Day Shifts: Taking Turns
November 13, 2012 posted in collaboration, events, labour, projects
23 November – 2 December 2012
As a part of this year’s Kunstvlaai: Festival of Independents, Upominki presents Day Shifts: Taking Turns, a collaborative project by: Mercedes Azpilicueta (AR) with Ohad Ben Shimon (IL/FR), Sæmundur þór Helgason (IS), Dico Kruijsse (NL), Claire van Lubeek (NL), Eva Molenaar (NL), Robbert Pauwels (NL), Marija Repsyte (LT), Rosa Sijben (NL), David Stamp (UK), The Force of Freedom / Micha Prinsen (NL) and Roel Roscam Abbing (NL).
During the Kunstvlaai festival, Upominki will explore a very specific format of an event, i.e. the relay. The term, which derives from the Olympic relay running race, addresses the way members of a team take turns in performing a certain action. Each artist, as a member of Upominki’s relay team, takes a one-day shift and works on the spot during the ten days festival. Everyone uses the given space according to his or her own insight, as long as a trace of this action is passed on to the following participant, to be reshaped again. By using this method, the space is in a constant transition whereby the artist’s activities, in the lapse of events, create a particular rhythm. The space of the classroom serves as a condition for making connections through time, where all individual gestures influence the quality of a collective project.
Additionally to the project happening in the space, a video is presented on the corridor. In September this year, together with the artists Upominki produced a video work, which was shot and edited in exchange of labour by Joaquín Cociña. The image shows the group of artists and curators playing in the Upominki’s space the ‘Chinese whispers’ game. It invokes the ambiguities and possible misunderstandings of the meaning of a passed on message or statement, and how these ambiguities or misunderstandings don’t stop the process of passing on, but push it forward in creating new meanings.
In order to take part in Kunstvlaai festival this year, Upominki was asked to pay €300 fee. To make Day Shifts: Taking Turns happen we equally split this amount among ourselves and the artists.
Tags: Claire van Lubeek, David Stamp, Dico Kruijsse, Eva Molenaar, Maria Repsyte, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Ohad Ben Shimon, Robert Pauwels, Rosa Sijben, Sæmundur þór Helgason, The Force of Freedom
