Private/public, taking space --> making space
9-12 June 2011
Artworks | Performances | Walks | Workshops | Discussions
Various public locations in Skopje
Project-initiator, -curator,-coordinator: Wiebke Stadler
Intervention -curator and -coordinator: Elena Veljanovska
Program and production: Ivana Dragsic, Ksenija Cockova, Iskra Geshoska, Jasna Dimitrovska, Elena Veljanovska, Wiebke Stadler
Participants: Yane Calovski, Vasilka Dimitrovska, Disphilharmonia, Vlatko Galevski, Slavica Janeslieva, Gjorgje Jovanovik, Violeta Kachakova, Bozidar Katic, Suzana Milevska, Alban Muja, Johannes Novy, Ivana Sidzimovska, Boba Mirjana Stojadinovic, Raspeani Skopjani, Yll Çitaku, Christoph Ziegler.
Website: http://ngo-kontrapunkt.blogspot.de/p/private-public.html
Go and explore the city!
The four days long event of cultural interventions in private and public space invites the citizens to stroll around the city; to take part in unusual experiences at unexpected places throughout Skopje: to gather, to explore and to (re-)create.
Various construction projects have lately reshaped the face of Skopje. New buildings and monuments provoked discussions about identity and urbanity. The identity of a city is largely determined by its architecture, but its inhabitants and their views are just as diverse. They are the ones that actually make the city and add meaning with their usage of the buildings and spaces. All the citizens have the right to participate in the appropriation of the urban territory, but decisions about the city are often made from above. We started this event with a research: to reexamine the city structure, the citizens’ involvement in its development, to consider the movements and tendencies that took place recently in theory and practice, coming from the fields of activism, urbanism and architecture.
Then we posed these questions: What is the space and responsibility of art and culture in this structure? Which potential has culture for analytical and critical comments in the discourse about a city? How can culture contribute and propose new ideas about how the private and public space can be used?
‘Private | Public’ wants to provide a cultural platform for these new ideas and concepts of reshaping the city. The topic is the individual perception of the urban environment and its relation to the official policy of representation. This event contains projects that are critical, analytical, and pose questions about the current policy of the city of Skopje, but also analyze the private facets of its citizens’ life: Is the Individual just a consumer or an active and mature civilian, making space in the city by taking it?
Our means of investigation and expression are interventions in the urban environment through art works, talks about the City in a series of lectures and discussions, as well as walks through Skopje, guided by citizens adding their personal view to the city. Nine artists from Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia and Germany were invited, to share their ways of work and views on the city in the private and public space. The artworks display different approaches of how the city can be used and perceived as a source for artistic creation. They focus on individual and subjective stories, which are linked to the perception of the city. Instead of just adding content, they critically examine the existing conditions.
The Lectures and Talks section brings an intellectual and analytical focus to the concept. The role of culture, as one form of expression in the process of contestations of the contemporary urban order, is highlighted from different perspectives. Culture is a resource of identity for a city and an important criterion for inclusion and participation. With cultural interventions, the discussion is not left to experts, but brought to eyelevel with the citizens. They do not aim to give solutions, but provide the initial impulse for the start of a process of change and renewal. Cultural expressions are important parameters for living in a city, but the development of a cultural scene requires specific preconditions. What kind of life is possible in a city, if these requirements are not provided? How public are the Public Institutions? By bypassing them, we challenge ourselves to find appropriate abandoned or unused public spaces that could be the alternative to the lack of independent spaces for cultural activities. This will be further elaborated through discussions, lectures and presentations.
The Walk section focuses on very private approaches of discovering the city anew. The walks will lead to unnoticed buildings in well-known areas but also to neighbourhoods, normally not considered worth a walk. Inhabitants of Skopje will offer walks with personal stories, cultural aspects, illustrative details and unexpected viewpoints. As a special highlight, one of the walks will adjust with the concept of KINomad and screen films on building-facades around the Macedonian Radio-Television whilst passing by. ‘Private | Public’ shapes the public space based on new visions, promotes cooperation between its residents and guests and finds new creative ways of living in one city and perceiving it. This event tends to give us some time to stop, think and get to know the city better.
Wiebke Stadler and Elena Veljanovska
Intervention -curator and -coordinator: Elena Veljanovska
Program and production: Ivana Dragsic, Ksenija Cockova, Iskra Geshoska, Jasna Dimitrovska, Elena Veljanovska, Wiebke Stadler
Participants: Yane Calovski, Vasilka Dimitrovska, Disphilharmonia, Vlatko Galevski, Slavica Janeslieva, Gjorgje Jovanovik, Violeta Kachakova, Bozidar Katic, Suzana Milevska, Alban Muja, Johannes Novy, Ivana Sidzimovska, Boba Mirjana Stojadinovic, Raspeani Skopjani, Yll Çitaku, Christoph Ziegler.
Website: http://ngo-kontrapunkt.blogspot.de/p/private-public.html
Go and explore the city!
The four days long event of cultural interventions in private and public space invites the citizens to stroll around the city; to take part in unusual experiences at unexpected places throughout Skopje: to gather, to explore and to (re-)create.
Various construction projects have lately reshaped the face of Skopje. New buildings and monuments provoked discussions about identity and urbanity. The identity of a city is largely determined by its architecture, but its inhabitants and their views are just as diverse. They are the ones that actually make the city and add meaning with their usage of the buildings and spaces. All the citizens have the right to participate in the appropriation of the urban territory, but decisions about the city are often made from above. We started this event with a research: to reexamine the city structure, the citizens’ involvement in its development, to consider the movements and tendencies that took place recently in theory and practice, coming from the fields of activism, urbanism and architecture.
Then we posed these questions: What is the space and responsibility of art and culture in this structure? Which potential has culture for analytical and critical comments in the discourse about a city? How can culture contribute and propose new ideas about how the private and public space can be used?
‘Private | Public’ wants to provide a cultural platform for these new ideas and concepts of reshaping the city. The topic is the individual perception of the urban environment and its relation to the official policy of representation. This event contains projects that are critical, analytical, and pose questions about the current policy of the city of Skopje, but also analyze the private facets of its citizens’ life: Is the Individual just a consumer or an active and mature civilian, making space in the city by taking it?
Our means of investigation and expression are interventions in the urban environment through art works, talks about the City in a series of lectures and discussions, as well as walks through Skopje, guided by citizens adding their personal view to the city. Nine artists from Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia and Germany were invited, to share their ways of work and views on the city in the private and public space. The artworks display different approaches of how the city can be used and perceived as a source for artistic creation. They focus on individual and subjective stories, which are linked to the perception of the city. Instead of just adding content, they critically examine the existing conditions.
The Lectures and Talks section brings an intellectual and analytical focus to the concept. The role of culture, as one form of expression in the process of contestations of the contemporary urban order, is highlighted from different perspectives. Culture is a resource of identity for a city and an important criterion for inclusion and participation. With cultural interventions, the discussion is not left to experts, but brought to eyelevel with the citizens. They do not aim to give solutions, but provide the initial impulse for the start of a process of change and renewal. Cultural expressions are important parameters for living in a city, but the development of a cultural scene requires specific preconditions. What kind of life is possible in a city, if these requirements are not provided? How public are the Public Institutions? By bypassing them, we challenge ourselves to find appropriate abandoned or unused public spaces that could be the alternative to the lack of independent spaces for cultural activities. This will be further elaborated through discussions, lectures and presentations.
The Walk section focuses on very private approaches of discovering the city anew. The walks will lead to unnoticed buildings in well-known areas but also to neighbourhoods, normally not considered worth a walk. Inhabitants of Skopje will offer walks with personal stories, cultural aspects, illustrative details and unexpected viewpoints. As a special highlight, one of the walks will adjust with the concept of KINomad and screen films on building-facades around the Macedonian Radio-Television whilst passing by. ‘Private | Public’ shapes the public space based on new visions, promotes cooperation between its residents and guests and finds new creative ways of living in one city and perceiving it. This event tends to give us some time to stop, think and get to know the city better.
Wiebke Stadler and Elena Veljanovska
Private/ public_Catalogue for download |