The final stage in the project Climbing Invisible Structures in an exhibition opening Feb 10 in Akershus Kunstsenter. Artists presented are: Mo Abd-Ulla, Egl Budvytyt, Tanya Busse, Victoria Durnak, Gunnhildur Hauksd?ttir, Berlind Jona Hlynsd?ttir, Saulius Leonavi ius & Vida Strasevi ikt, Robertas Narkus, Augustas Serapinas, Kristin T?rnesvik.
Climbing Invisible Structures, is a curated visual arts residency exchange and exhibition programme organised by the Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts (NAC) (Lithuania), in collaboration with the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), the Nordic Artists Centre Dale (Norway), the Skaftfell Center for Visual Art (Iceland), and the Ars Communis Residency Centre YO-YO (Lithuania). The programme is financed by the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism 2009-2014 and the NAC.
More about the exhibition
The expression Climbing Invisible Structures invokes something steep and hidden, something vertiginous and inaccessible. The idea of coping with such constructions, invites us, artists and participants, to reflect on the complex, multilayered and often imperceptible relationships that govern our lives and relationships. For what sort of social structures dictate things like career choice, way of life, or art productions? And can we be sure that our human relations, in fact, are not already organized according to pre-established power relationships, unstated rules and rituals? How can we know that what we take for granted, that which appears so natural, are actually social constructions and false consciousness?
The various works in this exhibition, each in a very distinct way, investigate different modes of existence, aspects of art production, and social life. They explore deep-rooted practices, conceptual systems, and rituals. They manipulate, disorganize, and disrupt fixed ways of thinking and patterns of behavior. Of course, the aim is not to establish new ones, but to puzzle, to make us wonder, and by the same token to raise questions about the legitimacy of existing conventions and established institutions.
Friday, February 10, 89:30pm:
performative dinner Todays Menu: table-talk-manners-food policies by Mo Abd-Ulla
Sunday, February 12, 12pm:
performative presentation by Robertas Narkus & guided tour with the curator Egl Mikalajkn
Sunday, March 12, 12pm:
artist-talk by Victoria Durnak and guided tour with the curator Samir Mkadmi
This exhibition is part of a two-year-long residency and exhibition project involving six institutions in three different countries: Iceland, Lithuania and Norway. Ten artists have been invited to do residencies and to create works for four exhibitions in Vilnius, Nida, }eimiai (Lithuania) and Lillestr?m (Norway). This exhibition presents works by all participating artists. Akershus Kunstsenter is the fourth and the last stop in the travelling exhibitions tour.
More about the project
Climbing Invisible Structures, is a curated visual arts residency exchange and exhibition programme organised by the Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts (NAC) (Lithuania), in collaboration with the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), the Nordic Artists Centre Dale (Norway), the Skaftfell Center for Visual Art (Iceland), and the Ars Communis Residency Centre YO-YO (Lithuania).
According to the French philosopher Michel Foucault disciplinary practices can be both symbolic and instrumental in shaping, producing and reproducing behaviour and identity. Many of these practices are ritualized, in the sense that they can be described as series of persuasive or coercive actions, intended to impress specific patterns of behaviour on individuals or groups. Ritualized disciplinary practices are instrumental in learning, and in the production of knowledge. Rituals (both religious and secular) can be observed in a wide range of context, from everyday life to public ceremonies, in judiciary and cultural institutions, artistic events and performances.
Anthropologists have pointed out that rituals are not only inherited static traditions; they are subject to change, and they can also be creative. New rituals can be generated for relational and convivial purposes, or as part and instruments of the new cultural and creative industries. E-learning, social media and streaming services have affected some of our most familiar rituals, and have created new ones.
The notion of ritual itself encloses the creative power of rites of passage. It invokes border crossing and processes of transformation. The transition from one order to another, from a stage in which everything is in its appropriate place to a new one, doesnt happen without conflict and improvisation. The adept has to cross a threshold to enter a transitional stage, in which social life is stretched between the virtual idea of absolute order and absolute chaos and anarchy.
The anthropologist Victor Turner viewed this phase as a stepping from a structured social state into an anti-structure, into a liminal space of exclusion, uncertainty and ambiguity. He described ritual as a kind of culturally established pretend play, an imaginary space in which transformative processes are acted out. Turner argued that beyond rituals, anti-structural processes are necessary for all cultural creativity. In literary, post-colonial and cultural studies, the concept of liminality and Turners theory of anti-structure resonate with the idea of being in the borderland, on the threshold of discrete territory, identities and discourses.
Organiser
Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts
Project Partners
Nordic Artists Centre Dale, Norway / Office for Contemporary Art, Oslo, Norway / Residency Centre YO YO, }eimiai Manor Estate, Lithuania / Skaftfell Center for Visual Art East Iceland, Sey?isfj?r?ur, Iceland
Vilnius Academy of Arts project Discipline Today. Residency Exchange and Exhibitions, project no. EEE-LT07-KM-01-K-01-035, benefits from a grant through the EEA Financial Mechanism and Lithuanian State programme LT07 Promotion of Diversity in Culture and Arts within European Cultural Heritage. The project is also financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.
