Archive for the ‘functional objects and materials’ Category

 

Emotional Channel ~~ Goes Solo

December 13, 2021 posted in collaboration, events, functional objects and materials, labour

by Angelica Falkeling and Anna Łuczak

Thursday, December 16th at 15:00 – 20:00h

In December Emotional Channel is going to Upominki. Emotional Channel Goes Solo is the 4th presentation of the duo. The two artists first got to know each other during a turbulent exhibition trip in 2018. A background to this story was recently shared in their performance Temporal Comfort. After nearly four years together, they decided to focus on their own individual craftsmanships through affirmations and repair. Upominki means gifts. Emotional Channel goes solo share and offers services.

Affirmations
Most people have a difficult relationship with New Year’s resolutions, including Anna herself. Working together with women at different stages of their life, Anna has collected affirmations for the New Year. With the help of Weronika Zielińska and her daughter, Lilly Klein, they are sharing their messages on hand casted porcelain plates made by Anna.

The tradition of collecting porcelain “souvenir plates” was first reserved for monarchs and royalty, but since the XIX century it has spread in homes on a large scale to commemorate important moments of collective life. During Emotional Channel goes solo project you can email your affirmation to channelemotional@gmail.com for your own custom made 2022 affirmation plate, or come by to Upominki and Thanks to Weronika, Lilly, Natalia, and Eva

Anna is a visual artist and works across various mediums. She is interested in the sociological, relational and symbolic meaning of objects made in clay.

Angelica launches Nail it – garment mending and communal repairs. Angelica repairs your clothes and home textiles; change zippers, buttons, fix holes. Do you have any garments that need adjustment or repair? Hand them in at Upominki, Sint-Mariastraat 132B, 3014SR Rotterdam, together with your name and number via this form, and I get in touch. Large items can be dropped in the box outside, smaller ones through the pigeon hole.

Angelica Falkeling works as a visual artist, seamstress, and costume designer. They used to facilitate sewing circles at Tender Center Rotterdam among other things. During the project at Upominki they will conduct clothing repairs and display their handmade clothes and accessories, which can be purchased via depop.com/temporalcomfort, where the temporal comfort continues as a series of size fluid skirts.
Any questions; +31616967544 or e-mail: angelicafalkeling@protonmail.com
Thanks to ZhiZhong Keene for visual identity

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AMIGAS POP-UP STORE with students

October 13, 2021 posted in collaboration, events, functional objects and materials

Saturday, October 17th at 13:00 – 19:00h

AMIGAS is an art collective established in Bogotá, Colombia in 2017, by Mario Alario, Nicolás Cuestas and Karolina Rojas. This collaborative reflects on its members’ friendship and their own personal and collective experiences by integrating them into concepts of gender, consumption, cultural activism, and independent projects often staged through itinerant installations and pop-up stores.

At Upominki they will open a pop-up store with the merchandise produced collaboratively during their two-day workshop with the students from Autonomous Practices (Willem de Kooning Academy).

Bring ca$h or tikkie us!

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Rib247

September 18, 2019 posted in collaboration, functional objects and materials, labour, projects

Image: Automated image by the Rib247 camera currently at Upominki, Rotterdam

Rib247 is back online this time looking outward inside Rotterdam’s art initiatives. LIVE footage of seemingly unproductive time, the camera observes a cat, a plant on the windowsill and counts the endless passing of a person going to its studio. Starting with Upominki, followed by Het Wilde Weten and others.

Since 2012, Upominki is a project space located in the house of Rotterdam-based artist Weronika Zielinska and her family.

“As the years go by, with each new project we establish new collaborations. Through (re)searching, practicing and negotiating for new forms of exchange, we learn about the multiple relationships built throughout our creative processes. Upominki means in Polish “gifts”. With our program, we like to explore the concepts of hospitality, reciprocity and gift-giving theory.”

For live footage go to http://www.ribrib.nl/

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Tools to keep your house unfinished ~ by Isabel Marcos

July 9, 2018 posted in exhibitions, functional objects and materials, projects, subsidy

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Tools to keep your house unfinished ~
Window dressing #4

15.07 – 30.08.2018

INAUGURATION: Saturday 14 July at 19:00h

Tools to keep your house unfinished by the Spanish artist Isabel Marcos, is a fourth site-specific intervention in the framework of Window dressing initiated by Upominki in the Winter of 2017.

Through the disruption of continuity and where ambiguity can be experienced – alternative spaces are being created. An ambiguity that rather than bringing us to a blur, can sharpen our senses and stimulate imagination.

Isabel Marcos believes that in such transitory spaces and in in-between realities, we find places for resistance. Where the in-betweenness exists, in a present that is looking to a future, the space questions its own identity and invites us to rethink this notion, as well as to delve into the relation between human subjectivity and inhabited structures.

Upominki is a space in transition, with upcoming walls and unexisting dropped ceilings. While being renovated collectively, we try to rethink its identity, values, means and future.

Through challenging the quotidian interactions between bodies and architecture, Tools to keep your house unfinished introduces plasticity and elasticity to both: the hard and rough surfaces, and to the tools that are being used in the renovation process. In order to invite the involved people to consider dysfunctionality as an ambiguous productivity, through these gestures – both physically and metaphorically – Marcos tries to obstruct the renovation of Upominki as such.

In the course of the evening we will screen the artist Horizon and skirting board (2015) and tell more about the start of our collaboration.

Come and join us in the on-going proces and feel free to bring anyone who might be interested!

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Window dressing is an ongoing project since 2017 that gradually unfolds in the frontal window of Upominki. The project takes a form of smooth gestures that come and go, while being carried out by various invited artists. As the months go by, Upominki’s window becomes an on-site dialogue where the individual and the collective identity meet. Window dressing is made possible with the joint effort of beloved family and friends.

 

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Polymath – hominem universalis #2

June 3, 2018 posted in collaboration, events, functional objects and materials, labour, research, subsidy

flyer2.1
image credits NIKA

Polymath – hominem universalis # 2

Sunday 3rd of June at 3PM

Dear…

We are very excited to invite you to the second of many conversations/collective imaginings/speculations/gatherings/meals and workshop situations, we’ll be hosting around the notions of giving, receiving and reciprocating.

In this opportunity we will have as a guest, academic and assistant professor at the Department of Business-Society Management of Erasmus University, Dr. Samer Abdelnour.

“The discussion will try to unpack a question that social scientists have long been preoccupied with: Can actors spark institutional change when they are deeply embedded in those very institutions they seek to change? The talk will give an overview of different ways of thinking about this question, and possible ways to think about actors and institutions.

We will do our best to apply this question to our own work as well as our community and societal ambitions. Bring your thoughts, ideas and questions!”

As part of this workshop, Samer would like to share a text that addresses some of the key themes we will be discussing:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0170840617708007

Over the course of the afternoon and alongside Samer’s presentation, readings and discussion, we´ll be looking into some excerpts of texts that may inspire our conversation.
We will revisit John Brunner’s sci-fi novel, Polymath, while we actively change and create the new physical space of Upominki.
As such, and for the purpose of this new beginning, we would like to offer a non-monetary transaction for your time and dedication in the creation of the new Upominki.

If you are interested in participating, we then ask you:
How could we reciprocate? What would you need most of a space like Upominki? How can we build a relationship that benefits both the space and your needs or desires? What can we do for you?

The gathering will start at 3PM at Upominki, feel free to propose someone who might be especially interested in these ideas.

Please confirm your participation so we can make sure to have enough food, drinks and tools for all of us.

We are really excited about these get-togethers and look forward to seeing you there!

Weronika and Natalia

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Polymath – hominem universalis is a series of gatherings meant to open up a discussion on the post-work post-home and post-capitalism time. Taking as a starting point the book of John Brunner, together with the invited guests, we tend to touch upon the notion’s like: skills, being skilled, being universal versus being trained in a specific field, being a hybrid person (among others).

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Polymath – hominem universalis

March 27, 2018 posted in collaboration, events, functional objects and materials, labour, projects, research, subsidy

collagesi-fi2
image credits NIKA

Dear …,

Since the beginning of 2012 Upominki has been operating in Rotterdam, and beyond, as a platform for exchanging artistic ideas.

It became a space through which life and work connect. The unofficial opening of Upominki took place on the 20th of March 2012, which was also the day of my …birthday. Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe not. Yet, we (Natalia, you and myself) find ourselves almost at the same time of the year, six years further from Upominki’s initial thoughts on giving, receiving and reciprocating.

On appreciating and giving back.
On labor. On time.
On investment, knowledge and sharing.
On sharing knowledge, especially that of the artist, the mother, the friend, the lover, the neighbor
On care. On acknowledging the other, and oneself reflected in her/him/it/they.
On acknowledging the presence and consistency of those who decide to stick around, no matter the material return, the profit or advantage it may reward.

“A polymath is a man or woman adapted and trained for years, right up to the age of forty, to take on one job on one particular planet. Not a superman, not a kind of walking computer, just a person with a special kind of dedication who’s been worked on by a vast team of experts, chemically, surgically, intellectually… I couldn’t tell you this, because you’d expect me to perform miracles. First you had to get acquainted with me as a person, didn’t you? Otherwise you’d have regarded me as a machine.” Pg. 70

Today we are very excited to invite you to the first of many conversations/collective imaginings/speculations/gatherings/meals and workshop situations, we’ll be hosting around the above notions and questions, but also many more that may derive from our collective thinking.

Together with you we would like to establish a group of informal board of trustees, friends and colleagues, who are open to think, discuss and implement a communal idea of how to work together?

 “Point taken, Lex. I guess all of us want to go on seeing things run by popular consent, too, not by one man the way they are up on the plateau.” Pg102 

 Would you like to accept this invitation?

Over the course of the early afternoon on Sunday 25th of March 2018, accompanied by food and warmth, we´ll be looking into some excerpts of texts that may inspire our conversation. During the reading/discussion Marc will develop a restoration workshop, where we will be invited to propose solutions, restore, fix or give new functions to objects that no longer serve their original purpose.

Therefore, please bring an object with you that needs restoration, has to be fixed and/or re-adapted but you never had enough time to do so.

The gathering will start at 12PM at Upominki, feel free to propose someone who might be especially interested in the idea.

Please confirm your participation so we can make sure to have enough food, drinks and tools for all of us.

We are really excited about these get-togethers and look forward to seeing you there!

Weronika and Natalia

_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Polymath – hominem universalis is a series of gatherings meant to open up a discussion on the post-work post-home and post-capitalism time. Taking as a starting point the book of John Brunner, together with the invited guests, we tend to touch upon the notion’s like: skills, being skilled, being universal versus being trained in a specific field, being a hybrid person (among others).

Quotes: Polymath John Brunner DAW BOOKS, INC. DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, PUBLISHER 1301 Avenue of the Americas New York, N. Y. 10019

See more from Polymath – hominem universalis

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Window dressing #2

September 20, 2017 posted in events, functional objects and materials, labour, projects
stillevenvb
Sandim Mendes Untitled, 2016
Courtesy of the Artist

Window dressing #2 by Sandim Mendes
24 September – 30 November 2017

INAUGURATION: Saturday, 23 September 2017 at 19:00h

Sandim Mendes (NL, 1986) is a mixed media artist with a strong focus on photography and textile design. Throughout her projects Sandim researches the concept of identity in and between the various cultures. While looking back at and exploring the classic fine arts techniques, the artist’ manual labor involved in the production process, often becomes part of her work.

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Window dressing is an ongoing project since 2017 that gradually unfolds in the frontal window of Upominki. The project takes a form of smooth gestures that come and go, while being carried out by various invited artists. As the months go by, Upominki’s window becomes an on-site dialogue where the individual and the collective identity meet. Window dressing is made possible with the joint effort of beloved family and friends.

 

 

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Window dressing ~ inauguration

December 29, 2016 posted in functional objects and materials, projects

etalage winter

#0.1 in collaboration with Marie-Sarah Simon

Dear collegues and friends of Upominki,

In many Polish homes an empty place is being set at the Christmas table in case a person down on luck should show up and ask for shelter. And while this rarely happens nowadays, the tradition nevertheless requires that lone strangers be taken in and treated as family…

Through this concise message I would like to extend warm Christmas Blessings to all of you who sympathize and follow my work.

There are so many things to say and so little words. Therefore my strong wish is to just leave 2016 and look forward to another year ahead!
Moreover, let’s stay together and work things out, for better days!

To wrap up with something to look up to…

What you can see on the image above is a temporary installation in the new space of Upominki on Sint-Mariastraat 132B in Rotterdam. It was made in collaboration with a great friend and artist Marie-Sarah Simon especially for this winter season. The installation (let’s just give it a name – #0.1) begins a new project that will be unfolding in the upcoming months, more information about it will follow soon.

With best wishes full of love and hope for the New Year to come.

Weronika Zielinska-Klein

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Window dressing is an ongoing project since 2017 that gradually unfolds in the frontal window of Upominki. The project takes a form of smooth gestures that come and go, while being carried out by various invited artists. As the months go by, Upominki’s window becomes an on-site dialogue where the individual and the collective identity meet. Window dressing is made possible with the joint effort of beloved family and friends.

 

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Małgosia Goliszewska: I’ll call you when I get there / documentation

September 18, 2013 posted in documentation, exhibitions, functional objects and materials, projects, residency

3 chanel video installation: Grandma 00:02:06, Mom 00:13:07, Policeman 00:08:28

2 passport scans. Copy of the original police note, written in Polish. Travel ticket.

Video Curator 00:03:21

Video Landlord 00:07:16

I’ll call you when I get there is a joint project of two artists Weronika Zielinska, a Polish artist based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and Małgosia Goliszewska, based in Szczecin, Poland. Through a close collaboration between them, the project takes a form of looking at the other, research that deals with clichés and problematics of the complex relationships between two women-artists that work together within cultural field, while being observed from the perspective of an external viewer.

I’ll call you when I get there plays with an idea of a narrative, that in bits and pieces tells a story about two artistic practices each struggling with different, yet similar, obstacles. Whether it is an overprotective mother, or a wordy businessman, a decent curator or an accidental passer-by, the puzzles start to fit together once the viewer is left free to wonder around in a space. In between moving images that may seem fictitious, he/she finally also discovers some artifacts like scans of two women passports, a train ticket, and a police note with an original stamp.

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For this exhibition Małgosia purchased different video and audio cables, as well as three sets of headphones, which then she donated to Upominki as a thank you gift.

 

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Vova Vorotniov: Watching in my schoes / documentation

July 29, 2013 posted in documentation, exhibitions, functional objects and materials, residency

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As a thank you gift for Upominki Vova donated self designed t-shirts which can be now purchased through our gift shop

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