Forum Coordinate System

How does art survive at a time when democracy is being eroded? What answers to the rapid acquisition of public spaces by private entrepreneurs and politics can art offer? Which practices need to be developed? How can artistic practices break existing coordinates? What are the subversive strategies
that need to be implemented?

Three themed sessions with researchers, artists and curators from Central and East European countries will take place. They will include lectures, presentations, panel discussions and video screenings. The aim is to create an opportunity to present and assess the current state of affairs with regard to artistic interaction with urban public spaces.

The first session, ‘Reclaiming public space – Art as urban activism and vice versa’ will address general questions on the intersection between the arts and urban activism from the viewpoint of a public space governed by different actors. The second session, ‘Spontaneous artistic interventions into public space as a means of “blowing up” everyday urban life’, is devoted to ways of communicating by means of unauthorised artistic action in urban contexts. The aim is to explore the subversive dimensions of such artistic practices, deconstructing the reality, but also questioning and criticising the norms and customs of a society. The last session, ‘Recode. Creating new spatial identity by means of (temporary) art events in public space’ tackles contemporary discourses on and practices of reprogramming public space from the point of view of an international curators. A critical discussion of collaboration between authorities, locals and urban artists in decision-making processes concerning the public space will be held in an attempt to define the political as well as aesthetic boundaries of (re-)creating their connections to urban space.

Keynote: Charles Landry (UK)

Participants: Artem Filatov (Russia), Gohar Smoyan (Armenia), Liva Dudareva (Latvia)*, Jovanka Popova (Macedonia)*, Alexandra Portyannikova (Russia), Natasha Zhukova (Russia), Ivan Pantelić (Serbia), Wojciech Kostrzewa (Poland), Katarzyna Anna Klimowicz (Poland), Dana Kosmina (Ukraine), Nataliia Neshevets (Ukraine), Arseny Sergeev (Russia), Jürgen Rendl (Slovakia)*, Kadri Lind (Estonia), Joanna Kocemba (Poland), Aleksandra Nenko (Russia), Jekaterina Lavrinec (Lithuania), Maciej Łepkowski with Wojtek Matejko and Anna Wilczyńska (Poland), Annamária Nagy (Hungary), Anton Valkovsky (Russia), Artur Wabik (Poland)

*LAB participants. During the LAB (from May 14-19, not public) artists, activists and urban researches join hands in order to network, gather inspiration and draw up projects.

Curators: Alexandra Goloborodko, Alexander Formozov
Co-curator: Timur Kiselev