Longitudes

Longitudes cuts across Latitudes’ projects and research with news, updates, and reportage.

20th and concluding dispatch of “Incidents (of Travel)” from Barcelona, Spain

📲 TAP, SCROLL, SWIPE and 📖 READ on incidents.kadist.org 


In the twentieth and concluding dispatch of Incidents (of Travel), Latitudes, the curators and editors of the project, are led by Mexican-born, Bilbao-based artist Jorge Satorre in something of a “voyage around our room”. Manifested itself all over the world since 2016 through the perspectives of other invited curators and artists, Incidents (of Travel) now takes place in our own home: Barcelona, latitude 41° 23' 19.64" N.

Satorre’s itinerary follows a route from the north to the south of the city – from Collserola to Montjuïc – tracing wild boars, two mysterious dolmens, and the devil’s hoof prints along the way.

By chance, this episode takes place on September 19, 2022, exactly ten years later to the day of the first tour commissioned for the first phase of Incidents (of Travel), a day we spent with Minerva Cuevas around Mexico City’s city centre on the 27th anniversary of the deadly 1985 earthquake

Episode #20 culminates Latitudes’ collaboration with KADIST, producers of 20 wonderful episodes published online between 2016 and 2022 as part of their online projects. In 2015, KADIST hosted another three tours during Latitudes’ residency at their San Francisco hub. In 2013, Spring Workshop in Hong Kong produced four itineraries within the frame of the long-term multi-part project “Moderation(s)” in partnership with (then known as) Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, and in 2012, at the invitation of UNAM’s Casa del Lago, Latitudes commissioned the first five itineraries around Mexico City



The first dispatch launched in April 2016 with an itinerary by curator Yesomi Umolu and artist Harold Mendez from Chicago – a day photographed by Nabiha Khan.


The second dispatch came from Jinja in Uganda, where curator Moses Serubiri invited photographer Mohsen Taha to explore Jinja's Indian architectural legacy and Idi Amin's notorious expulsion of Uganda's Asian minority in 1972.


The third episode took place while curator Yu Ji and poet Xiao Kaiyu hiked on Dong Shan (East Mountain), 130 km west of Shanghai, on a peninsula stretching into Tai Hu lake near the city of Suzhou, China.


The fourth dispatch came from Lisbon, where Galician curator Pedro de Llano visited key locations that marked the life and work of Luisa Cunha.


The fifth episode took place in April 2016, when curator Simon Soon and artist chi too visited the Malaysian North Eastern state of Terengganu, where chi spent some time in 2013, surrounded by “men and women who work(ed) multiple jobs as fishermen, housebuilders, boat builders, farmers, coconut pickers, food producers, and everything else that matters.”


The sixth episode narrates a walking itinerary conducted by curator Marianna Hovhannisyan with Vardan Kilichyan, Gohar Hosyan, and Anaida Verdyan in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, documenting the transformed, disappeared, or permanently-closed art institutions in the city centre.


The seventh episode comes from Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. It is narrated by curator Camila Marambio, following an itinerary devised by artist Lucy Bleach. They spent the day "encircling the outer limits of human understanding by visiting the histories, both past, and present, of attempts to reach beyond our sensory capacities through governance, technology, and reverie", and ended the day cooking at Lucy's home-sharing their mutual love for quinces.


In the eighth 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch Móvil co-founder and curator Alejandra Aguado followed the itinerary devised by the artist Diego Bianchi around Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Their exploration took them from the self-regulated community Velatropa to the buzzing commercial area of Once, identifying human and non-human flows and interactions. This became an entry point for discussing Bianchi's interests in how, as consumers, we define a particular zeitgeist and appropriate trends that enable us to affirm our identities.


In the ninth dispatch, Canadian curator Becky Forsythe and Icelandic artist Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir navigate Reykjavík's surroundings considering Þorgerður's “current interest in Icelandic Spar (a form of transparent calcite), its double refraction and light-polarizing properties. In a race with daylight, they travel between sites collecting moments and considering the ways in which geologic time surfaces in the context of human time.”



The tenth dispatch begins with an itinerary proposed by Barcelona-born, Rio de Janeiro-based artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané and is followed by images and videos recording a day roaming Rio's natural and artistic landscapes with Bogotá-born, Mexico City-based curator Catalina Lozano, who narrates their day spent together. 


In the 11th episode, Swiss curator Sandino Scheidegger (Random Institute) visits Panama City in preparation for a solo exhibition by Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker at Casa Santa Ana in 2021. 

The places Sandino, Donna and Jonathan visited together pointed to the origin of some of their video works, the ideas behind them, or simply served as stages in their pieces, turning into “an exercise in sneaking through fences to reach former recycling plants, imagining how things looked before the skyscrapers took over, and navigating the complex social fabric of Panama City — all while getting a taste of local food between every stop.” 


The 12th episode from Tbilisi, Georgia, set a different tone in the online series as it was programmed to take place in late May 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The itinerary set by Tbilisi-based artist Nino Kvrivishvili to lead Melbourne-based Associate Professor Tara McDowell became a WhatsApp video tour/conversation around Nino's artistic practice and the Georgian silk industry — a production that began in Tbilisi in the 5th century and continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. 

 

Incidents (of Travel) from Cabo Rojo

In the 13th dispatch, and on week 23 of lockdown, Sofía Gallisá and Marina Reyes begin their day together driving to the Cabo Rojo Salt Flats where Sofía researched her 2018 film ‘Assimilate & Destroy I’. They later end up in Poblado de Boquerón, the queer capital of Puerto Rico's south where a large public beach and a usually busy street still show traces of 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria.

Incidents (of Travel) from Singapore.

In the 14th dispatch, Singapore-based curator Kathleen Ditzig joins artists Fyerool Darma and Nurul Huda Rashid nearby ‘Safe Entry‘ (2020), a mural presented at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) by the artist Heman Chong that repeats a single, enlarged QR code, “the new digital skin of the city”, as Nurul points out. From there, they head towards the boardwalk connecting Harbourfront with Sentosa Island, the pleasure island home to many tourist attractions. Fyerool and Nurul weave in stories of past pirates and deities against the backdrop of the glass-green waters that stage the “blue aesthetics against the imported sands [from Indonesia] of reclaimed lands.”

In the 15th dispatch curator Àngels Miralda (current participant of de Appel's Curatorial Programme 2020-21) and artist Salim Bayri (current resident at Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten 2019–21) follow a tour created during the winter 2021 Covid-19 restrictions in the Netherlands. 

Their day in Amsterdam together features public sports locations as social meeting spaces, as well as urban architecture, a visit to a supermarket chain, and a food takeaway. 


In the 16th dispatch, curator Marie-Nour Hechaime navigates Beirut with artist-filmmaker Panos Aprahamian a year after the August 2020 explosion, when hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate stored for six years without safekeeping in the port of the Lebanese capital were set on fire and exploded. The blast killed more than 200 deaths, 6,500 wounded, 300,000 displaced and great destruction in the city [1]. “I say that I am living with ghosts—of people, places, memories, stories”, she reflects. “He answers that Beirut is disintegrating in front of our very eyes.”


In the 17th dispatch, curator Inga Lāce and artist Linda Boļšakova forage for environmental histories in Riga. The day that takes them from manicured park lawns to a thicket of sea buckthorn bushes near a “post-apocalyptic” sauna, and from a housing project allotment to the laboratories of the National Botanic Garden of Latvia. 


In the 18th dispatch, curator Xenia Kalpaktsoglou and artist Pegy Zali conceive an itinerary and a screenplay-like commentary that takes us through the Attica peninsula, from a mysterious inscription sprayed at the site of a railway sabotage that transpired near Piraeus Port in 2010, to the vestiges of an enormous wildfire that consumed the forest around Alepochori in 2021. Formed through their long-standing friendship and shared research interests, this episode flows around Greece’s links with the emerging infrastructure of China’s New Silk Road, and the “cyber-eco-feminist” traces of the goddess Gaia.


In the 19th episode of Incidents (of Travel), curator Sooyoung Leam reports on a day exploring Yongsan-gu, a district at the heart of Seoul, and the neighbourhood of artist Jeong Yeoreum. Documented by photographer and videographer Swan Park, Sooyoung and Jeong explore this conflicted territory that served as the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army between 1910 and 1945, and subsequently as a US military base. 


→ RELATED CONTENT:

Episode #19 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by curator Sooyoung Leam and artist Jeong Yeoreum from Seoul, 22 June 2022

Episode #18 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by curator Xenia Kalpaktsoglou and artist Pegy Zali from Attica, 18 April 2022

Episode #17 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by curator Inga Lāce and artist Linda Boļšakova from Riga, 28 December 2021

Episode #16 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marie-Nour Hechaime and Panos Aprahamian from Beirut, 3 October 2021

Episode #15 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Àngels Miralda and Salim Bayri from Amsterdam, 13 May 2021

Episode #14 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Kathleen Ditzig and artists Fyerool Darma and Nurul Huda Rashid from Singapore, 21 December 2020

Episode #13 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marina Reyes and Sofía Gallisá from Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, 27 Sep 2020

Episode #12 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Nino Kvrivishvili and Tara McDowell from Tbilisi, 25 Jun 2020 
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=7159211982397983135/episode-12-of-incidents-of-travel

Episode #11 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Sandino Scheidegger and Donna Conlon & Jonathan Harker from Panama City, 9 April 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=4425215029591365006/11-episode-of-incidents-of-travel

Tenth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Catalina Lozano and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané from Rio de Janeiro, 
29 January 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=144735152408473327/tenth-episode-of-incidents-of-travel

The ninth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Becky Forsythe and Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir, 8 February 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=6371927610418460689

The eighth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Alejandra Aguado and Diego Bianchi, 6 September 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=8721104601538735691

The seventh episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Camila Marambio and Lucy Bleach from Hobart, Tasmania, 28 June 2018
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=1055853895543348027

The sixth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marianna Hovhannisyan and students from the National Center of Aesthetics from Yerevan, Armenia, 1 March 2018
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=5887133486742947361

The fifth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Simon Soon and chi too from Terengganu, Malaysia, 26 April 2017 
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4083951540089486920

The fourth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Pedro de Llano and Luisa Cunha from Lisbon, Portugal, 2 March 2017 
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4185860148466062617

The third episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Yu JI and Xiao Kaiyu reporting from Suzhou, China, 6 September 2016 
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1437935620149738144

Second 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch by Moses Serubiri and Mohsen Taha reporting from Jinja, Uganda, 30 June 2016 
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=2504250800654900933

Kadist and Latitudes present 'Incidents (Of Travel)' online, 31 May 2016
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1076947282278624159


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Episode #17 of “Incidents (of Travel)” from Riga, Latvia


A new episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ from Riga, is now live!

In the 17th dispatch, curator Inga Lāce and artist Linda Boļšakova forage for environmental histories in Riga. The day that takes them from manicured park lawns to a thicket of sea buckthorn bushes near a “post-apocalyptic” sauna, and from a housing project allotment to the laboratories of the National Botanic Garden of Latvia. 

This is the latest dispatch of the series produced by KADIST and edited by Latitudes since 2016, exploring the chartered itinerary as a format of an artistic encounter between curators and artists. Incidents (of Travel) is presented in one continuous immersive read interwoven with images and short videos in a mobile-friendly format. 

Selection of screengrabs from the 17th dispatch of Incidents (of Travel) from Riga. 
📲 TAP, SCROLL and SWIPE incidents.kadist.org
📖 READ 👀 WATCH👂🏻LISTEN






Incidents (of Travel) was conceived in 2012 when Latitudes commissioned 5 day-long artist-led tours around Mexico City in the framework of their short residency at Casa del Lago. The project had sequels in 2013 in Hong Kong with live dispatches of videos, photographs and soundscapes published through social media, and continued in 2015 in San Francisco with daily posts as part of Kadist's Instagram take over initiative “Artist Not In The Studio Curator Not At The Office”.

In 2016 KADIST and Latitudes partnered in a new ‘distributed’ phase of Incidents (of Travel) extending the invitation to curators and artists working around the world and publishing their dispatches as part of KADIST's Online Projects

Since 2016, seventeen extended conversations between curators and artists have taken place in Riga (Latvia), Beirut (Lebanon), Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Singapore (Singapore), Cabo Rojo (Puerto Rico), Tbilisi (Georgia), Panama City (Panama), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Reykjavík (Iceland), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Hobart (Tasmania), Yerevan (Armenia), Terengganu (Malaysia), Lisbon (Portugal), Suzhou (China), Jinja (Uganda) and Chicago (US). 


The first dispatch launched in April 2016 with an itinerary by curator Yesomi Umolu and artist Harold Mendez from Chicago – a day photographed by Nabiha Khan


The second dispatch came from Jinja in Uganda, where curator Moses Serubiri invited photographer Mohsen Taha to explore Jinja's Indian architectural legacy and Idi Amin's notorious expulsion of Uganda's Asian minority in 1972.


The third episode took place while curator Yu Ji and poet Xiao Kaiyu hiked on Dong Shan (East Mountain), 130 km west of Shanghai, on a peninsula stretching into Tai Hu lake near the city of Suzhou, China.


The fourth dispatch came from Lisbon, where Galician curator Pedro de Llano visited key locations that marked the life and work of Luisa Cunha.


The fifth episode took place in April 2016, when curator Simon Soon and artist chi too visited the Malaysian North Eastern state of Terengganu, where chi spent some time in 2013, surrounded by “men and women who work(ed) multiple jobs as fishermen, housebuilders, boat builders, farmers, coconut pickers, food producers, and everything else that matters.”


The sixth episode narrates a walking itinerary conducted by curator Marianna Hovhannisyan with Vardan Kilichyan, Gohar Hosyan, and Anaida Verdyan in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, documenting the transformed, disappeared, or permanently-closed art institutions in the city centre.


The seventh episode comes from Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. It is narrated by curator Camila Marambio, following an itinerary devised by artist Lucy Bleach. They spent the day "encircling the outer limits of human understanding by visiting the histories, both past, and present, of attempts to reach beyond our sensory capacities through governance, technology, and reverie", and ended the day cooking at Lucy's home-sharing their mutual love for quinces.


In the eighth 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch Móvil co-founder and curator Alejandra Aguado followed the itinerary devised by the artist Diego Bianchi around Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Their exploration took them from the self-regulated community Velatropa to the buzzing commercial area of Once, identifying human and non-human flows and interactions. This became an entry point for discussing Bianchi's interests in how, as consumers, we define a particular zeitgeist and appropriate trends that enable us to affirm our identities.


In the ninth dispatch, Canadian curator Becky Forsythe and Icelandic artist Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir navigate Reykjavík's surroundings considering Þorgerður's “current interest in Icelandic Spar (a form of transparent calcite), its double refraction and light-polarizing properties. In a race with daylight, they travel between sites collecting moments and considering the ways in which geologic time surfaces in the context of human time.”

Desktop view of → http://incidents.kadist.org/rio

The tenth dispatch begins with an itinerary proposed by Barcelona-born, Rio de Janeiro-based artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané and is followed by images and videos recording a day roaming Rio's natural and artistic landscapes with Bogotá-born, Mexico City-based curator Catalina Lozano, who narrates their day spent together. 


In the 11th episode, Swiss curator Sandino Scheidegger (Random Institute) visits Panama City in preparation for a solo exhibition by Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker at Casa Santa Ana in 2021. Conlon and Harker collaboration since 2006 (while also pursuing their own individual art practices) has resulted in seventeen video works to date. The places Sandino, Donna and Jonathan visited together pointed to the origin of some of their video works, the ideas behind them, or simply served as stages in their pieces, turning into “an exercise in sneaking through fences to reach former recycling plants, imagining how things looked before the skyscrapers took over, and navigating the complex social fabric of Panama City — all while getting a taste of local food between every stop.” 


The 12th episode from Tbilisi, Georgia, set a different tone in the online series as it was programmed to take place in late May 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. The itinerary set by Tbilisi-based artist Nino Kvrivishvili to lead Melbourne-based Associate Professor Tara McDowell became a WhatsApp video tour/conversation around Nino's artistic practice and the Georgian silk industry — a production that began in Tbilisi in the 5th century and continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. 

 

Desktop view of → Incidents (of Travel) from Cabo Rojo

In the 13th dispatch, and on week 23 of lockdown, Sofía Gallisá and Marina Reyes begin their day together driving to the Cabo Rojo Salt Flats where Sofía researched her 2018 film ‘Assimilate & Destroy I’. They later end up in Poblado de Boquerón, the queer capital of Puerto Rico's south where a large public beach and a usually busy street still show traces of 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria.


Desktop view of → Incidents (of Travel) from Singapore.

In the 14th dispatch, Singapore-based curator Kathleen Ditzig joins artists Fyerool Darma and Nurul Huda Rashid nearby ‘Safe Entry‘ (2020), a mural presented at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) by the artist Heman Chong that repeats a single, enlarged QR code, “the new digital skin of the city”, as Nurul points out. From there, they head towards the boardwalk connecting Harbourfront with Sentosa Island, the pleasure island home to many tourist attractions. Fyerool and Nurul weave in stories of past pirates and deities against the backdrop of the glass-green waters that stage the “blue aesthetics against the imported sands [from Indonesia] of reclaimed lands.”

In the 15th dispatch curator Àngels Miralda (current participant of de Appel's Curatorial Programme 2020-21) and artist Salim Bayri (current resident at Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten 2019–21) follow a tour created during the winter 2021 Covid-19 restrictions in the Netherlands. Their day together features public sport locations as social meeting spaces, as well as urban architecture, a visit to a supermarket chain, and a food takeaway. 


In the 16th dispatch, curator Marie-Nour Hechaime navigates Beirut with artist-filmmaker Panos Aprahamian a year after the August 2020 explosion, when hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate stored for six years without safekeeping in the port of the Lebanese capital were set on fire and exploded. The blast killed more than 200 deaths, 6,500 wounded, 300,000 displaced and great destruction in the city [1]. “I say that I am living with ghosts—of people, places, memories, stories”, she reflects. “He answers that Beirut is disintegrating in front of our very eyes.”


→ RELATED CONTENT:

Episode #16 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marie-Nour Hechaime and Panos Aprahamian from Beirut, 3 October 2021

Episode #15 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Àngels Miralda and Salim Bayri from Amsterdam, 13 May 2021

Episode #14 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Kathleen Ditzig and artists Fyerool Darma and Nurul Huda Rashid from Singapore, 21 December 2020

Episode #13 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marina Reyes and Sofía Gallisá from Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, 27 Sep 2020

Episode #12 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Nino Kvrivishvili and Tara McDowell from Tbilisi, 25 Jun 2020 
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=7159211982397983135/episode-12-of-incidents-of-travel

Episode #11 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Sandino Scheidegger and Donna Conlon & Jonathan Harker from Panama City, 9 April 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=4425215029591365006/11-episode-of-incidents-of-travel

Tenth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Catalina Lozano and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané from Rio de Janeiro, 
29 January 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=144735152408473327/tenth-episode-of-incidents-of-travel

The ninth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Becky Forsythe and Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir, 8 February 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=6371927610418460689

The eighth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Alejandra Aguado and Diego Bianchi, 6 September 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=8721104601538735691

Seventh episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Camila Marambio and Lucy Bleach from Hobart, Tasmania, 28 June 2018
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=1055853895543348027

The sixth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marianna Hovhannisyan and students from the National Center of Aesthetics from Yerevan, Armenia, 1 March 2018
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=5887133486742947361

The fifth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Simon Soon and chi too from Terengganu, Malaysia, 26 April 2017 
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4083951540089486920

The fourth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Pedro de Llano and Luisa Cunha from Lisbon, Portugal, 2 March 2017 
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4185860148466062617

The third episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Yu JI and Xiao Kaiyu reporting from Suzhou, China, 6 September 2016 
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1437935620149738144

Second 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch by Moses Serubiri and Mohsen Taha reporting from Jinja, Uganda, 30 June 2016 
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=2504250800654900933

Kadist and Latitudes present 'Incidents (Of Travel)' online, 31 May 2016
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1076947282278624159


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Latitudes' redesigned portfolio – projects since 2005


After weeks and long hours facing the screen and mining hard disks, we've uploaded Latitudes' redesigned portfolio, at last! Go to download page and choose format:

For desktop/laptop/tablet view (83pp, 30.9 MB)
For mobile (164pp, 15.8 MB)
For print (164pp, 155.3 MB)


The pdf gathers a selection of projects produced since 2005 and includes a refreshed version of our biographies – which have also been updated on our website.

We have also included short individual biographies available for download as pdf – see below highlighted in yellow.

PDF designed and edited by Latitudes.

RELATED CONTENT:
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"Archive as Method: An Interview with Chantal Wong, Hammad Nasar and Lydia Ngai" of the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong. Final #OpenCurating interview.


"Archive as Method: An interview with Chantal Wong, Hammad Nasar and Lydia Ngai" of the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong, is available on ISSUU to view on screen and is also downloadable. Also available as a pdf on Latitudes' web. 

…And last, but certainly not least, our #OpenCurating research concludes with an interview with three members of the amazing Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong.

Asia Art Archive (AAA) was founded in 2000 with the mission of documenting, securing and making easily available information on the history of contemporary art in Asia within an international context. Based in the Sheung Wan district of Hong Kong, the non-profit organisation holds hundreds of thousands of physical and digital items. AAA aims to stimulate dialogue and critical thinking about how the region’s art histories are told and to “facilitate understanding, research, and writing in the field, enrich existing global narratives, and re-imagine the role of the archive”. Through its website – aaa.org.hkAAA offers access to a wealth of digital material including scanned images, correspondence, artists’ personal documents, audio and video of performance art, artist talks, lectures, and events. A broad range of initiatives including the journal Field Notes, research grants, residencies, symposia, exhibitions and teaching workshops address the core of AAA’s commitment “to create a collection belonging to the public, existing not in an enclosed space, but in a space that is open and productive, generating new ideas and works that continually reshape the Archive itself”.

Follow:
@LTTDS
#OpenCurating
@AsiaArtArchive

ABOUT #OPENCURATING

What "old rules" about art programming, production and distribution has the internet broken? What challenges, expectations, and new possibilities does digital culture and social media present to contemporary art institutions? To what degree are curators, media teams, publishers and archivists concerned with a dialogue with their audiences? #OpenCurating has investigated these questions through how new forms of culture, participation and connectivity are being developed both on site and on line.

The research was structured around three elements. Ten new interviews were produced and published as free digital editions as well as via Issuu; a Twitter thread was moderated around the hashtag #OpenCurating; and a public conversation (transcribed as interview #7) between Latitudes and Yasmil Raymond, Curator of Dia Art Foundation, New York, was held on 19 February 2013 at the Auditorium of the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA).

#OpenCurating was a research project by Latitudes produced through La Capella. BCN Producció 2012 of the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona.



Content partners: Walker Art Center




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Interview with Steven ten Thije, Research Curator, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, sixth in the #OpenCurating research series

Play Van Abbe, Part 2: Time Machine (10 April–24 September 2010). Curated by Steven ten Thije (guest curator) and Diana Franssen, Curator and Head of Research. Exhibition view of: Raum der Gegenwart, (1930) 2009 scale 1:1, various materials. Installation: 430 x 860 x 610 cm. Collection Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Photo: Peter Cox, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

As Research Curator at the Van Abbemuseum, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Steven ten Thije is part of the team of one the first public museums for contemporary art to be established in Europe. Under the directorship of Charles Esche since 2004, the museum has defined itself through "an experimental approach towards art’s role in society", where "openness, hospitality and knowledge exchange are important". Ten Thije is also a lecturer and researcher at the University of Hildesheim, Germany, where he is studying for a doctorate in the genealogical analysis of the exhibition curator. He was co-curator of the Spirits of Internationalism (Van Abbemuseum, 2012), and alongside Esche, with curators Christiane Berndes, Annie Fletcher, and Diana Franssen, he was guest curator of Play Van Abbe (2011). Subtitled The museum in the 21st Century, this was a four-part multifaceted programme of exhibitions, research and events in which the Van Abbemuseum reflected on the meaning and role of the art museum. Using its collection to articulate questions about the public's reaction to art and its contexts, the Van Abbemuseum probed its own history and purpose alongside how cultural production has reflected the social and political dynamics of the last twenty years.





ABOUT #OPENCURATING

Drawing on the emerging practices of so-called 'Open Journalism' – which seek to better collaborate with and use the ability of anyone to publish and share#OpenCurating is a research project that investigates how contemporary art projects may function beyond the traditional format of exhibition-and-catalogue. #OpenCurating is concerned with new forms of interaction between publics – whether online followers or physical visitors – with artworks and their production, display and discursive context.

The project is articulated around a series of ten new interviews with curators, artists, writers and online strategists published as a free digital edition [read here the published ones so far], a Twitter discussion moderated around the hashtag #OpenCurating and a finissage event in Barcelona (date TBA).

#OpenCurating is a research project by Latitudes produced through La Capella. BCN Producció 2012 of the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona. 










Content partners: Walker Art Center

 




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"books_expanded_field: An Interview with Badlands Unlimited", fifth interview of the #OpenCurating research

'How To Download A Boyfriend' group exhibition as interactive e-book, 58 pp (Badlands Unlimited, 2012).

Founded in 2010 by artist Paul Chan – best known for his cycle The 7 Lights (2005–8) and Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, realised in collaboration with Creative Time and The Classical Theatre of Harlem – Badlands Unlimited is a New York-based publishing house whose motto is “books in an expanded field”. Its publications and editions in paper or digital forms (e-books for iPad or Kindle) acknowledge that “historical distinctions between books, files, and artworks are dissolving rapidly”. Badlands aspires to reimagine the activity of reading as it encompasses the artist book, choreography and poetry, 3D, experimental typography, historical translations as well as the format of the group show.



ABOUT #OPENCURATING

Drawing on the emerging practices of so-called 'Open Journalism' – which seek to better collaborate with and use the ability of anyone to publish and share#OpenCurating is a research project that investigates how contemporary art projects may function beyond the traditional format of exhibition-and-catalogue. #OpenCurating is concerned with new forms of interaction between publics – whether online followers or physical visitors – with artworks and their production, display and discursive context.

The project is articulated around a series of ten new interviews with curators, artists, writers and online strategists published as a free digital edition [read here the published ones so far], a Twitter discussion moderated around the hashtag #OpenCurating and a finissage event in Barcelona (date TBA).

#OpenCurating was awarded the first BCN Producció 2012 Research Grant of the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona. 










Content partners: Walker Art Center

 




Creative Commons Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Stacks Image 39


The Indianapolis Museum of Art's transparency initiatives

Part of our interest in the #OpenCurating research we are currently carrying out is to look at how museums and curatorial departments are engaging in new ways with their audiences and the means through which "open" initiatives are being promoted and implemented in exhibition-making and via other types of programming.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art has created two really dynamic initiatives which promote transparency throughout the museum's operations: a real-time statistics "Dashboard" including data such as the museum's energy consumption, works of art currently on display, the value of the museum's endowment, their operating expenses, average time of visits to the website, etc. 

The tool was implemented in 2008 and is the brainchild of museum director Maxwell L. Anderson, an active advocate of implementing new media technologies to advance public interest in art. 



The data can be compared to previous years (stats for 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011), filtered by museum departments (Buildings, Education, Conservation, Curatorial, Finance...) as well as by topics (Art, Greening the IMA, Attendance...). 


 Dashboard data of the curatorial.

However admirable this tool is, the curatorial dashboard falls rather short on the depth of information, only offering statistics for the "number of acquisitions" and the "number of works with gaps in WWII-Era Provenance". They do not reveal full data sets of their departmental operational budget, for instance. This might show there is still some resistance to really open up  to show other kind of costs (shipping, insurance, exhibition display, fees paid to artists (or not?)...) or even interesting insights such as (air)miles travelled by the curatorial staff, or the amount of paper used for their publications, just to mention a few. 

Some of these topics (how to articulate institutions and organisations complex needs in seeming transparent, responsible and benevolent) were addressed in Latitudes' 2008 exhibition "Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities" (Archive Books, 2008) and in its catalogue essay "Shades of Green: a conversation between the curators", as well as in the essay by Stephanie Smith "'Alas for the dreams of a Dreamer!': Art Museums and Sustainability" included in the Latitudes-edited publication "Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook' (RSA, 2006).

A second initiative we find quite relevant is the "Deaccessioning database", which classifies pieces that have been deaccessioned at the museum since 2007 (following IMA's policy, see pdf here), explaining provenance, the reasons for its deaccession, listing the recipient and the day of sale, etc.
 Deaccessioned Artworks page www.imamuseum.org/art/collections/deaccession

Take for instance "Houses in the Snow", a 1929 canvas by Maurice de Vlaminck sold via Sotheby's in 2009 for $173700; or the 1889 suite of prints "Les Misères Humaines" by Gaugin, which were transferred to the Musée de Pont-Aven in 2009. Fascinating and revealing, isn't it?


Deaccessioned file for Maurice de Vlaminck's 1929 canvas.



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"Democratizando la sociedad informacional", cuarta entrevista de #OpenCurating con Daniel G. Andújar


Daniel G. Andújar, Democraticemos la democracia, “A vuelo de pájaro, Barcelona–Badalona”, 22 de mayo 2012. 
Cortesía de Daniel G. Andújar estudio / TTTP.

La práctica del artista visual, activista en la red y teórico del arte Daniel G. Andújar cuestiona, mediante la ironía y la utilización de estrategias de presentación de las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación, las promesas democráticas e igualitarias de estos medios y critica la voluntad de control que esconden detrás de su aparente transparencia. En 1996 Andújar funda la empresa virtual Technologies To The People (TTTP) “dedicada a acercar los avances de la tecnología a los más desfavorecidos, una especie de imprecisa corporación que reproducía el lenguaje disuasorio, los tics de identidad y los arquetipos visuales asociados a las compañías comerciales del ámbito digital”.

"Democratizando la sociedad informacional" es la cuarta entrevista en la investigación #OpenCurating – leer la primera con el equipo del Walker Art Center aquí (inglés), la segunda con Ethel Baraona Pohl (español e inglés); y"Itinerarios transversales" con Sònia López y Anna Ramos del Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA).



El documento se puede visualizar en ISSUU, y también se puede descargar como pdf desde la web del proyecto y por de ahí leerlo en vuestro iPad (visualización optimizada para la pantalla Retina).
 

 
ACERCA DE #OPENCURATING

Partiendo de las preocupaciones exploradas por Latitudes durante el proyecto editorial realizado durante 'The Last Newspaper' (New Museum, Nueva York, 2010), y basándose en las prácticas del denominado 'periodismo abierto' (Open Journalism) – que trata de mejorar la colaboración y utilizar la habilidad de cualquier persona para publicar y compartir – #OpenCurating es un proyecto de investigación que indaga en las nuevas formas de interacción entre los públicos – sean seguidores en red o visitantes físicos – con obras de arte, su producción, exhibición y su contexto discursivo.

El proyecto se estructura a partir de tres elementos: una serie de diez entrevistas a comisarios, artistas, escritores y expertos web publicada en una edición digital gratuita (véase aquí), una discusión en Twitter moderada por el hashtag #OpenCurating y por último, un evento (fecha por determinar).

#OpenCurating es el proyecto ganador de la primera convocatoria BCN Producció 2012 en la categoría de investigación, otorgada por el Institut de Cultura de Barcelona.

Síguenos en Twitter: #OpenCurating
 






 
   

Content partners : Walker Art Center






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"Itinerarios transversales", tercera entrevista de la investigación #OpenCurating, con Sònia López y Anna Ramos del Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA)

El estudio radiofónico de Ràdio Web MACBA en el Auditorio del MACBA. 
Foto: Gemma Planell / MACBA, 2012. Some rights reserved.

La entrevista "Itinerarios transversales" con Sònia López y Anna Ramos del Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), es la tercera en la investigación #OpenCurating – leer la primera con el equipo del Walker Art Center aquí (inglés), y la segunda con Ethel Baraona Pohl aquí (en inglés aquí).

El Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) abrió sus puertas en el Raval de Barcelona en el 1995, aunque su fundación se remonta a 1987 cuando miembros representantes de la sociedad civil catalana y empresas privadas crean Fundación MACBA, una de las cuatro entidades que integran el Consorcio junto con la Generalitat de Catalunya, el Ayuntamiento de Barcelona y el Ministerio de Cultura. La nueva página web del museo (macba.cat), se lanzó a principios del 2012 tras un periodo de rediseño y reconceptualización, e incluye novedades como los Recorridos (permite al visitante crear itinerarios transversales seleccionando entre las cinco mil obras que componen la Colección MACBA, además de vídeos, fichas de artista, podcasts, publicaciones, etc.) y la unificación de bases de datos de la colección y el Archivo del Centro de Estudios y Documentación, entre otras muchas. Ràdio Web MACBA, el proyecto radiofónico del museo iniciado en el 2006, cuenta con su propia web rwm.macba.cat e incluye una selección de más de 250 podcasts sobre arte, filosofía, música experimental y material documental con la voluntad de fomentar una aproximación crítica a la producción sonora y el pensamiento contemporáneo. 

Sònia López es la responsable de la web y las publicaciones digitales del MACBA desde el 2001. Ha participado en diversos proyectos artísticos y pedagógicos en el MACBA y otras instituciones culturales de Barcelona. Activista crafter a tiempo parcial.

Anna Ramos es la coordinadora del proyecto radiofónico online Ràdio Web MACBA, y co-responsable del sello ALKU, plataforma pluridisciplinar que opera desde 1997. Bajo ambos paraguas desarrolla publicaciones, proyectos, instalaciones y ciclos en torno a la música por ordenador, el audio generativo, la síntesis, el pensamiento contemporáneo y otras áreas relacionadas. Asimismo, acaba de co-editar el libro del artista danés Goodiepal, El camino del hardcore (ALKU, 2012).

El documento se puede visualizar en ISSUU, y también se puede descargar como pdf desde la web del proyecto y por de ahí leerlo en vuestro iPad (visualización optimizada para la pantalla Retina).


 Foto: Latitudes.
 –

ACERCA DE #OPENCURATING


Partiendo de las preocupaciones exploradas por Latitudes durante el proyecto editorial realizado durante 'The Last Newspaper' (New Museum, Nueva York, 2010), y basándose en las prácticas del denominado 'periodismo abierto' (Open Journalism) – que trata de mejorar la colaboración y utilizar la habilidad de cualquier persona para publicar y compartir – #OpenCurating es un proyecto de investigación que indaga en las nuevas formas de interacción entre los públicos – sean seguidores en red o visitantes físicos – con obras de arte, su producción, exhibición y su contexto discursivo.

El proyecto se estructura a partir de tres elementos: una serie de diez entrevistas a comisarios, artistas, escritores y expertos web publicada en una edición digital gratuita (véase aquí), una discusión en Twitter moderada por el hashtag #OpenCurating y por último, un evento que tendrá lugar en Barcelona (fecha por determinar).
  
#OpenCurating es el proyecto ganador de la primera convocatoria BCN Producció 2012 en la categoría de investigación, otorgada por el Institut de Cultura de Barcelona.

Síguenos en Twitter: #OpenCurating
 






 

   
Content partners : Walker Art Center






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Stacks Image 39


La cultura en España: estadísticas, cifras y porcentajes

El Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte acaba de publicar el Anuario de Estadísticas Culturales 2012. El estudio ha sido realizado por la Subdirección General de Estadísticas y Estudios de la Secretaría General Técnica y está disponible aquí.


 Detalle de la estadística "1. EMPLEO CULTURAL". Descargar aquí.


El estudio se estructura en tres partes: incluye estimaciones relacionadas con diferentes sectores culturales (empleo y empresas, financiación pública y privada, propiedad intelectual, comercio exterior, turismo, enseñanza y hábitos culturales), información sectorial (patrimonio, museos, archivos, bibliotecas, libro, artes escénicas, música, cine y video), y análisis del impacto de la cultura en la economía española (con indicadores sobre su aportación al Producto Interior Bruto (PIB) español). 

La nota de prensa resume el estudio a cinco puntos, que es lo que ha recogido la prensa (El Mundo, rtve.es, Faro de Vigo, El País (Valencia), Ara.cat...): 
  • El sector cultural aportó un 3,6% al Producto Interior Bruto (PIB) en 2009
  • Un 19,7% de los turistas vienen a España por motivos culturales
  • El empleo en el ámbito cultural ascendió en el segundo trimestre de 2012 a 452.700 personas, lo que supone un 2,6% del empleo total de nuestro país
  • El gasto medio de los hogares españoles en bienes y servicios culturales fue de 828,3 euros anuales
  • Escuchar música, leer e ir al cine son las actividades culturales realizadas con mayor frecuencia por la población española
Pero hay material para entretenerse con 17 capítulos por desengranar: 

  1. Empleo cultural
  2. Empresas culturales
  3. Financiación y gasto público en cultur
  4. Gasto de consumo cultural de los hogares
  5. Propiedad intelectual
  6. Comercio exterior de bienes culturales
  7. Turismo cultural
  8. Enseñanzas del ámbito cultural
  9. Hábitos y prácticas culturales
  10. Patrimonio
  11. Museos y Colecciones Museográficas
  12. Archivos
  13. Bibliotecas
  14. Libro
  15. Artes escénicas y musicales
  16. Cine y vídeo
  17. Cuenta Satélite de la Cultura
Allá vamos. Para los que quieran una rápido análisis de la situación, se puede descargar un "Cuadro resumen" en formato pdf aquí. En él se ofrecen cifras de las actividades comprendidas entre el 2000 hasta el 2011 en relación a cada uno de los capítulos mencionados anteriormente, desde "Empleo cultural" (con cifras según sexo, edad, nivel estudios), a "Cuenta Satélite de la Cultura" (porcentajes de la aportación al PIB y al VAB de las actividades culturales).
 Detalle del "Cuadro resumen" que se puede descargar aquí como pdf.

En lo que se refiere a las artes visuales, destacamos los porcentajes de visitas a museos, monumentos, exposiciones:

  • Datos del 2003: 27,5% (visita museos), 28,8% (visita monumentos), no hay datos de visitas a exposiciones
  • Datos del 2007: 31,2% (visita museos); 34,1% (visita monumentos); 24,7% (visita exposiciones)
  • Datos del 2011: 30,6% (visita museos); 39,5% (visita monumentos); 25,7% (visita exposiciones)
Y sigamos con las cifras:

En el 2009, la cultura generó un 2,8% del PIB español, ascendiendo al 3,6% si se le suman las actividades económicas vinculadas a la propiedad intelectual. Por sectores, destaca el de Libros y Prensa con una aportación total del 1% (36,9% en el conjunto de actividades). Las artes plásticas suponen un 9,6% del PIB. Nos parece curioso que no se tengan datos del PIB en el 2010 o en el 2011, y que éste porcentaje (2,8% y 3,6% total) se mantenga estable en el 2007, 2008 y 2009.



Detalle de la estadística "17. CUENTA SATÉLITE DE LA CULTURA". Descargar aquí.

Hay algo muy revelador en estas cifras: ponen de manifiesto (cita textual) "el significativo peso de las actividades culturales en el conjunto de la economía española, destacándose que equivale al generado en 2009 por el sector de la Energía (2,9%) y superior al de Agricultura, ganadería y pesca (2,6%)." 


Y aquí el quid de la cuestión: a pesar su peso económico, la cultura recibe menos del 1% del presupuesto anual español. La mayoría de datos preceden al 2012 y por tanto no recogen la entrada en vigor del reciente aumento del IVA al 21% (desde Septiembre 2012) sobre actividades culturales como el cine y el teatro. Así que habrá que esperar a contrastar estas cifras con futuros estudios.


Más cosas: el gasto medio por persona en bienes y servicios culturales de 312,9 euros anuales (en 2006 esa cifra era de 372 euros por persona, es decir que ha dismunuido un 15% desde entonces). El cine sigue liderando encuestas, con una tasa de asistencia anual del 49,1% (de nuevo, está por ver cómo serán estas cifras el próximo año cuando sí se contará con datos sobre la repercusión del aumento IVA).


Se estima que en 2010, los 1530 museos españoles recibieron 57,492 millones de visitantes


Expandiendo los datos aportados sobre el turismo cultural: en 2011, el 15,2% del total de viajes (13,2 millones de viajes) fueron iniciados principalmente por motivos culturales (un aumento de 2,5 puntos porcentuales respecto al 2010). En el 47,5% de los viajes realizados por residentes en España se realiza algún tipo de actividad cultural. El estudio "resalta que el 52,2% de los turistas internacionales realizan algún tipo de actividad cultural." 


Más datos que se desprenden de la Encuesta de Población Activa (INE), elaborada para el Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte:



 Detalle de la estadística "1. EMPLEO CULTURAL". Descargar aquí.


Datos del segundo trimestre de 2012 muestran que el sector cultural da trabajo a 452.700 personas, esto es el 2,6% del empleo total en España (una cifra en contínuo descenso con respecto a años anteriores: 488,7 en 2011; 508,7 en 2010; o los 544,8 en 2009). El 64,3% de los trabajadores tiene educación superior o equivalente.

Paridad por sexos: de los 488,700 trabajadores del 2011, 290,900 eran hombres frente a un 197,800 que eran mujeres, reflejando lo mucho que queda por hacer en cuanto a la igualdad de género en el mercado laboral.


Más datos curiosos sobre el empleo en el 2012: el 17,6% desarrolló su actividad a tiempo parcial. El 72,3% son asalariados frente a un 27,7% no asalariados, de los cuales 54,7% tiene contrato indefinido y 17,6% un contrato temporal de lo cual se deduce que hay un 27,7% restante sin contrato (?).

Para quien se quiera entretener más, se pueden consultar los gráficos correspondientes a los 17 capítulos del Anuario de Estadísticas Culturales 2012 (desde Empleo Cultural a Cuenta Satélite de la Cultura). 
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