Meessen/n.n., Lindou/Hanussek, Ngaga/Engl). A critical, contextualising section will comment on these projects. These journals will be distributed in The Hague, NL, Bayreuth, Berlin, DE, Brussels, BE, Bonendale/Douala, CM, and in artist initiatives, art schools, foreign cultural institutes throughout Cameroon. A travelling group exhibition will show the artistic research projects in full size and in the context of recent work made on the same geographic axis. The exhibition will open in October 2013 in NEST in The Hague.

“Present Perfect!” challenges “otherising” practices (Stuart Hall) of the global art world and highlights what the lately deceased artist and visionary Goddy Leye (CM) stated: “Art is universal (…) although the means of presentation and production or even the character of the works changes with the localities, we’re united in the same quest.”

2 - 21 December 2011: Present Perfect!, 3rd working period in Cameroon

Salifou Lindou: Face à l’Eau, 2010, produced for the SUD 2010

Annette Schemmel, Beate Engl, Christian Hannusek, Marjolijn Dijkman and Eelco van der Lingen will travel to Cameroon in December 2011. They will be working amongst others with Salifou Lindou, Ruth Belinga, Nicolas & Rosa Eyidi, Achilleka Komguem and Lionel Manga on the further development of Present Perfect!. They will be working in Douala, Yaounde, M'Balmayo, Foumban and Maroua.