(Re)configuring Territories: Spring School 2021 presentations in Narva June 5th, 2021 10:30-15:00 @ Narva Art Residency and online
A week-long intensive Spring School culminated with a hybrid public event where the participants of the three workshops shared glimpses of their processes and findings.
The public event started online with Charming Perspectives where participants of the Trollperception in the Heartlands workshop presented some of the <<charms>> they worked with during the week. The group also made an exhibition of the <<charms>> to the (Re)configuring Territories instagram feed.
The event continued with the Archaeology of Postsocialist Narva tour by the Post-Brokenness workshop group. The cycling tour began at the Narva Art Residency and went around Narva where the participants presented objects, installations and public spaces as speculative archeological findings thirty years in the future.
After the tour the event continued with a common lunch moment, which reflected the topics that the Obschenie group had worked with during the spring school week.
The event ended with a tour to Kreenholm factory area where Sandra Kosorotova presented her project The Garden of Death.
Spring School Workshops → Весенняя Школа → Kevadkool → Kevätkoulun työpajat
Andra Aaloe and Francisco Martínez will host the workshop ‘Post-Brokenness’ in the (Re)configuring Territories Spring School taking place in Narva (May–June 2021). Selected participants will study how personal and collective relationships are sustained in relation to the maintenance and repair of the surrounding environment, opening up a wide range of questions about care-taking, sustainability and the fragility of the worlds we inhabit.
The main aim of this workshop at the Reconfiguring Territories Spring School is very simple: to feed ourselves and the whole group. We will use this necessity as an excuse to explore our own as well as local habits and preferences that start with food and dining but tell a lot about class, cultural backgrounds, feelings of home and political inclinations. Let us carefully scavenge our surroundings for matters to bring to the table: radishes and cucumbers from the supermarket and a local dacha; eggs from a nearby farm; sakuski and toasts; lunch offers; Turkish pizza and Chinese takeout; undervalued grandma pastries from around the corner; overpriced puree soups from the university cafeteria; basement shops and banquet halls; strange jars in cyrillic with surprisingly familiar contents.
Troll perceptions in the Heartlands
– artistic research to widen our imagination capacity
Once upon a time, humans lived in harmony with Earth. Trolls, fairies, and other spirits roamed freely around the villages of Sweden. Then came an era when humans started exploiting nature, pushing Earth to her limit. In the process they shut out all the conversations and relations they used to have with their non-sentients neighbors. Now, there is an acute need for radically different imaginaries of how to live with Earth again. In Troll perceptions in the Heartlands, we turn to folktales and legends to reconnect to that time when people in our regions lived closer to, and were more subordinated to nature.
Ecologies of Trust is a five-day summer school held in Daugavpils, Eastern Latvia.
The starting points for the summer school are the city’s fortress building, the meandering river, and the city’s multispecies inhabitants. The summer school aims to answer critical questions: How can design practices facilitate meaningful change in the midst of geopolitical and ecological crises? How do more-than-human design approaches shape everyday spatial practices in the context of Daugavpils? How do the increased geopolitical tensions in the Eastern Baltic influence understanding of infrastructures? How do these two phenomena relate and influence each other?
Ecologies of Trust is a second phase of (Re)configuring Territories research programme, and the Program Launch event is a first step in relocating the programme to Daugavpils. The aim of the event is to reflect these questions, make connections with local inhabitants and institutions, and to situate the programme in the human and more-than-human networks for the coming years.
The exhibition ‘НА КОЗЕ НЕ ПОДЪЕДЕШЬ (YOU CAN’T GET THERE ON A GOAT)’ exhibition debuts two site-specific spatial gallery interventions by recent NART Artists-in -Residents Andrea Stanislav (US) and varialambo (Varia Sjöström, Hatz Lambo) (FI/DE). The two solo projects link to transfigure NART’s gallery spaces through a physicality of visual poetics and theatre, informed by dreams, experiences, performances, and unexpected events which took place at NART on the Estonian-Russian border in the Summer of 2022. Both artists reflect upon the sight of Narva as a contextualised charged corridor or ‘Zona’, where language, exile, history, neighbourliness, rapprochement, diplomacy and cyclical memories shift into immersive environments of light, sound, sculpture and moving image.
We are organizing a festival at Narva Art Residency. The festival is called Festival of Invitations, and it consists of lectures, discussions, workshops and a celebratory dinner at the Narva Art Residency and its surroundings. The event also celebrates the opening of an exhibition by varialambo [1] and Andréa Stanislav. This event is the concluding part of four-year (Re)configuring Territories research project, and we hope that it will bring together both those who have participated in the project in the previous years and those who have not yet become familiar with it.
Sean Roy Parker who is in the Kreenholm Plants residency at Nart in June and July wrote a lovely review of the Seeds, Pollen, Future Spring School workshop group’s performance.
(Re)configuring Territories Talk → Доклады на (Пере)осмыслении территорий → (Re)configuring Territories vestlusring → (Re)configuring Territories -keskustelu
TOK Curators: On the Verge of Post-Industrial Routine. In search for an alternative planetary set-up and trajectories of degrowth June 16th, 2021 18:00-19:30 @ Narva Art Residency and online
The starting point for this conversation was the prevailing industrial and economical conditions of the city of Narva and beyond, which TOK curators explored during their residency (Re)configuring Territories in May and June 2021. By discussing a variety of post-industrial contexts and sites, the talk aimed to integrate the economic, manufacturing and architectural processes of decay of the Ida-Viru region into a wider geographical and conceptual framework.
Heavy industrial processes have left often irreparable marks and traces on local landscapes, demographics, health and memory of human and non-human inhabitants of regions, whose environments were affected by the rise and fall of the industrial economy. Changing conditions of industries, exhaustion of resources, and new requirements of ecological policies have led to closure of many production sites which made many people relocate and reconsider and reconfigure their dreams, hopes and future prospects at the territories that now serve as markers of post-industrial capitalism. The event will aim at revisiting several art and research projects from different geopolitical locations that deal with the questions of social and economical aftermath of industrial processes, post-colonial economies, environmental damages and political ecology in order to create sensory and intellectual response to radical breaking of life.
The Creative Association of Curators TOK is a curatorial duo founded in St. Petersburg by Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits in 2010 as a platform for research projects at the intersection of contemporary art, social sciences and socially oriented design. As a nomadic collective working between Russia and Europe, the Middle East and the United States, TOK curators place their practice between historical analysis and political imagination. Their multilayered, durational and cross-disciplinary projects generate new knowledge about the causes and consequences of changing political realities.
Maria Kapajeva is an artist who works between the UK and Estonia. Her work often highlights peripheral histories and unspoken stories, focusing on the representation of women. Her artist book Dream Is Wonderful, Yet Unclear, published by Milda Books in 2020, got Krazsna-Krausz Photo Book Award.
Ann Mirjam Vaikla is an artist and curator and was the director of Narva Art Residency (NART) from 2017 to 2021. Her practice lies in the intersection of performing and visual arts working within various contexts at galleries, theatres and public spaces in Estonia and internationally.
The event was in English with Estonian and Russian introduction. See the recording below.
( Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits at TOK’s retrospective exhibition “How to Work Together”, New Holland, St Petersburg, 2019. Photo: Aleksandra Getmanskaya )
Ann Mirjam Vaikla is an artist and curator. She was the director of Narva Art Residency (NART) from 2017 to 2021. Her practice lies in the intersection of performing and visual arts working within various contexts at galleries, theatres and public spaces in Estonia and internationally.
Ecologies of Trust is a five-day summer school held in Daugavpils, Eastern Latvia.
The starting points for the summer school are the city’s fortress building, the meandering river, and the city’s multispecies inhabitants. The summer school aims to answer critical questions: How can design practices facilitate meaningful change in the midst of geopolitical and ecological crises? How do more-than-human design approaches shape everyday spatial practices in the context of Daugavpils? How do the increased geopolitical tensions in the Eastern Baltic influence understanding of infrastructures? How do these two phenomena relate and influence each other?
Ecologies of Trust is a second phase of (Re)configuring Territories research programme, and the Program Launch event is a first step in relocating the programme to Daugavpils. The aim of the event is to reflect these questions, make connections with local inhabitants and institutions, and to situate the programme in the human and more-than-human networks for the coming years.
The exhibition ‘НА КОЗЕ НЕ ПОДЪЕДЕШЬ (YOU CAN’T GET THERE ON A GOAT)’ exhibition debuts two site-specific spatial gallery interventions by recent NART Artists-in -Residents Andrea Stanislav (US) and varialambo (Varia Sjöström, Hatz Lambo) (FI/DE). The two solo projects link to transfigure NART’s gallery spaces through a physicality of visual poetics and theatre, informed by dreams, experiences, performances, and unexpected events which took place at NART on the Estonian-Russian border in the Summer of 2022. Both artists reflect upon the sight of Narva as a contextualised charged corridor or ‘Zona’, where language, exile, history, neighbourliness, rapprochement, diplomacy and cyclical memories shift into immersive environments of light, sound, sculpture and moving image.
We are organizing a festival at Narva Art Residency. The festival is called Festival of Invitations, and it consists of lectures, discussions, workshops and a celebratory dinner at the Narva Art Residency and its surroundings. The event also celebrates the opening of an exhibition by varialambo [1] and Andréa Stanislav. This event is the concluding part of four-year (Re)configuring Territories research project, and we hope that it will bring together both those who have participated in the project in the previous years and those who have not yet become familiar with it.
Sean Roy Parker who is in the Kreenholm Plants residency at Nart in June and July wrote a lovely review of the Seeds, Pollen, Future Spring School workshop group’s performance.
(Re)configuring Territories Talk → Доклады на (Пере)осмыслении территорий → (Re)configuring Territories vestlusring → (Re)configuring Territories -keskustelu
Discussion with TOK Curators in Narva Art Residency Saturday, May 22, 2021, at 16 (EET) Online
This (Re)configuring Territories discussion opened the cycle of the spring 2021 programme.
Creative Association of Curators TOK joined the Narva Art Residency on May 20 – June 18. The introduction talk with the TOK curators Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits was hosted by curator Ksenia Kaverina and the (Re)configuring Territories programme curators Tommi Vasko and Kaisa Karvinen.
Creative Association of Curators TOK is a curatorial duo founded in Saint Petersburg, Russia by Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits as a platform for research projects at the intersection of contemporary art, social sciences and socially-oriented design. As a nomadic collective working internationally , TOK curators place their practice between historical analysis and political imagination. In 2020 TOK was the winner of the apexart Open call 2020-2021 (exhibition ‘Voicing the Silence’ to be presented in Moscow at CCA Fabrica in summer 2021). In September 2021 TOK will curate the main exhibition of the 6th edition of the Photomonth Biennale in Tallinn.
As part of the (Re)configuring Territories project, TOK was interested in rethinking critically the parameters for historical analysis of post-industrial areas in cross-border territories between Russia and Estonia, exploring their common political, industrial and ecological history.
( Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits at TOK’s retrospective exhibition “How to Work Together”, New Holland, St Petersburg, 2019. Photo: Aleksandra Getmanskaya )
Kaisa Karvinen is a Helsinki-based architect and writer interested in the intersections of performativity, public space and collective unlearning. Kaisa’s practice consists of different forms of constructing and writing, usually in multidisciplinary groups.
Tommi Vasko is a Helsinki based graphic designer and -researcher who writes theoretical and fictional texts about design practises of the near future and about visual phenomena rising between emerging information technologies and ecological thinking. Tommi approaches his practice as an interdisciplinary collaborative process in which philosophical reflection and everyday maintenance labour relate to experimental ways of organizing design education, approaching technology as well as making images, videos and texts.
Ecologies of Trust is a five-day summer school held in Daugavpils, Eastern Latvia.
The starting points for the summer school are the city’s fortress building, the meandering river, and the city’s multispecies inhabitants. The summer school aims to answer critical questions: How can design practices facilitate meaningful change in the midst of geopolitical and ecological crises? How do more-than-human design approaches shape everyday spatial practices in the context of Daugavpils? How do the increased geopolitical tensions in the Eastern Baltic influence understanding of infrastructures? How do these two phenomena relate and influence each other?
Ecologies of Trust is a second phase of (Re)configuring Territories research programme, and the Program Launch event is a first step in relocating the programme to Daugavpils. The aim of the event is to reflect these questions, make connections with local inhabitants and institutions, and to situate the programme in the human and more-than-human networks for the coming years.
The exhibition ‘НА КОЗЕ НЕ ПОДЪЕДЕШЬ (YOU CAN’T GET THERE ON A GOAT)’ exhibition debuts two site-specific spatial gallery interventions by recent NART Artists-in -Residents Andrea Stanislav (US) and varialambo (Varia Sjöström, Hatz Lambo) (FI/DE). The two solo projects link to transfigure NART’s gallery spaces through a physicality of visual poetics and theatre, informed by dreams, experiences, performances, and unexpected events which took place at NART on the Estonian-Russian border in the Summer of 2022. Both artists reflect upon the sight of Narva as a contextualised charged corridor or ‘Zona’, where language, exile, history, neighbourliness, rapprochement, diplomacy and cyclical memories shift into immersive environments of light, sound, sculpture and moving image.
We are organizing a festival at Narva Art Residency. The festival is called Festival of Invitations, and it consists of lectures, discussions, workshops and a celebratory dinner at the Narva Art Residency and its surroundings. The event also celebrates the opening of an exhibition by varialambo [1] and Andréa Stanislav. This event is the concluding part of four-year (Re)configuring Territories research project, and we hope that it will bring together both those who have participated in the project in the previous years and those who have not yet become familiar with it.
Sean Roy Parker who is in the Kreenholm Plants residency at Nart in June and July wrote a lovely review of the Seeds, Pollen, Future Spring School workshop group’s performance.
