Archive for the ‘projects’ Category

 

Welcome emilia!

January 29, 2020 posted in collaboration, labour, projects

emilia dudziec (obite łokcie) – is a visual artist who’s concerns are the permanent anxiety phenomenon, and the aspect of powerlessness in the current state of affairs. Therefore she believes in plant-based cuisine, friendship and collective activities. Emilia graduated from the Faculty of Painting and Sculpture at the Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław and recently she has completed an art residency at the JEST gallery also in Wroclaw. Since 2012 she has been co-creating the DO READ! Word Deconstruction Festival. Together with Agata Lankamer she runs the relax art space in her hometown Częstochowa. Between January and April emilia is assisting with the daily activities at Upominki and developing her own project due in April 2020.

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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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Upominki at Galería Metropolitana

May 5, 2019 posted in collaboration, events, projects, research, residency, subsidy

GALERÍA METROPOLITANA, within the framework of its curatorial program 
2018-2020, Strategies to divert Neoliberalism, presents:
Upominki (residency and research)

Friday 3 May 2019 at 19h

Weronika Zielinska (Upominki, Rotterdam) finishes off her residency in Galería Metropolitana, as part of an intercontinental exchange, which includes two self-guided residency programs between Santiago and Rotterdam. This exchange results from the same interests that both projects share with respect to: autonomy and self-initiative, economy and relationships; reciprocity and care. And, given that the two projects operate from the domestic space, we wish to frame this exchange as an extension of our work’ politics that crosses art and life.

From April 19 to May 2, Weronika conducted a research-based project in collaboration with Bruno, Lilly and Marc Klein, the artist’s closest family. In this period they have been developing meetings and conversations with the local communities of artists, academics, students, neighbours, activists and Mapuche creators in order to learn about the different feminist and other practices.

“Galería Metropolitana is spacious and children friendly with easy access for wheelchairs and strollers. By taking my family on a residency I meant to productively deal with the struggle of balance –between my work and life– without undermining one from another. By making the existing precarious conditions explicit, I used them as opportunities for creating new meanings. Shaped by trust and generosity not by distant prejudices, this project’s main objective was spontaneity and no high expectations. The given conditions weren’t obstacles, hence neither they were counterfeit nor new, for any one. As work is part of life, life becomes part of the work. Finally this project carries the approach through which I claim and make visible the artist-mother’ way, amidst the two modes of her being and operating in the world. (WZK)

This project is kindly supported by CBK Rotterdam.

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Seed to seed 🍀Gill Baldwin with Upominki and others

March 28, 2019 posted in collaboration, projects, research, residency, subsidy

Seed to seed 🍀 Gill Baldwin with Upominki and others
6 April – 30 June 2019

Opening: 5 April 2019 at 19h

Looking at collaborative action as a means to create space, Upominki asks what happens if the creation of a garden is public? Can a collective experience form a spatial quality?

Over the next few months Upominki will host artist and curator Gill Baldwin, embarking on a series of research around the act of gardening, community and collective action. On Friday April 5th the project kicks off with an exhibition of the artists Minji Choi and Seokyung Kim’s work titled Manifesto for Living Beings, a typographic poster series depicting recommendations by the Ethics Committee on Non Human Biotechnology (ENCH).

Taking a closer look at the urban green spaces in the neighbourhood, we have created a reading bench, displaying a series of DIY local publications made by the creators of the spaces within Oude Westen. This includes a DIY publication made by artist Marie-Sarah Simon. Klimaten, a story of five different gardens and vogels zingen midden in de stad, telling the history of the Wijkpark and the Wijktuin. Both generously provided by Wilma Kruger from Werkgroep Wijktuin and Aktiegroep Het Oude Westen. Special thanks to volunteers for Amelie Unger, Magdalena Wierzbicka and Salvador Miranda, for maintenance and care of the garden. Our participant group is always expanding, including ongoing collaborations with performance artist Sophie Schmidt and many more to come.

Admission to the space is requested in the donation of a package of seeds, a plant, soil or even a deceased plant. We don’t mind! Together using the gardening tools provided we invite you to collectively plant your donation, contributing to Upominki first ever indoor window garden.

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Beyond the Moon ~ events

October 5, 2018 posted in collaboration, events, projects, research, subsidy

~ Wednesday 7 November at 12:45-14:45h together with Rotterdam based artist and architect Gill Baldwin, we will be hosting a workshop for children between 6-12 years from the Oude Westen primary schools, inspired by the artist’s fascination in dysfunctionality of architecture, curved lines and asymmetry. Maak je eigen droomhuis is being realised in collaboration with De Nieuwe Gaffel, a place for meeting, citizen power, participation, emancipation and reciprocity in the Oude Westen in Rotterdam.

~ Sunday 11 November at 15-18h closing event of Ger C. Bout Beyond the Moon. This event serves as a wonderful opportunity for a local get-together of different individuals and neighbourhood initiatives, actively involved in the on-going discussion on gentrification and social housing situation in the Oude Westen area.

This project is kindly supported by

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Beyond the Moon ~ Ger C. Bout / second part

October 5, 2018 posted in collaboration, exhibitions, projects, subsidy


Beyond the Moon, Ger C. Bout, detail, Unseen Amsterdam, 2018

Beyond the Moon ~
Ger C. Bout

13.10 – 11.11.2018

Locations: Upominki, Sint-Mariastraat 132B and 136B

OPENING: 13 October 2018 19h

Beyond the Moon exhibition at Upominki, taking place between October 13th and November 11th, presents a collection of works by deceased artist Ger C. Bout. It is the second part of a project inaugurated past September during CO-OP at Unseen Amsterdam. Conveying the same title as the central piece, this exhibition is an experiment on the exhibition making itself, as well as on the exhibition formats that may channel the artist’s interests and work. It is a result of a collective effort, which brings along the collaborative spirits between Upominki, Ger’s wife Riitta and Ger’s legacy. While showing a selection of the artist’s archive that studies the multiple meanings of a house – within his material and collaborative projects and the Beyond The Moon series for example – we are physically and figuratively constructing a platform that carries and frames Bout’s practice. And thus his endless interest around ideas of hosting, housing and making together.

Beyond the Moon at Upominki is being realised within the framework of the on-going Window dressing project. Yet, especially for this occasion, Upominki inhabits the ground floor in the house of our neighbours that will serve as a platform, through which different moments for engagement with the artists’ archive will be made possible. Through simple adjustments these two spaces will be serving as sites for exhibition, workshop or a discursive event, depending on the situation.

Upon this endeavour we wish to explore the ways in which the individual artistic vision challenges that of the curator, and how they can merge or diffuse. We are interested in expanding the notions of collaboration and the manner in which the artist’s legacy can be transmitted outside of the sterile or the neutral. As we find ourselves most essentially motivated by the relationships we built throughout our creative processes. This project is a tribute to Ger C. Bout’s work and our friendship.

Upcoming events during the exhibition:

  • Wednesday 7th November at 12:45 – 14:45

Maak je eigen droomhuis in collaboration with the Nieuwe Gaffel, hosted by Rottterdam based artist and architect Gill Baldwin. Workshop for children between 6-12 years from the Oude Westen primary schools, inspired by the artist’s fascination in dysfunctionality of architecture, curved lines and asymmetry.

  • Exact date TBA soon

En wat nu?! A get-together of different individuals and neighbourhood initiatives, actively involved in the on-going discussion on gentrification and social housing situation in the Oude Westen area.

For more information see also here. For the most up to date information on our events follow our fb page.

This project is kindly supported by CBK Rotterdam, Gemeente Rotterdam.

With special thanks to Riitta Bout-Saari and Samer Abdelnour.

 

 

 

 

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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

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

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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).

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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Field Trip #16 with Lena Simic

November 21, 2017 posted in events, projects

about

The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home 

23rd of November 2017
12:00-15:00h
Upominki hosts m/other voices

During the event Lena will both introduce us to her practice within the ‘Institute for Art and Practice of Dissent at Home’ and narrate this part of her transdisciplinary practice through a contextual framing of ‘maternal practice’.

Lena Simic is a performance practitioner, scholar and pedagogue, born in Dubrovnik, Croatia, living in Liverpool, UK. She is a co-organizer of The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home and Reader in Drama at Edge Hill University, UK.
The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home  is an art activist initiative run from her home together with Gary Anderson and their four children Neal, Gabriel, Sid and James.
Together with her umbrella arts project Maternal Matters which collects a number of maternal video artworks and performances, The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home  has functioned as Lena’s methodological frame and artwork for her creative processes and outputs. Her autobiographical performance practice is informed by feminist discourse and its relation to everyday lived experience, memory and fantasy. Recent artist publications include: 4 Boys [for Beuys] (2016), Five: 2008 – 2012 (2014), a book documenting the first five years of the Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home), The Mums and Babies Ensemble: A Manual(2015), Foundations with Free University of Liverpool (2012), Blood & Soil: we were always meant to meet… performance document, with Jennifer Verson (2011) and Maternal Matters and Other Sisters Artist Catalogue (2009).

 

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Conversas Rotterdam #101-110

November 6, 2017 posted in collaboration, events, projects

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Conversas is a series of weekly informal meetings made so that we can get to know and discuss projects and interests.

During the event three Conversadores (those who talk at Conversas) bring something to share with the gathered group, for thirty minutes each. As the title suggests itself, Conversas (Conversations in Portuguese) offer an equal set up from which all can benefit.
There’s beer for 2€ (donation for the next publication).

The eleventh series of Conversas Rotterdam is hosted by Upominki (Sint-Mariastraat 132B Rotterdam) and Publication Studio Rotterdam (Zaagmolenstraat 129a) and takes place on Wednesdays between 19.00 and 21.00 (4th of October – 6th of December). Weekly we will alternate between these two locations. This series is organised by Constança Saraiva, Harrie Bots, Oana Clitan in collaboration with Weronika Zielinska-Klein and Yin Yin Wong.

Conversas is a project by Constança Saraiva and Mafalda Fernandes initiated in Lisbon, in 2012.
Nowadays, it’s a project of many people and cities.
www.conversas.net

Events are open to all and the entrance is free.

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Posters of the series Conversas #101 – #110
Designed by Heike de Wit

Heike is a graphic design student from the Netherlands, currently doing an internship at
Publication Studio Rotterdam. One of the locations of the global network of Publication Studios, which
focusses on publishing and designing works of promising and sometimes starting writers and artists. Her own works consists of essays surrounding media theory—mostly current graphic design culture and visual anthropology—but also design fiction, visual essays, an intervention in the public domain and experimental typefaces are categories she practices. She likes quality time with people she loves and thinking about what to wear the next day.
www.heikedewit.com

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