Author: Renée Ridgway

Renée Ridgway is an artist, free-lance curator and writer based in Amsterdam, Netherlands

Hortus Malabaricus anno 2012

 

In collaboration with Critical Art Ensemble’s Documenta13 project Winning Hearts and Minds

August 5, 2012, 12:00 Kassel, DE

As part of Critical Art Ensemble’s (CAE) project at Documenta 13, Winning Hearts and Minds, I discussed the Hortus Malabaricus in anno 2012. This 17th century 12-volume work magnificently illustrates around 740 indigenous plants from the Malabar coast in India and explains their medicinal properties, with captions in 4 different languages. The performance/lecture took place at a house at the far end of the Hauptbahnhof, close to the railway tracks, as part of CAE’s daily lecture series at 12:00. Keeping in spirit of Documenta13, with its manifold presentations of plants and ‘life’ organisms, I spoke out about the preservation of traditional knowledge and its contemporary usage in preventative medicine. I also presented my exhibitions The Unwanted Land at Museum Beelden aan Zee in 2010-2011 and The Wanted Land from 2012 in David Hall, Fort Cochin, India. These exhibitions are comprised of video installations and indigenous plants that bring the content of the Hortus Malabaricus into the contemporary. I also introduced the online platform hortusmalabaricus.net that is not only focused on the Hortus Malabaricus but on its artistic, botanical, medical and political importance in 2012. Lastly I screened my interview with Vandana Shiva, in which she discusses the potency of traditional knowledge, such as the register Hortus Malabaricus. Shiva, a physicist, environmental activist, and eco feminist, based in Delhi, concurs with its usage as a ‘prior art’ in combating the bio-patent industry and furthermore spells out her own research: The importance of preventing the monopolization of seeds is articulated in her Documenta publication, The Corporate Control of Life, No. 012 in 100 Notes-100 Thoughts.

The revelation of concealed

The revelation of concealed: Politics (in)form: Wob (Freedom of Information Act) results

Publication, public intervention and exhibition in collaboration with Onomatopee.

Book launch: March 22, 2012, 19:00-21:00

The past years I delved into the archives of Buro Jansen & Janssen, an investigation agency that monitors the police, judiciary and intelligence services using the Wob as one of its research tools. I selected various files as readymades of political aesthetics. These A4s are palimpsest —censored texts merging into newly created and visually potent images.

Public intervention

In different locations in greater Eindhoven, advertisement boards in and around the city of Eindhoven were temporarily hijacked with a Wob image and the announcement for the exhibition opening on January 20, 2012 at Onomatopee.

Exhibition is until February 26, 2012 at Onomatopee, Eindhoven, NL, maybe longer

Support: Mondriaan Funds, Buro Jansen & Janssen

The Unwanted Land

The Unwanted Land
Museum Beelden aan Zee
Den Haag, NL

The Unwanted Land opened on October 22 and is now on view until February 13, 2011 at Museum Beelden aan Zee in Den Haag, NL with Tiong Ang, Dirk de Bruyn, David Bade, Sonya van Kerhoff, Rudi Struik and Renée Ridgway.

These installations utilize stagings, videos and performances to investigate emigration, immigration, integration and finally disintegration – the apparent loss of an appropriated umbrella Dutch identity. (The Unwanted Land) Dutchness as an identity, a construction formulated by non-indigenous Dutch elements, uses the VOC (Dutch East Indian Company) in India as a conceptual paradigm. Its undertakings and undoings are still visible today. (The Wanted Land)

The cultural exchange that occurred 350 years ago on the Malabar Coast between the colonisers and the colonised remains significant. During this early contact a former Dutch governor (Commodore Odatha a.k.a. Hendrik van Reede tot Drakenstein) collaborated with Ayurvedic (a traditional Indian system for holistic healing) doctors, assisted by botanists, translators and artisans to produce the Hortus Malabaricus, a 12-volume work printed in Amsterdam between 1678-1693 that illustrates around 700 medicinal plants and explains their workings.

To refresh this historical connection and provide opportunity for contemplation, relaxation and participation, massages by an Ayurvedic practitioner and consultations with an Ayurvedic doctor via Skype are available on certain weekends. (A study into (un)becoming Dutch- Part I and II) Please see the agenda for exact dates of free massages.

A catalogue is available with texts by Kitty Zijlmans, Rashid Novaire, Chris Keulemans, Dineke Huizinga a.o.

On January 12 at 19:30 Pieter Baas, former director of the Herbarium (Naturalis) will give a lecture about the Hortus Malabaricus.

Financial support: The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, Museum Beelden aan Zee, VSB Fonds, Stroom Den Haag

Thanks to: Rick van Amersfoort, Simon Ferdinando, Thomas Punnen & family, Cibil John, Suresh Karipoottu, Hugo s’Jacob, Annamma Spudich, K.K.N. Kurup, Om Prakash, K.J. Krishnakumar, Christopher Edward Walton, Darshan Shankar, Jan-Frits Veldkamp, K J Sohan, James Hadlent Gunther, Joseph Donald D’Souza, Om Prakash, Monolita Chatterjee, Ivan Da Costa, Christopher Edward Walton, Anjana Singh, Louis Joachim Hendriks, Meghala, Babu, Rowan, The National Herbarium department of the NCB-Naturalis, Hortus Botanicus Leiden, Rishi’s Wellness, Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions, Bangalore, Dutch Embassy New Delhi

Photos by Thomas Lenden

‘migrating democrazy’ at Manifesta8

migrating democrazy at Manifesta8
10-minute TV broadcast
Spanish spoken with English subtitles

Manifesta, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, was this year
located in the Region of Murcia, Spain, focusing on a dialogue with Northern Africa. At the invitation of one of the chosen curatorial teams, Chamber of Public Secrets (CPS), we produced a 10-minute TV programme for Canal 7. Entitled migrating democrazy and made in collaboration with documentary filmmaker Rick van Amersfoort, it was also presented within the exhibition venues in Murcia at the Media Lounge and Cartagena at the former prison.

During a research period this summer and with the assistance of Abelardo Sainz, we interviewed the local residents in the region of Murcia, Velez Blanco, and especially the neighbourhood El Molinete in Cartagena. Anecdotes about their own family histories, ranging from the Spanish Civil War to unresolved boating deaths, migration traumas and border controls all reflect the current state of affairs.

migrating democrazy shows diverse modes of participation and action, between parties large and small, known as well as unknown. If one were to reflect on the migration of democracy and the manifold definitions of what democracy actually means we come to a paradox of movement and standing still. Some of us can move freely without much trouble, others cannot and are sometimes even imprisoned for having tried to ‘migrate democracy’. Or rather migrate democrazy– it is like a gadget everyone wants to have but it is like a foreign language in the mouth, poisonous because of the lack of control in the production process. Addressed by the protagonists themselves, migrating democrazy can be seen as a frenzied cartography of the perception of borders.

It begins with the ‘art of traveling’ with boat refugees coming from Africa to Europe, escaping a lack of a future and capitalist induced poverty whilst going to the source. With the ‘art of economy’, cheap workers from all over the world work for low costs in Spain. Uitilising the ‘art of surveillance’ and the ‘art of war’, Frontex is the new frontline machine in the war on migration, with its Indalo operation. The ‘art of smuggling’ is the very blurred line between criminality and humanity, in similar quotation between humanitarian warfare and welfare. The ‘art of humanity’, in which civilians help/support migrants across the Mediterranean sea connects to the ‘art of hospitality’, where people give others shelter, or work and take care of them. Lastly the ‘art of dying’ surfaces, in which bodies float on the sea and wash ashore.

Financial Support: The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, Manifesta8

Thanks to: Alicia Alcarez Gómez, Pedro Hernandez, Markane Seck, Arona Seye, Halifa Mbengue, José Lopéz Chacopino, Jesús Perez Rodríguez, Ignaico Peña Ruiz, Mihai Iliana Gigeta, Felipe Segura Gutiérrez, Diego Iglesias Cabrera, Luis Miguel Pérez Adán, José Antonio Martínez López,
José Juan Aniorte, Bartolomé Garciá Gil, Francisco (Paco) García García, Dolores García Hernández, Valeriola Gonzaléz Caridad, Dolores Meca, Karmen González Martínez, Samy Slimani

Wampum Trail at Conflux Festival

Beaver, Wampum, Hoes has been launched! and is an online, multimedia platform that focuses on 400 years of Dutch colonization in NY. It uses the 17th c. trade triangle (Beaver, Wampum, Hoes) as the thread that weaves anecdotes with facts in an attempt to ask broader questions about the affects of colonization and the largest imminent questions (land) concerning taking account of this history. In the 21st century beavers are back in town, Native American casinos provide an alternative yet controversial signature of financial support, hoes a homonym comprised of European goods as well as human commodity. Beaver, Wampum, Hoes measures accountability through a heterogeneous, collective exchange system.

Beaver, Wampum, Hoes continues at

Conflux festival

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with….

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Wampum Trail

On September 20, 2009 at 15:00 I will be doing a walking tour called Wampum Trail of lower Manhattan, starting at the National Museum of the American Indian library. Please join me if you can, rain or shine.

Wampum Trail: Can historical commemoration such as upcoming Dutch 400-year events be subverted toward a more radical relationship to historical research and cultural practices as a way to undermine and resist dominance in the present?
24$
If you take the New Amsterdam Trail tour you are asked to listen, walk and follow but also to lunch, shop and experience the dynamism and renewal of downtown today. This walking tour asks instead to pause, look and reflect while rethinking the former Dutch colonization of NYC.

This peripatetic tour in a way exercises psychogeography by walking backwards, so to speak, through time but also looks at present day NYC in regard to its colonial history that hasn’t been written down in the history books. Rather it combines facts with anecdotes and oral history passed down by generations of Native Americans living in NYC today along with reinscriptive historic perspectives.

We will begin at the library in the National Museum of the American Indian, moving on to The Netherlands Monument at Battery Park, passing by The American Indian Community House, then crossing to Beaver Street. We will make stops along Pearl Street, the former water’s edge of Manhattan, and continue via Wall Street (the Dutch are credited with inventing the stock market). Broadway takes us along City Hall, over to the Bowery, finally ending at Astor Place, (Kintecoying), a former sacred gathering place. Afterwards, those who are thirsty can jump on the subway and end with a bout of Dutch courage at the Dutch Kills bar in Long Island City.

Map of the Trail

View Wampum Trail in a larger map

Download the Wampum Trail flyer + map (2.4 Mb, pdf)

Holland Mania

DutchnessDial DutchnessPhilip

Holland Mania 

Opening May 16, 2009

Museum De Lakenhal and Scheltema in Leiden, the Netherlands announce the exhibition Holland Mania from May 16th to August 31, 2009. Eight artists are invited to reflect on the American and Japanese pictorial image of the Netherlands. The most recent instalment of my Manhattan Project looks not only at 400 years of Dutch colonial settlement in the United States, but the city of Leiden- 400 years after the Pilgrims settled and eventually departed to the new world. What types of images are conjured up through literature, historical texts, remnants of the past and oral traditions?

Using the museum context as a background with its collection of historical exhibits, prints, paintings and objects, this series of works gathers a range of perspectives in regard to constructions of identity, in the form of ‘Dutchness’ as well as contemporary Wampanoag peoples.  Imagery consists of a Pennsylvania Dutch quilt designed by the Amish yet composed from the Dutch and American flags. Dial Dutchness is an installation throughout the museum incorporating Leiden telephone book pages and eight multi-coloured PTT T-65 telephones with audio tracks from locals as well as Americans with Dutch last names. These ‘vox populi’ voices are contrasted in Pillars of Orange-expert opinions presented as literary silk-screened excerpts from literature, music and academic texts as if for an imaginary book on ‘Dutchness’, contrasted by real books from the secret Pilgrim Press. In the chapel of the museum the installation Wampanoag uses the existent paintings and objects as a staging for two drawings and a single channel video projection where the Wampanoag do not re-enact but rather answer specific questions regarding 17th century conventions, oral histories and the contemporary usage of wampum.

The museum has also kindly offered me a studio during the exhibition as an impromptu call centre in which to continue my Dial Dutchness installation as well as work on my forthcoming online platform Beaver, Wampum, Hoes. Please let me know if you plan on coming to visit or if I should call you instead.

For those Dutch readers the Holland Mania website.

Beaver, Wampum, Hoes at 16 Beaver

Buck TeethWampumHoes

Beaver, Wampum, Hoes at 16 Beaver

What: presentation / discussion

Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor

When: Friday Night 1.09.08 @ 7:00 PM

Who: Open To All

This week we’re excited to begin 2009 with an event that takes up the 400th anniversary of Dutch colonialism in what we now know as New York City. This event also arrives, with more specificity, as the long-awaited answer to the origins of the Beaver in Beaver Street. So, we welcome Renée Ridgway and Sal Randolph, two artists/other professional things who have been a part of past discussions and events at Beaver, as well as welcome back David Graeber, to discuss research, concepts, and projects addressing the historical transformation of gift economies into commodity economies, including debt, that made capitalism possible. Finally, it should be made clear that all of this work seeks to address contemporary New York and beyond by thinking through the current financial crisis, debt economies, and alternative systems of value.

Beaver, Wampum, Hoes

On April 4, 1609 Henry Hudson set sail from Amsterdam on a Dutch ship under the auspices of the Dutch East India company in order to find a passage to Asia. Instead he founded a settlement (West Indian Company) for the Dutch on the tip of Manhtattan (Museum of American Indian, near Beaver Street), a trading post exporting beaver pelts back to the old world because it was fashionable to make hats out of them. The company exchanged Europan goods (hoes, kettles, etc.) for

wampum with the indigenous population living on Long Island, the Narragansett. They then traded the acquired wampum for beaver pelts with the Mohawk, part of the larger Haudonausaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) or Six Nations.

Beaver, Wampum, Hoes is an online, multimedia platform that focuses on 400 years of Dutch colonization in NY. It uses the 17th c. trade triangle (Beaver, Wampum, Hoes) as the thread that weaves anecdotes with facts in an attempt to ask broader questions about the affects of colonization and the largest imminent questions (land) concerning taking account of this history. In the 21st century beavers are back in town, Native American casinos provide an alternative yet controversial signature of financial support, hoes a homonym comprised of European goods as well as human commodity. Beaver, Wampum, Hoes measures accountability through a heterogeneous, collective exchange system.

Beaver, Wampum, Hoes is the latest installment of Ridgway’s nine-year ‘Manhattan Project’. Frequently involving audience participation along with the physical and intellectual recycling and reinscription of historic as well as contemporary positions, this project investigates the commonalities between the Netherlands and the U.S. Presented in public spaces and using an extension of this methodology on different materials/subjects, such as deerskin, flags, tulip bulbs, money/investment, speech, beaver, wampum, hoes, silver and gold, all are ‘killed’ and reconstituted as raw material that is particular to the colonization of North America. The ‘Manhattan Project’ may be seen as a kind of contemporary barometric reading of the cultural, economic and political relations between these two countries.

Audacity to Vote

I vote

Audacity to Vote

single channel video

Language: German

Following the American Presidential campaign of 2008, where issues of race, gender, age and class have all converged, ‘Audacity to Vote’ begins by asking residents of the Berlin Gropiusstadt community a simple question: “If you could vote, who would you vote for and why?” With diverse responses the citizen’s enter another dialectic- questioning political engagement, knowledge of international affairs and interpreting mass media. How does this affect our personal lives and how is it In a globalised world shouldn’t all of us be allowed to vote in the US presidential elections?
disseminated to infiltrate our perception of political power in the public sphere?

‘Audacity to Vote’ (Part I) will be screened at midnight on election day, November 4, 2008 at the Bablyon Theater, Rosa Luxembourgplatz, Berlin.

But first a special screening of ‘Audacity to Vote’ (Part I & II) as a work in progress at Art Claims Impulse at 21:00.

Image translation: In a globalised world shouldn’t all of us be allowed to vote in the US presidential elections?

n.e.w.s. at Basekamp

Library Company n.e.w.s. at Basekamp

While I was in Philadelphia doing research at the Library Company for upcoming projects in 2009, I also was working on my residency at Basekamp, a space for collaboration in contemporary practice. On September 16, 2008 I presented n.e.w.s. Three of the contributors to ‘n.e.w.s.’  joined the presentation live on Skype: Prayas  Abhinav from Bangalore, Stephen Wright from Paris and Mia Jankowicz from London.

Prayas, Stephen, Mia and I gave feedback on how we use n.e.w.s. while Aharon, Scott and Basekampers joined in with some critical and insightful feedback about not only using Drupal, but in general how n.e.w.s. can be more negotiable. We tried to answer the questions from other contributors as well. We might have to wait for either time or money to get everything done that was suggested but it was productive. Here is my summary on the n.e.w.s. site.

Also, we are developing the ‘Plausible (Art) Worlds’ project, n.e.w.s. and Basekamp and we will be discussing this collaboration in the near future. In the meantime here is a beginning with Stephen’s text.

Please check out the n.e.w.s. website as it is growing – if  you feel so inclined you’re welcome to leave comments there  (commenting requires registering on the site) but you just need to sign up as a user with a valid email address.

Black FoundersI was also fortunate in my timing to see the ‘Black Founders’ exhibition at the Library Company. The ‘Black Founders: The Free Black Community in the Early Republic’ exhibition included manuscripts, books, prints, etc. and organised the archives through these headings: Slavery and Revolution in the Atlantic world, Emerging Slavery Movements, Emanicipation in Pennsylvania, Independent Black Churches the Christianity of Freedom, The Struggle for Equality and Citizenship, Abolition Day, The Enterprising and Talented, Colonization, Emigration and Identity. Curated by Phil Lapsansky.

The Library Company of Philadelphia is an independent research library specializing in American history and culture from the 17th through the 19th centuries and has one of the most comprehensive collections on African- American history. The Library Company is America’s first successful lending library and oldest cultural institution. It was founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin as a subscription library supported by its shareholders, as it is to this day.

Launch of n.e.w.s. at ISEA2008

logo n.e.w.s. n.e.w.s. launches on July 28th

from 19:00 to 22:00
@ The Substation
45 Armenian Street
Singapore

n.e.w.s. is a horizontally-organised, cumulative knowledge-based website for contemporary art and new media framed by curatorial contributions from around the globe, bringing together voices and images from North, East, West and South. n.e.w.s. reflects geographic diversity and facilitates a framework for collaboration, content and visions of change outside the normal parameters of the established art world networks.

Launch at ISEA 2008

Contributing curators and n.e.w.s. representatives will talk about building the platform, the way content is determined through curatorial positionings, and further collaborative tactics.

Contributors: Ade Darmawan/Ruangrupa, Ingrid Commandeur, Thomas Berghuis, Inti Guerrero, Mia Jankowicz, Rich Streitmatter-Tran, Mustafa Maluka, Stephen Wright, Yuliya Sorokina, and Branka Ćurčić/Kuda.

Moderators: Lee Weng Choy/The Substation, Renée Ridgway/n.e.w.s.

More about n.e.w.s.

A tool for distributing immaterial resources and intellectual goods in an era of diversification, n.e.w.s. attempts to initiate, build and foster relations and provide a valuable portal dedicated to cultural bricolage, enabling less seen artistic endeavors worldwide visibility.

n.e.w.s. structures contributions in the form of Web 2.0 technology: a blog/archive (images and text), along with a wiki-like ‘books’ (collaborative writing), tagging (shared vocabulary) and polling. Content is curatorially determined: images, texts, podcasts and links provide information in the form of documentation of previous works or new media online.

Open-sourced, collaborative action and authoring are not only encouraged but also are integral to n.e.w.s. along with a community developed event calendar and database. Building upon shared knowledge and past references, contributors engage with each others’ practices. Multilingual translation, tagging and commentary will eventually contextualise the contributions and open up new possibilities, collaboration in the form of further projects as well as producing printed multilingual publications.

Comments and user feedback welcome! Please add your events to our calendar or subscribe to our mailing for further projects and announcements.

n.e.w.s.: Tiong Ang, Sannetje van Haarst, Renée Ridgway

n.e.w.s. is supported by: Mondriaan Foundation

Politics of the contemporary

Politics of the contemporary: Globalisation and Interculturality
The Cultural Analysis of Globalisation

April 2, 2008

University of Amsterdam

Ridgway presented her work and conducted a workshop for students of the Research Master in Cultural Analysis programme.

Alternative spaces, web spaces, artists associations, and networks have thrived in recent years, encouraging and enabling resistant forms of art, political and social positions. What are the means to determine value and is there any general standard with which to work? If ‘money tends to be represented as an invisible potency because of its capacity to turn into many other things… its hidden capacity for action.’ (Graeber, 2001, p. 114), how are cultural currencies cultivated? This presentation considered the production of art and its use value in the twenty-first century, along with its relationship between new media and the Internet, cultural translation witihin the art world and wealth distribution models.

Politics of the contemporary: Globalisation and Interculturality
Research Master in Cultural Analysis Programme

Professors: Sophie Berrebi and Deborah Cherry

Course guidelines: Key concepts will be explored in relation to a range of cultural instances such as museums and international art exhibitions, documentary, installation, contemporary art and the globalization of culture and politics. The inherently interdisciplinary nature of the subject requires the use of a diversified range of theoretical sources. While the presentations by tutors and seminar discussions will predominantly deal with case-studies from the visual domain, students are invited to research other areas of contemporary culture in which relations between the local and the global are seen to be at work.

Holding an Angle

Videoscreening of works by international artists

Saturday, February 9, 2008

at the Cacao Fabriek Helmond, the Netherlands

This site-specific context of a former chocolate factory was the place of a series of screenings by various artists.

Curated by Lieke Snelling and Ruth Legg

Skin Deep
single channel projection
12 minutes
2008

In this video the topics addressed deal with land and sovereignty. The value of the currency, in this case embodied by the possession of land, is continuously increased and decreased over time. Land here is currency as well as the material salt and is determined by gains and losses. In this case, time is the length of the video, reflected here through the action/ritual by a performer replacing an area of the projection (light) with salt. This crystalizes the image, so to speak, allowing it to be seen; the video becomes visible. The video is Native New Yorkers, a one-minute loop showing a time-lapse of an entire piece of deerskin (as a metaphor for land) being cut up, unravelling.

Be(com)ing Dutch

November 19, 2007 at the Van Abbemuseum

Part of the caucus programme of Be(com)ing Dutch

Guest speakers: Sebastian Lopez (Director Iniva London) Shaheen Merali (Head of Art, Film, New Media, exhibitions at Haus der Kulturen der Welt ) Diana Franssen (Head librarian, Van Abbemuseum) Renée Ridgway (former Board member, Gate Foundation, artist, curator)

This workshop which addressed the acquisition of the Gate Foundation within the Van Abbe Museum and its present state and use value by exploring the cultural significance of its history, its accomplishment and ambition of its collection. Taking the Gate as a case study, as an ‘interpretative field of material’, we further contextualised this within the framework of alternative ‘autonomous insitutions’ (Iniva, Haus der Kulturen der Welt) whose mission is to reinstate internationalism, world culture, while working towards inclusion.

Part of the workshop was devoted to attempting to unpack some of the terminology associated with ‘cultural diversity’ used in policymaking over the years within the cultural sector, to question the autonomy of these institutions in relationship to areas of ‘positive discrimination’ as well as the ‘top down’ financing that supports such cultural initiatives. These questions were conceived together with Sarat Maharaj and are being further discussed and disseminated via a wiki. More soon.

A Short History of Dutch Video Art
A Short History of Dutch Video Art

224 pages, 340 illustrations, English/Spanish
design: Sander Boon
publisher: episode Rotterdam
ISBN: 9059730313
Price: € 27,50

This is the last publication of the Gate Foundation.

The publication catalogues the exhibition A Short History of Dutch Video Art, which was curated by Sebastian Lopez and organized by the Gate Foundation. With its 224 pages, this bilingual (English and Spanish) publication has already been shown in 7 museums around the world. It contains 340 colour illustrations and descriptions of the works as well as comprehensive videographies, thereby providing the most complete overview of the artist’s achievements. The publication also includes an essay by Sebastian Lopez, reflecting on Dutch artistic and cultural dynamics around the new medium of video introduced in the 1970s.

Another Publication

You can’t judge a book by its cover

Official launch and symposium at Casco Projects in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

October 6th, 2007, 14:00-18:00

guest speakers:

Jan Verwoert, Frans-Willem Korsten, Marina Grzinic.

Moderators:
Katarina Zdjelar & Renée Ridgway

in cooperation with Piet Zwart Institute and Revolver Books

Another Publication is a book project around the manifold perspectives on otherness. Twelve writers were invited to contribute a text on this subject, each writing a preface to a possible book around the ‘other.’ Together, these prefaces trace different identifications and applications of the term, such as collaboration, love, aesthetics, institutional critique and globalisation. In addition, 82 artists were invited to submit a cover for this book and they, in turn, invited another to contribute an image for a cover. Each compilation of texts is framed by one single cover image, each in an edition of seven.

Editors: Katarina Zdjelar and Renée Ridgway

With text contributions by: Mieke Bal, Dieter Lesage, Bojana Kunst, Steve Rushton, Hito Steyerl, Nato Thompson, Thomas Michelon, Frans-Willem Korsten, Jelena Vesic, Boris Buden, Jan Verwoert, Rosi Braidotti
Graphic designer: Sander Boon

Website: http://anotherpublication.net/

Order a publication at Revolver Books

Once again, many thanks to the writers and all of the 164 image contributors for their images!

Oliver Ressler, Mieke Bal, Christoph Keller, Peter Piller, Erzen Shkololli, LIGNA, Marina Grzinic and Aina Smid, Zoran Todorović, David Maljković, Chris Sullivan, Paul Khera, Christina Erman Widerberg, Karl Persson, Raqs Media Collective, Inder Salim, Ivan Grubanov, Predrag Pajdić, Siniša Ilić, Bojan Djordjev, Ivan Moudov, Michael Hofstetter, Carey Young, Ine Lamers, Robert Suermondt, Bert Sissingh, Nalini Malani, Nourit Masson-Sékiné, Diego Ferrari, Mr. Chankyong Park, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Diego Bruno, Craig Coulthard, Philip Provily, Chad McCail, Biljana Djurdjević, Jos van der Pol, Maurice Bogaert, Melvin Moti, David Maroto, Antoine Prum, Holger Nickisch, Liesbeth Bik, Stefan Saffer, Monali Meher, Renzo Martens, Banu Cennetoglu, David Kellner& Ivan Jurica, Frank J.M.A. Castelyns, Roland van den Berghe, Kara Hamilton, Johan Waerndt, Sanjeev Sinha, Hans Bernhard, Nancy Bleck, Odili Donald Odita, Tere Recarens, Durga Kainthola, Servullo Mendez Rey, Hinrich Sachs, Olaf Probst, Tamuna Chabashvili, Betsy Green, Anneke A. de Boer, Sandra Semchuk and James Nicholas, Christiaan Bastiaans, Carlos Aires, Joseph Semah, Duba Sambolec, Delphine Bedel, Caecilia Tripp, Natasja Straat, Melanie Carvalho, Alireza Rasoulinezhad, Ni Haifeng, Caterina Pecchioli, Matthijs de Bruine, Margret Wibmer, Peggy Buth, IRWIN, Group OHO (1966 – 1971), Katrin Plavcak, Marieken Verheyen, Eduardo Molinari / Archivo Caminante, Simon Ferdinando, Susan Kendzulak, Abrie Fourie, Shaheen Merali, Basekamp, Thomas Buxó, Mark Zirpel, Klaas van Gorkum & Iratxe Jaio, Tina Aufiero, Mounir Fatmi, Sylvia de Swaan, Kenneth R. Vick, Masist Gül, Hung-Chih Peng, Els Vanden Meersch, Sonia Balassanian, Anita Di Bianco, Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Maria Dumlao, Tiong Ang, Stefan Bohenberger, Charlie Citron, Ella Klaschka, Cecilia Mandrile, Sandra Stephens, Stephanie Benzaquen, Judi Werthein, Remy Jungerman, Arthur Neve, Mary Ellen Carroll, Sharmila Samant, Raul Marroquin, Risk Hazekamp, Tushar Joag, Dawn Woolley, Radcliffe Bailey, Marietheres Finkeldei, Berend Strik, Desiree Palmen, Albert Weis, Thomas Lenden, Mark Brogan, Franco Angeloni, Karolina Freino, Marisa Jahn & Steve Shada, Shunji Hori, Serkan Ozkaya, Stani Michiels, Lisa Holden, Ayreen Anastas, Luisa Kasalicky, Rene Gabri, Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt, Rob Birza, Guerilla Girls, Mohamed Abdulla, Rachel Wilberforce, Steve Lambert, Isabel Cordeiro, Sal Randolph, Kathe Izzo, Orgacom, Bert de Muynck, Naomi Tereza Salmon, Lucia Zegada, Atone Niane, Manon de Boer, Paul Carter&Paul Gray, Rodrìguez foundation, Birgit Knoechl, Mark Booth, Fendry Ekel, Joachim Stein, Nasrin Tabatabai, Miloš Lolić, Naro Snackey, Josiah McElheny, Adi Hollander, Eitan Ben Moshe, Ana Dzokic, Corinne Gambi

Borders, Boundaries & Liminal Spaces

Borders, Boundaries & Liminal Spaces was originally conceived to be an extension of our concept of the new media center. It also seemed logical to have a conference about liminal spaces inside of one. Truly, the conference afforded us an opportunity to interrogate the space more thoroughly. Aside from the specifics of the topics covered (remains, the body from within and without, present and future, and the manipulation of the system) the conference was particularly enlightening with respect to the engine of Second Life and communication within that medium.

Conference in Second Life at Ars Virtua

Panelists:
Laura Jones (J0E Languish for this presentation only)
Renée Ridgway (Chloe Mahfouz)
Brad Kligerman (Kliger Dinkin)

Moderator
James Morgan (Rubaiyat Shatner)

The session was intended to look at the nature of what is left behind by a culture, people or civilization through the lens of an archaeologist, architect and artist. Laura manages to find a new discipline in the archaeology of the virtual, but one that is different in its essential character but not in its essence. Archaeology will still be about putting together incomplete pieces but the pieces will now be recorded bits of data. Brad focuses on the crossing of the threshold into the synthetic environment. He chooses to consider what is left behind in the transition. Renée considers history through visualization and story telling. She reconstructs the metaphoric narrative based on the bits and bobbs of text that refer to events. She also shows us a cultural perspective based entirely within a familar land.

The CADRE Laboratory for New Media, an interdisciplinary academic and research program dedicated to the experimental use of information technology and art will publish Switch 23, ‘Function//Border//Dysfunction’, featuring the ‘Borders, Boundaries & Liminal Spaces’ conference.

More info about ArsVirtua

Bags and more bags?

We still need your help
Temporary Services
Do you have a section of your kitchen or home that is dedicated to stowing these excess plastic shopping bags as they accumulate? We do, and many of our friends do as well. We have begun to collect photos of people’s bag collections in their homes which we will turn into a public archive. We have some photos of bag accumulations found so far posted on our blog’s photo gallery.

Please send us a photograph of your storage recepticle or collection of excess plastic shopping bags. 300 dpi photos are required for print quality. 3″ X 5″ would be fine. If the file is too large to attach, feel free to send us files using free services like YouSendit.

We’ll also take donations of unwanted plastic bags that we can use for these projects. If you have a bunch of bags and are located in Berlin or Chicago, let us know and we can get them from you.
Photos should be emailed to: servers@temporaryservices.org

Practical History

[display_podcast]
Beavers are back in New York city (The Bronx)

Panel Discussion
November 18, 2006, 13:30
Practical History

Ridgway presented her visual work along with sound tracks from her archive of interviews of people with Dutch surnames.

St. Mark’s Church Sanctuary, 2nd Ave and 10th Street

Short presentations, some featuring audio-visual and performance elements, addressing questions including: How can we interpret the landscape of the past through the environment of the present? What was the catalyst for panelists’ involvement with the project? What are the reasons to pursue cross-disciplinary work, and how does promoting dialogue among artists, scientists, and historians enhance professional investigations or creative endeavors?

press contact: Felicia Mayo, 212-228-2781 or info@smhlf.org http://smhlf.org
Thanks to The Netherland-America Foundation, Mondriaan Foundation

Recycling the kas(t)

I presented a lecture about my artistic practice at the De Halve Maen to KLM: 400 Years of Dutch-American Exchange conference in Albany, New York on June 6, 2006

Organized by the New Netherlands Institute

Sotheby’s Dutch kas(t) circa 1689

“Not only an integral part of almost every family home who could afford any type of valuables in the Netherlands in the 17th century, but also to the early settlers in the New World who brought with them this piece of furniture, the ‘kas’ or ‘kast’ stands even today relatively alone as an all-encompassing symbol of Dutch materialistic possession, property and general prosperity.” (Kamil, Of American Kasten and the Mythology of “Pure Dutchness”) Part of the ‘uitzet’ or dowry of a woman given in marriage, her worth or value was placed and contained in this object and moved house along with the bride. The 17th century ‘kast’ was produced in the Netherlands and was an important product/statement of Dutch wealth, design and identity, a symbol of Dutch cultural currency. Upon emigration, if one were wealthy, it was shipped to colonial America, or if one were poor, less intricate copies were made in the colony. The passage of the immigrant and the mutability of assimilation and adaption parallels the kasts’ emigration to America- the Dutch ‘kast’ has been adapted to the colony of Nieuw Amsterdam, or N.Y. “The American kas (or kast) has been perceived as synonymous, indeed almost inextricably intertwined, with the material life of early New York. Such an enduring relation has only served to exacerbate a curious process of mystification about the “Dutchness” of New York.” (Kamil, ibid)

The New Netherland Project was established under the sponsorship of the New York State Library and the Holland Society of New York. Its primary objective is to complete the transcription, translation, and publication of all Dutch documents in New York repositories relating to the seventeenth-century colony of New Netherland. This unique resource has already proven invaluable to scholars in a wide variety of disciplines. It also serves to enhance awareness of the major Dutch contributions to America over the centuries and the strong connections between the two nations. The Project is supported by the New York State Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the New Netherland Institute.

Money Talks

Money Talks – the recyclability of cultural currency in contemporary exchange systems


Beavers weave stolen cash into dam

April 25, 2006

Invited as a guest lecturer at University of Brighton, Ridgway conducted a seminar for Ph.D. research candidates about her work as a visual artist and her approach to research-based art.

Research Department, Faculty of Arts and Architecture
University of Brighton
Brighton, UK

Uses and Abuses of Art History

Uses and Abuses of Art History

Methods and modes of working, games played in an era where everybody forgets everything, historicity is considered a faux pas. ‘In an age that has forgotten how to think, first of all, historically,’ (Jameson) it is refreshing to discuss the application of history, or in this case art history within the field of play- contemporary art. My point of view is a personal one, built upon years of working that involves aspects of decolonization, displacement mappings, ersatz notions organized within a semi ‘pataphysical nomenclature in a process, a labour of love.

Suprematism (White Cross) Alexander Brener’s dialogue with Kazimir Malevich

In a quasi-archival logic, I rework history and art history in contemporary practice and part of this process is the outcome of a new ‘archive’, or rather platform or podium, installation or staging, which all seem to contain those things that are ‘found yet constructed, factual, yet fictive, public yet private.’ (Foster)
By re-appropriating the past into the present, art history is still alive; reworked, reorganized, recycled and its dilemma of being forgotten as quickly as it is made, is all part of the process.

editor’s note: I have seen the Malevich in the Stedelijk before and after Brener’s intervention. I could swear that I saw a dollar sign (or is it the aura?) appear after the restoration.

Panel: Writing Histories of Contemporary Art, AAH conference

April 8, 2006
University of Leeds
Leeds, U.K.

Amish Vote

From September 1 to October 15 2005, I continued working on my ‘Manhattan Project’ during a residency at Sculpture Space in Utica, New York. Interviews, images and text form the basis of my research and use the medium of internet as a space Mohawk Valley

On October 12th I launched the website with an opening in the White Room Gallery. For the presentation I asked visitors to vote on the sketches I was making in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Dutch (Amish), a misnomer. I then told the Amish how people had voted but they still choose a different design and a new quilt will be produced, by hand, in the coming months.

Dutch-American Day

Dutch-American Day

On November 16th, 2005 the work Boogie Woogie Migration, a quilt combining the Dutch and American flags, inaugurated Dutch-American Day at Utica, NY city hall. The quilt disappeared after two days, as veterans working in the building challenged my usage of the flags and complained about the apparent deconstruction of the American(not the Dutch?)flag. They didn’t listen to the explanation of my conceptual approach, nor the reference to Piet Mondrian (Dutch/American), nor to the Betsy Ross myth (scraps of red, white and blue) for that matter. I didn’t even have time to arrange a photographer. So much for freedom of speech in the land of the free and the home of the brave.