Thursday 9th of February 2012

9.30 – 10.00 MARY COBLE & BLITHE RILEY
During the month of February 2012 Coble/Riley Projects will be on the IASPIS Residency Programme in Umeå, Sweden. Part of their collaborative process is about creating as they go along, remaining open to the environments they encounter and people they meet.
http://coblerileyprojects.com

10.00 – 10.30 CARL-ERIK ENGQUIST
Carl-Erik Engqvist engages himself with the potential of virtual realities, bio-, nano- and robot technology. Since he finished his Master in 2009 at the Umeå Academy of Fine Arts his collaborative platform has been HUMlab, an interdisciplinary digital humanities laboratory. Engqvist will in his presentation discuss digital technology as a collaborative platform and his experience of working cross disciplinary.

10.45 – 11.25 MAP MOBILE ART PRODUCTION
Mobile Art Production is an art producer working towards a renewal of the traditional role of the art institution by creating a mobile structure for producing and exposing contemporary art. Instead of using a permanent premises MAP concentrates on the artistic process and the meeting with the audience. Annika Wik is a fil.dr. in film science and  och researcher at MAP. She will talk about MAP as an alternative art producer and development project. To explain MAP´s activities and curatorial method she will proceed from four central positions: the artist, the audience, the researcher and the curator.
http://www.mobileartproduction.se/

13.00 – 13.40 MAL (MAKING A LIVING)
MAL is an independent group of arts professionals currently active across the UK who are researching and campaigning on issues of art and labour.  Two members of the group tell us more about MAL and how they function.
http://www.malorganise.com/

13.50 – 14.20 STIG SJÖLUND
Cooperations for different reasons by necessity or by strategy. I do have experience of both. And what is good about it and how to make it as good as possible. Then ex. about that: first the Wallda group then, Birgitta Tholander and now Ride1.
http://ride1.org/

14.40 – 15.15 RAKETT
Rakett was started in 2003 as a collaboration between the artists Åse Løvgren and Karolin Tampere. Having the training in visual arts as a common ground, Rakett has been using a variety of strategies, juggling between taking on the different roles as curators, producers, commissioners, artists, publishers and organizers. Rakett has made exhibition projects in art institutions, galleries, artist run spaces as well as in the public space in cities and in small villages.
http://rakett.biz/index2.htm

Approaching site through performance, they are interested in making temporary gestures within environments— engaging with the physical properties of the location, its history, and surrounding present-day context. Their work specifically engages with sites that are in some process of transition. These places exist in a grey area where they are about to take on a new life.

For them SITE is not only about location, but also through the experiences of the people that interact with the place. Part of their practice includes dialog and research, and they are adamant about not going into places with an over-determined plan. While their process is very much rooted in notions of site-specificity, they seek to draw out themes that are relevant beyond one specific location.

In Umea, they will take a similar approach, research the city and create series of experimental works that respond to and interpret the environment.

They be writing daily on their blog sharing their praxis at:
http://coblerileyprojects.com

During fall 2011 the Norwegian duo Rakett: Åse Lövgren and Karolin Tampere will have a Iaspis residency in Umeå. Rakett often take an interest in issues concerning city planning and democratic processes. Since 2009 they have been working with COMMON LANDS, which took place in Bjørvika, Oslo during 2009 – 11. Bjørvika is the former harbour area of the City of Oslo, currently under major development and construction. The ongoing development will reconstruct the former industrial harbour into a site for commercial enterprises, living, working and recreation. Bjørvika will become a new part of the city center with a strong cultural presence with the newly built Opera and the relocated Munch-Stenersen Museum to be built in the area.

http://commonlands.net/index.php?/about/about/

During their stay in Umeå they will meet local artists, investigate Umeås plans for 2014 and the city. They are also invited as guest curators in VITA KUBEN at Norrlandsoperan.

OPEN TALK, Verkligheten 24 november 19.00
by curator Solvita Krese about challenges and oportunities of Riga 2014 programme and Riga’s art scene.

Solvita Krese is an art critic and art curator based in Riga. From 2000 she is director of Latvian Center for contemporary arts (LCCA). She is one of curators of …RIGA21014 – European Culture capital program. She has curated a number of exhibitions, recent of them “Survival kit” (2009, 2010), “Mobile museum”(2007) about the changing role of museum and art institutions, “Urbanologic”(2007) , “Archaeology of reality” about women artists strategies, “Trassepassers. Contemporary art from 80ties” at National Art museum in Riga, “ The body in Baltic photography”, Berlin (2005), co-curator of exhibition “Faster than history”, Kiasma, Helsinki(2004), international art exhibition “re:public”, Riga(2003), one of initiators and co- organizers of two large scale international projects: “republicart”( 2003 -2005) transnational research project which explore and promote interventionist and activist practices of public art; “transform” research on political and artistic practices of institutional critique during the years 2005-2008. Her field of research and interest is exploration of transformation of public space and contemporary city, institutional critique and feminism strategies. She is author of many publications in local and international art press, as well as catalogues of exhibitions and anthology of essays about art in public space.

“Where do YOU go next?
I am undeniably seduced by the feeling and process of exploring not only harmonies in life but also contradictions hidden in the safe.For me, advancement of art, culture and self-identity process are paralleled. My experimental art works are in search of these answers for self-examination about substance of our belief systems. By eyes, we couldn’t see the detail portrait of the shadows but the received feeling when look into the shadows always creates the details for themselves. It could be the feeling of visual colours, of touch or even the scent…”

Nguyen Thu Hà is a Visual Artist born 1982 in Hanoi, Vietnam.

lectures by:

Cecilia Widenheim, director Iaspis Jan K Persson, artist Milou Allerholm art critic Emma Pilipon, artist Lilith Performance Studio, space in malmö for performance art Elin Lundgren and Petter Pettersson, artist duo

lectures by:

artist Knutte Wester, artist Lisa Torell, project manager IASPIS Robert Stasinski,director DAAD, Berlin Katharina Narbutovic,  project manager Sune Nordgren, artist Pia Wergius

(images and text to come)

What can architecture and art do with public spaces?
Contemporary art is often socially critical. Art as an object – reduced only to its beauty – is something artists more and more have come to doubt.
Instead art now asks questions and takes part in the political debate. The issue is no longer form – but content. Is architecture going the same way? Is it about organization and planning, or does it, like art, challenge us and pose questions?
Contemporary art and architecture are now approaching each other. Artist-initiated projects increasingly take place in architectural spaces. Likewise, the architecture of today often has a conceptual approach, where the content and the idea behind the building is as important as the design. Like art, the architecture of today functions as a conveyor of meaning for our contemporary social debate.
In this seminar we hope to investigate the new roles of art and architecture and what they together can achieve.

Kent Andersson, artist

Dr. Brigitte Franzen is a researcher and author on art and cultural subjects. Currently a fellow at the Centre of Garden Art and Landscape Architecture at the University of Hanover, she co-directs transdisciplinary research on “Microlandscapes: Landscape on the Move” funded by the Transdisciplinary Tandem Program of the Volkswagen Foundation. Until the summer of 2003 she was assistant professor at the Institute of Art History, Faculty of Architecture, Technical University of Graz, Austria. In 2002/03 she was a member of the board of directors of Forum Stadtpark in Graz. She has published widely on contemporary art and architecture with special emphasis on gardens and landscape. Curator of Skulptur Project Munster 2007.

Zoran Eric is an art historian, curator, and lecturer from Belgrade University and Chair of the Society for Art History, Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Currently curator at the Museum of Modern Art Belgrade. His subject is art in the urban environment.

Vesa Honkonen, works in his own office in Helsinki in the field of architecture, lighting design, interior design and design. From 1993 till 1998 he worked with Steven Holl in New York and Helsinki as Kiasma’s project architect. Co operation continues still. Now his projects vary from large scale urban lighting and interior lighting commissions to interior design, public buildings, one family houses and lighting fixture design. He has projects in Finland, Norway, France, Switzerland and is at the moment expanding to USA. One goal is to find projects, where the architectural and lighting design skills could be combined.

Ingo Vetter, artist and professor at Academy of Fine Arts, Umeå University. Studies at the College of Art in Bremen, Konstfack in Stockholm and atthe Academy of Plastic Arts in Munich. Ingo Vetter creates objects, photographic series, room installations, interactive playing rooms and art in public spaces; his topics include “Entrepreneur of himself”, “Life long learning” and a “Picture of the global occasional worker.”

Matts Leiderstam is born in 1956 in Gothenburg. For the last years in his work Matts has been combining art history and contemporary social issues. In his exhibition Solen he takes a starting point in an ideal of beauty deriving from the French painter Claude Lorrains landscape paintings.
A model which was used in the 1600th
England as a way of seeing and searching for the picturesque landscape. In September 2006 Matts defended a thesis in art at the Art Academy in Malmö. His exhibition at Verkligheten arise from this work.