Reshape
Do It Together. The position of the artist in today’s art world. — by Delphine Hesters
Although the professionalization of the arts sector continues to rise, and global budgets for art are also growing, alarm bells warning about the precarious socio-economic position of artists are ringing louder than before.
CANCELLED: Reshape Intensive Zagreb
Unfortunately, we are canceling the public programme of the Reshape Intensive Zagreb that includes lectures by Renata Salecl, Vincent Liegey, Juliette Hennequin and Pascal Gielen, as well as announced walks and talks. The programme of the Intensive was primarily aimed to the participants of the Reshape project that are coming from various countries across the EuroMed region. Due to the current situation of the spreading of Corona virus across Europ, travelling and larger meetings represent an additional threat of the spreading of the virus. Although we wish not to contribute to the panic presented in some media, we are convinced that we should take the responsibility for the prevention of the further spreading of the infection. We apologise to all of those who planned to attend the Reshape Intensive Zagreb programme and announce that the lectures will be held as a part of other Reshape activities. The working part of the Intensive will be held online.
Laura Roth: Feminisation of Politics and Activism
Feminism seems to be gaining momentum in many countries, but most organisations and groups are still working based on patriarchal standards. The “feminisation of politics” includes different elements, which all aim to change the way activism and politics (in a broad sense) are done.
Brussels. In search of territories of new-urban creation. — by Chris Keulemans
This text is a report of a month in Brussels. No more, no less. The report of a month spent walking, talking and observing. At the invitation of Flanders Arts Institute and in particular of Sofie Joye, in charge of Diversity, Urbanity and Emerging Artists.
Performing the under-performed. Performing arts spaces in Romania
A brief radiography of the performing arts scene in Romania, with a focus on the independent art scene: its fragile structures, their restless struggle to establish and maintain spaces for creation and production and their taste for socially and politically engaged practice.
Oxana Timofeeva: Solidarity On The Planetary Scale
A critical engagement of theory and the arts in a dialogue with natural and technical sciences is characteristic for the materialist turn in contemporary culture. It rethinks historical processes from the perspective of the posthuman turn: the history of humans has to be inscribed into the history of things and the history of the World – into the history of the Earth.
Soraya Bahgat: Learning On The Go - On women’s rights and activism
Soraya Bahgat shared her journey as an “accidental activist” and social entrepreneur. While working as Head of HR for a leading Egyptian real estate developer, she founded a volunteer movement to combat the pandemic mob-sexual assaults that had plagued Tahrir Square during the 2011 revolution.
Do it Together. Practices and Tendencies of Participatory Governance in Culture in the Republic of Croatia
Participation does not imply only joining in the game but also the rules of the game, i.e., the conditions under which the game is played. Understanding these rules and the possibility of creating them make the key difference. Participation in this case becomes a tool for positive changes
A conversation about Reshape at La Lleialtat Santsenca guided by La Fundició and Radio Cava-Ret
Listen to the radio talk about the Reshape project that was made in Barcelona during the Art and Citizenship workshop. The radio talk took place at Lleialtat Santsenca and was guided by La Fundició and Radio Cava-Ret.
The Department of Civil Imagination (DCI) Agency in Athens: Amministrazione Trasparente or When DCI met GABRIELA
Within the framework of the European network RESHAPE, 3 137 artist-run space, with the support and in collaboration with Onassis AiR, sets the ground for a dialogue on cultural management and policy in the contemporary art sector in Greece.
Translocality: artistic internationalisation after the corona crisis
DutchCulture asked researcher Errol Boon to respond to DutchCulture’s colloquium on translocality in the arts, reflecting on the upcomming challenges of international cultural collaboration after the coronacrisis. His response is valuable for RESHAPE, especially trajectory "Transnational/Postnational artistic practices"
Culture in the state of crisis- a conversation with representatives of Ukrainian Cultural Foundation
Just like all around the world, the COVID-19 outbreak has shaken the cultural sector in Ukraine, a country that has been struggling with an unstable political situation for a while now. The rise of cultural life after the Dignity Revolution of 2014, was soon accompanied by the establishment of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation - the state institution that introduces new mechanisms of funding for initiatives in the field of culture and creative industries. Thanks to the UCF, the non-governmental sector was not left to fend for itself during the pandemic, as the foundation took on the role of a crisis manager, trying to adapt quickly to the new realities.
Mophradat - reinventing of articulations, discourses and meanings
Krystel Khoury presents Mophradat, an art organization that seeks to create opportunities for artists from the Arab world - a loose geographical determinant to which they approach in its full diversity and complexity. Located between Brussels and Athens, Mophradat is developing an innovative approach to funding, commissioning, collaborating, and gathering.
Metod Fund: Reshape the institutions!
Based in Kiev, Method Fund was founded in 2015 by a diverse group of artists, curators, critics, architects and educators. Their founders — Lada Nakonechna, Olga Kubli, Tetiana Endshpil, Ivan Melnichuk, Denis Pankratov and Kateryna Badianova — describe it as an experimental self-educational project, focused on searching the form of an art institution that would meet the requirements of the present as well as the peculiarities of the local context. We’ve met via zoom with Lada on one screen and Olga, Ivan and Tetiana on the other, to talk about their views on institutional experimenting and reshaping.
Radio is a Social Medium
Created 15 years ago, Radio Papesse is an online audio archive devoted to contemporary art and a place for the documentation and the articulation of a critical discourse around the visual arts. At the same time, it is a platform that brings together artists, musicians and producers and opens up space for interesting projects of sonic storytelling. Its creators, Carola Haupt and Ilaria Gadenz entered the radio venture at a time when it was quite marginalized, if not obscure medium but, in the meantime, new audiences have discovered its various potentials. In conversation with Ilaria we learned more about the radio as a medium in presenting contemporary art, but also as a tool for community building, especially in times of social isolation.
Nevenka Koprivšek (1 June 1959 – 14 February 2021)
It is with shock and great sadness that we announce the sudden death of Nevenka Koprivšek, director of Bunker Ljubljana, a partner in the RESHAPE project. With her passing, Slovenian, Balkan and European performing arts lost a wonderful person, author, teacher, advocate and friend... A sharp thinker, full of dedication, love and empathy for the arts and artists, Nevenka's input has inspired and shaped RESHAPE and a tremendous amount of other collaborations. We will miss her greatly! In these sad moments, we express our condolences to Nevenka's family and close ones.
RESHAPE PROTOTYPE ON THE ROAD - The Gamified Workshop Toolkit: Values of Solidarity in Athens!
Finally together on-site!The Reshape team has been working hard during the months of pandemic - and the results are here! Tangible, intangible, in the form of ideas and concepts, but also games, cards and publication.
Online workshop: more than fifty people had joined ‘The Gamified Workshop Toolkit’
Flanders Arts Institute, Ettijahat - Independent Culture and Pogon - Zagrebački centar za nezavisnu kulturu i mlade organized an online session of testing ‘The Gamified Workshop Toolkit: Values of Solidarity’ prototype. The prototype was developed by Anikó Rácz, Doreen Toutikian, and Dorota Ogrodzka, within the frame of the Solidarity Economies trajectory group. It was especially designed for teams that are just beginning their collaboration, primarily in the field of arts and culture, but also in other relevant sectors.
'The Gamified Workshop Toolkit' goes online on May the 6th!
'The Gamified Workshop Toolkit' is an online workshop about solidarity in collaboration developed in the framework of the RESHAPE project. During this workshop, we will test ‘The Gamified Workshop Toolkit’, which is a card game that is especially designed for teams from different cultures, backgrounds, or personal situations, who are just beginning their collaboration.
ONDA & Flanders Arts Institute @ RIDA: 'Reimagining the artistic world - on transnational/postnational practices"
The testing of another prototype, developed in the frame of Transnational/Postnational Artistic Practices Trajectory took place on May the 21 at the RIDA - International Programming Meeting of the RESHAPE lead partner, ONDA.
Trigger Festival: Reshape Presentation and a Tarot Reading Session
The dissemination of prototypes has continued to the partners’ countries. In the last few days, the representatives and Reshapers visited Ljubljana, where they talked about the project and organized a group tarot reading session. Around 30 people participated in the program on May 31st, and on the following day facilitators organized another, individual tarot reading.
Values of Solidarity in the frame of Cultural Impact Now - a conference organized by TEH
On June the 2nd members of the Reshape community represented their work and results in the frame of conference that gathered a broader audience of the European performing arts practitioners and experts. Twice a year, TEH organizes meetings and conferences to exchange knowledge, to start conversations and to connect with other cultural changemakers. These events serve as a hotbed of new ideas and collaborations, reflect diversity of the network and explore topics that matter to cultural workers all around Europe.
Two RESHAPE workshops at the Biennale de la danse de Lyon
On June 8th, the leading partner of RESHAPE, ONDA, in collaboration with the Biennale de la danse de Lyon, Institut français and CCN de Rillieux-la-Pape organized two workshops. In the workshops, two prototypes have been represented - the Gamified Workshop Toolkit and the Tarot Reading Session.
Using Tarot to identify collective vision
During the weekend of 11th - 13th June, Reshaper Petr Dlouhy and his colleagues from Prague based Studio Alta went out of the town and settled in a small camp in the countryside to have a plenary meeting whose main aim was to identify the collective vision of the institution’s future.After sunset, Petr gathered the core team of Studio Alta counting 10 culture workers for a tarot session by the fire. He provided the team with a special reading which was focused on embracing the potential of collective imagination to deal with the current issue(s).
The RESHAPE project was presented for the first time offically to a wider audience in Bulgaria
An online conference organized by ACT Association (Bulgaria) took place on the 10th of June in Sofia. The multilingual event presented for the first time in detail the RESHAPE project to general Bulgarian audiences.
RESHAPERS participated at the Political Forum organized by Artemrede
On June the 10th Reshapers from different trajectories and backgrounds participated at the Political Forum, a manifestation which has been organized by one of the project’s partners, Artemrede (Portugal) since 2015. The debate and the presentation of the RESHAPE project has been held in the context of this year’s concerns of the Forum: five central challenges of the cities, in which culture can and should play a fundamental role - Territory, Democracy, Sustainability, Cooperation, and Development.
Art Field - Battlefield. Debate on the struggles for the better conditions of work in the sphere of visual arts
At the working sessions and open plenary debate on the struggles for the better conditions of work in the sphere of visual arts we presented our work done within the RESHAPE project and contributed to the understanding of the needs of artists.
CONFERENCE Reshaping the Art World: An Experiment in Collaborative Change-making
The results of the RESHAPE research are here – at the final conference, the RESHAPE community will come together and welcome artists, art workers, researchers and policy makers to discuss their ideas, test their proposals and join in on the conversation on the future evolution of the arts sector.
Contesting the Neutrality
The topics of decolonization and degrowth are certainly not new, but with the recent global movements, they are receiving increased attention and a sense of urgency. The same sense exists within the art world, where the necessity for decolonizing cultural institutions is followed by the requisition to go beyond the performative level and to rethink the role of institutions and implement change at the structural level.
Alenka Zupančič: The End of Fantasy Versus the Fantasy of the End
For a long time, we were living in a configuration best described as being caught between two ends, expecting the change that never comes. This “end that couldn’t end” on the one hand caused a sense of hopelessness, almost ontological fatigue, and on the other hand, it fueled the fantasies of the end that imagines it through some sort of catastrophic scenario - thus actually maintaining the status quo.
Disobedience means change
If culture is a set of invisible customs, rules and regulations pertaining to our society, can we view art as a way to question, break and reinvent them? Should artists be a force of disobedience, calling out for changes in the existing order of things? Can an artwork invite its audience to a space of shared concern, and function as an act of disobedience?
RESHAPErs Guide To Changing the (Art) World
By Tjaša Puber What follows is by no account an objective attempt to reflect the events of the final conference of RESHAPE project. Albeit not a part of the project itself, I was invited to participate on the conference on three separate events as a speaker, and can therefore only offer an insight from (sort of) within. Then again – RESHAPE never pretended to be anything but that. An inside job of trying to change the (art) world.