Re-public Russian Art In The Streets

RE-PUBLIC is a two-week programme (29.7.-15.8.) with and about the rapidly rising phenomena of Russian art in the streets … and parks, and empty buildings, near monuments, and in any other imaginable public space.

Curated by Marita Muukkonen and Ivor Stodolsky
of Perpetuum Mobil?
www.PerpetualMobile.org

A part of the international project:
RE-ALIGNED
www.Re-Aligned.net
(more on this wider project below the PROGRAMME)


Alongside the recent waves of protest against the increasingly authoritarian political climate in Russia, artists have taken their talents, ideas, skills and humour into the street. This desire to reconnect with a public outside the narrow confines of the art world often involves an invitation to engage in dialogue, to participate, to think out loud – to do artwork work publicly. This art is often, if not always, a response to the heightened pressure on free expression, or at least is often seen to be so. As in previous times of great public discontent, such as in 1848 across Europe, in 1968 across continents, or in 1989-91 across the former East bloc, artistic advocates of freedom are taking their ideas into full public view. In Russia today, a variety of artistic techniques and strategies can be seen: from graffiti to public murals to street universities, from formal or conceptual works to daring and provocative public performances and actions.

Running from late July to early August 2013, RE-PUBLIC will include a series of workshops with 20 younger participants from Russia and Finland, led by the Russian artists Nikolai Oleynikov, Aleksei Iorsh and Roman Minin (unfortunately Alex Vens a.k.a. Sadface cannot come). Each of them will be working on new public works in Helsinki City together with an invited group of younger-generation artists from St. Petersburg alongside Finnish participants (the “Artists on the Street” project).

The programme of RE-PUBLIC will culminate in a seminar in Kiasma Theatre on the 7th August, opened by Minister of Culture Paavo Arhinmäki. In this context, new artistic strategies of what the curators are calling “Generation Pre-” will be debated, and their relations discussed to the ongoing political protests in Russia and internationally.

Invited speakers include Petr Verzilov of the Voina group, who is also a close associate of Pussy Riot; Tatiana Volkova of MediaImpact, the organiser of the International Festival of Activist Art (in Moscow, and in 2013 in Murmansk together with the Re-Aligned project); Kirill Medvedev, a poet and singer and leading voice of the protest movement; as well as the above-named artists, curators and specially invited academics. The seminar will include a performance by the Russian protest band Arkady Kots (Medvedev, Oleynikov and 5-7 others!), which will also be playing a full set in Helsinki the same evening at Dubrovnik. The whole band is staying at the newly developing v96.org activist residency in Kallio.

The Artists on the Street project will take place in Helsinki 29.7.-2.8. as well as in other Finnish cities, including the 5.8-6.8. in Hyvinkää and on the15.8. in Turku.


Finnish Partners:
URB Festival www.urb.fi at Kiasma Theatre
&
The Finnish-Russia Society
www.venajaseura.com


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PROGRAMME

29.7.-2.8. Hernesaari Workshops with 20 younger participants from Russia and Finland, lead by Alexei Iorsh (artist, comics writer), Nikolay Oleynikov (artist, musician) and Roman Minin (street artist, Ukraine)

Friday 2.8

5 pm Hernesaari Opening (near the final stop of Bus Nr. 14). Workshop results including pieces by local artists (SAMPSA).

Tuesday 6.8.

2pm Arkady Kots Band at the Esplanadi Stage

8pm Kirill Medvedev: Poetry Reading and interview with Ivor Stodolsky (and a Finnish commentator, TBC) at Musta Kissa (Toinen Linja 15, Kallio), co-organised by Perpetuum Mobil?(RE-PUBLIC) and hosted in coordination with Kiila ry.

Wednesday 7.8.

3-7pm RE-PUBLIC Seminar at Kiasma Theatre with Opening Words by Paavo Arhinmäki, Finnish Minister of Culture. Chaired by Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen.

Alongside the artists mentioned above, further participants include Petr Verzilov (artist, member of Voina and close Pussy Riot associate), Tania Volkova (curator, Media Impact).

7.15pm Opening of Street Art Works on the “Baana” (bicycle path/former railway tracks leading from Kiasma to Hernesaari)

Evening Programme at Dubrovnik
(downstairs from Corona Bar, Eerikinkatu 11).
For tickets see: https://www.facebook.com/events/167034353480702/

9.30pm Poetry Reading by Kirill Medvedev

9:45pm Arkady Kots, the (in)famous 7-piece Russian protest band

11:30pm Balkan Fever club night.

For interviews with Oleynikov and Verzilov see:
http://www.re-aligned.net/nikolay-oleynikov/
http://www.re-aligned.net/petr-verzilov

Spin Off Events outside of Helsinki:

5.-6.8. Alexei Iorsh at Villa Arttu in Hyvinkää
15.8.Night of Arts event in collaboration with Youth Centre WIMMA in Turku


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RE-PUBLIC is part of a wider thematic called RE-ALIGNED, which is taking place in several Nordic, Russian and European cities, with events from Murmansk to Stockholm, from Tromso (northern Norway) to Berlin. RE-ALIGNED looks into the new conditions, subjectivities and agencies provoking a re-alignment of art, thought and politics of a “Generation Pre-”: the newly engaged movements of the 21st century embodied in the Spannish indignados, Occupy Wall Street, as much as the current protesters in Turkey.

The notion of re-alignment stands for a newly shared orientation, in relation to common values, desires and possible futures. Overcoming postmodern identity-particularisms (specific to only one culture, gender, class, nation, religion, etc.) these shared alignments embody hopes for new forms of democratic politics, and against authoritarian and repressive measures, no matter what their preferred “isms”. These alignments can be seen across continents: from the Arab Spring to “Blockupy Frankfurt”, to the Russian protest movement.

We are living in a time of political reaction which belies the incredible potential of new collective technologies, such as the internet and other proliferating peer-to-peer networks. In the mouths of our current leaders, the very notion of democracy, transparency and justice seems more and more of like empty promises. “Generation Pre-” on the other hand, invokes the elementary desire to expect more – to look forward. It invokes the elementary democratic principles of rights to think, speak, assemble and act freely, without censorship or punitive measures – be they of psychological, economic, political or of violent authoritarian nature. It furthermore invokes impending future change: either of a retrograde (environmental disaster, economic collapse, loss of rights) or progressive (improvements in justice, ecology and democracy) nature.

The notion of pre- stands in contradistinction to the multiple post-’s of the outgoing period. We are speaking here not only of the passing of ‘the post-modern’ period, as much as the failed western neoliberal dream of post-history (Fukuyama’s ‘end of History’), but equally the drawing to the end of the interregnum of post-communism and post-coloniality. The RE-ALIGNED project describes a significant shift of people taking to the streets or commons to reassert their basic democratic rights and hopes for the future.

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RE-PUBLIC is co-produced by Marita Muukkonen and Ivor Stodolsky of Perpetuum Mobil? in coordination with Merja Jokela of the Finnish-Russia Society and Mikael Aaltonen of the URB festival, Kiasma.

The project is realized with the support of the Finnish Ministry of Culture and Education and BarentsKult, Norway.

The wider RE-ALIGNED Project curated by Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen was initiated in co-operation with Tromso Konstforening, Norway.

The main exhibition will take place on September 13, 2013:
http://www.re-aligned.net/re-aligned/

RE-ALIGNED is a Perpetuum Mobil?zation

www.PerpetualMobile.org

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