Kunstinstituut Melly Archive

Item sets

• Hortus Conclusus/Breeze of Air
  Hortus Conclusus / Breeze of AIR, a co-production of Witte de With and AIR (Architecture International Rotterdam), explores the significance of the enclosed garden (hortus conclusus) for the contemporary city. The Rotterdam humanist Desiderius Erasmus viewed the enclosed garden as the proper medium for depth and contemplation. These values are increasingly important in a contemporary urban development in which people strive for more green and resting places within the complex urban fabric. In Hortus Conclusus, visual artists and designers from various landscaping traditions focus on the enclosed garden as typology and idea. Witte de With invited eight Dutch and foreign artists to create works that were inspired by the Erasmian conceptualization of the hortus conclusus: Zeger Reyers (NL) shows mushroom sculptures grown in Witte de With’s basement. Elmgreen and Dragset (DK; N) exhibit their design for a pavilion in a local rose garden rejected by the city of Rotterdam. Dennis Adams (USA) reproduces a highly contested Rotterdam area for street prostitution in the form of a playground, Teresita Fernández (USA) designs a dazzling green oasis, Fiona Raby and Anthony Dunne (UK) create a room which makes radiation visible. A number of art works will be exhibited outside of Witte de With. A labyrinth of hive-like screens and organic forms by Cristina Iglesias (E) is on view at a defunct travel agency. A small garden island designed by Maura Biava (I) for the imaginary character Iride, and with an email connection to Witte de With, floats in the harbor. The work ‘Two Trees’ by Cildo Meireles (Br) will be partly on view in Witte de With and partly on a square nearby. AIR (Architecture International Rotterdam) asked nine designers from the occidental and oriental gardening traditions to create innovative designs for nine locations in Rotterdam: An Erasmian garden of the twenty-first century in the expansion of Arboretum Trompenburg by Adriaan Geuze (NL) founder of West 8. A sublime museum garden for garden art in the inner courtyard of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen by Charles Correa (IND). A concealed, green place of repose and contemplation, a quiet area in public space on the roof of the workshop building Las Palmas on Wilhelminapier in the Southern Tip/Kop van Zuid by Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa (JPN). A safe idyll of vulnerable flowers and plants for individual enjoyment in the city gardens in the Rotterdam City centre, the Lijnbaan gardens at Joost Banckertplaats and Jan Evertsenplaats by Georges Hargreaves (USA). The public promenade from the centre along the gardens, Museumpark and The Park on the Maas by Georges Descombes (CH). The internationally populated open-air living room of the city, with an open-plan kitchen of barbecue tables in Valkeniersweide in Vreewijk adjacent to Zuiderpark by Kamel Louafi (AR/D). The abundant green space of Spinozapark in the centre of the post-war district Lombardijen reduced to its essential character: one small, precious and special garden by Piet Oudolf (NL). The common neighbourhood garden on or next to the future Hofplein flyover in the Agniese neighbourhood by Gross.Max. (UK). An investigation to the agenda of semi-public space for the future Central Station of Rotterdam by Atelier Quadrat (NL). Participants Dennis Adams, Atelier Quadrat, Maura Biava, Charles Correa, Georges Descombes, Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby, Gross.Max, Teresita Fernández, George Hargreaves, Cristina Iglesias, Kamel Louafi, Cildo Meireles, Piet Oudolf, SANAA, Ken Worpole Curators Bartomeu Marí Network Stichting AIR <div class="
• Squatters 1
  As part of the Cultural Capital 2001 programs of Rotterdam and Porto, Witte de With, Museu Serralves and Porto 2001 have invited a group of international artists to make new work which explores the city and urban space. The resulting exhibition was Squatters. The exhibition Squatters consists of two parts: Squatters #1 focused on the creative use and re-use of ‘occupied space’, Squatters #2 featured works which explore the city’s morphology and the experience of architectural space. Participating artists Squatters #1: Francis Alÿs, Juan Cruz, Angela Ferreira, Ceal Floyer, Giuseppe Gabellone, Runa Islam, Damián Ortega, Miguel Palma and Costa Vece. The artists were asked to produce new works related to a specific location. Various locations in the city of Porto that stand outside the usual exhibition circuit were ‘squatted’. In Rotterdam, the majority of the projects was realized within Witte de With, functioning more as a metaphoric equivalent of the exhibition’s theme. Squatters goes beyond art in public space. As an extension of the squatting of space in the literal sense, what is manifest here is a phenomenon typical of contemporary art: the occupation of locations – real or virtual – which have not been defined as a locus for artistic activity, or at least not yet. The artwork is understood to mean an event or happening that translates the imperceptible into something that is relevant to society in general, and also refers to the political arena as a constant where the actual functioning of the city is debated. In Rotterdam, this was actualized in nine individual presentations. Support for this exhibition stems from: The British Council; Fonds BKVB, Amsterdam; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; Fundação Luso Americana para o Desenvolvimento, Lisbon; Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon; Istituto Italiano per i Paesi Bassi, Amsterdam; Rotterdam 2001; and Rotterdam Festivals. Participants Francis Alÿs, Juan Cruz, Angela Ferreira, Ceal Floyer, Guiseppe Gabellone, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Runa Islam, Damián Ortega, Miguel Palma, Costa Vece Curators Bartomeu Marí, Nathalie Zonnenberg Supported By The British Council; Fonds BKVB, Amsterdam; Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; Fundação Luso Americana para o Desenvolvimento, Lisbon; Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon; Istituto Italiano per i Paesi Bassi, Amsterdam; Rotterdam 2001; Rotterdam Festivals. <div class="
• Squatters 2
  As part of the Cultural Capital 2001 programs of Rotterdam and Porto, Witte de With, Museu Serralves, and Porto 2001 have invited a group of international artists to make new work which explores the city and urban space. The resulting exhibition was Squatters. The resulting exhibition Squatters consists of two parts. Squatters #1 focused on the creative use and re-use of ‘occupied space', Squatters #2 featured works which explore the city’s morphology and the experience of architectural space. Participating artists Squatters #2: Massimo Bartolini, Alexandre Estrela, Jeanne van Heeswijk/Rolf Engelen/Siebe Thissen/Frans Vermeer, José Antonio Hernández-Díez, Rita Magalhães, Honoré d’O, Gert Robijns, William Speakman and Simon Starling. Squatters #2 features works which explore the city’s morphology and the experience of architectural space. By describing, outlining and altering various spaces, these works visualize a series of special relations between sensory perception and the physical environment. An installation by Jeanne van Heeswijk deals with the history of the Rotterdam squatters movement. William Speakman designs a small church after Le Corbusiers Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp. Inside the church, he grows tomatoes under artificial light. Massimo Bartolini emphasizes a spatial outline with the help of two thousand feet long pearl necklaces. Rita Magalhães portrays her sister as a spectator at small urban gatherings. Gert Robijns employs intricate technological means to stimulate a sense of space. Each work explores spatial forms and the ways these forms can be perceived. Support for this exhibition stems from: The British Council, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; Fundação Luso Americana para o Desenvolvimento, Lisbon; Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon; Istituto Italiano per i Paesi Bassi, Amsterdam; Rotterdam 2001; and Rotterdam Festivals. Participants Massimo Bartolini, Rolf Engelen, Alexandre Estrela, Jeanne van Heeswijk, José Antonio Hernández-Díez, Rita Magalhães, Honoré d’ O, Gert Robijns, William Speakman, Simon Starling, Siebe Thissen, Frans Vermeer Curators Bartomeu Marí, Nathalie Zonnenberg Network Museu Serralves Supported By The British Council, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; Fundação Luso Americana para o Desenvolvimento, Lisbon; Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon; Istituto Italiano per i Paesi Bassi, Amsterdam; Rotterdam 2001; Rotterdam Festivals. <div class="
• Unmasking 3
  Unmasking 3 is a project by Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé, and part of the ongoing Unmasking series (1999) which Bamgboyé has developed with cultural scholars, computer programmers and scientists. The series focuses on the use of and access to cultural artefacts which are buried in museums thousands of miles from their source of origin. With cutting edge 3D technology, these artefacts are scanned and provided with multiple digital contexts and interpretative suggestions. Subsequently, they are made available to users who can view, alter, and, ultimately, repossess these objects. With this project, Bamgboyé aims at showing technology’s capacity to break down existing borders and revitalize objects. Point of departure in Unmasking 3 is an early 16th Century Bronze sculpture of a Queen Mother Head from the city of Benin in Nigeria, which resides in the collections of the Liverpool Museum. In the project, the artefact is at the center of an extensive database which addresses issues of authenticity, commodification and ownership in the cultural market. More extensive information about this project can be found in the publication Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé: Writings on Technology and Culture, published by Witte de With in 2000. In addition, the website www.bamgboye.f9.co.uk provides access to Unmasking. Unmasking 3 is a collaborative project with the Foundation for Creative Technology (FACT), Liverpool and V2_, Rotterdam. Participants Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé Curators Bartomeu Marí Network FACT Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, V2_ Supported By Artist in Residence Program by the Ministry of Education, Sciences and Culture and the City of Rotterdam <div class="
• The People’s Art
  The People’s Art is Bartomeu Marí’s farewell exhibition as director of Witte de With. In this exhibition, which includes work by twenty artists born or living in Holland, Marí reveals his perspective on Dutch art. The People’s Art was realized in a different version in Porto during Porto 2001, Cultural Capital of Europe. The title refers to the notion of the Dutch consensus society where social questions, political decision-making and even the landscape are subjected to minute regulations through the mediation of broad-based consultative bodies and public inquiries. The People’s Art shows how Dutch artists deal with this ‘Dutch identity’. In contrast to the tightly organized environment in which they live, these artists produce images of agitation, social disorder and disturbed landscapes. Artificial rather than natural structures determine the landscape. Unwritten rules and norms rather than etiquette determine the behavior of its inhabitants. The works on the upper floor are concerned with the artificial landscape. The taut lines of polders, canals and greenhouses in the photos of Gerco de Ruijter display the aesthetics of that landscape. Edwin Zwakman sees in this constructed landscape a reflection of the mentality of its makers – a mentality he then comments on in his work. His photographs of models of interiors and cityscapes are precise reproductions of parts of an already constructed reality. In the work of Frank van der Salm the opposite principle applies – things that look like models really are buildings and cityscapes photographed in detail or bird’s-eye view. Van der Salm does not produce these artificial images through manipulation or by staging them; instead he works with blurring, movement and artificial light. Florian Göttke’s installations reveal his social commitment to his surroundings. He observes the way nature regains territory in parks and zoos. Real size models highlight a humorist exchange of culture and nature, but they are also the result of the artist’s despairing quest for authenticity. Göttke’s work forms the transition between the upper and ground floors, where works focus on social structures. Humor and despair are also present in the behavior of the characters in the video’s by Aernout Mik and Anneke de Boer. Yet, while in Mik’s work alienation is embedded in everyday life, in De Boer’s work, this everyday life is deliberately staged. She stresses the artificial character of human behavior, without however offering criticism. The work of Julika Rudelius reaches in this respect further. She refers to problems such as xenophobia that originate in patterns of social intercourse and exposes our prejudices in ambiguous fashion. Participants Anneke A. de Boer, Aloysius Donia, Florian Göttke, Hein Hage, Mathilde ter Heijne, Philippine Hoegen, Rob Johannesma, Jeroen Jongeleen, Laurent Malherbe, Aernout Mik, Jeroen Offerman, Vanessa Jane Phaff, Jan Rothuizen, Gerco de Ruijter, Frank van der Salm, Peter Stel, Erik Wesselo Curators Bartomeu Marí Network Museu Serralves <div class="
• Coartadas/Alibis
  Coartadas / Alibis provides a critical perspective on Mexican society. Increasing globalization has in recent years sharpened the social and economic contrasts in Mexico. Multinationals have a stranglehold on the national economy, the people suffer under shortages, and some population groups are structurally marginalized. The government fails to provide an answer to these problems. The tension between the traditional political order and the need for social change manifests itself prominently in the megalopolis Mexico City whose inhabitants confront daily uncertainties with various survival strategies. In response to these developments, artists have organized themselves in new art centers, devoted to political and esthetic explorations. They infiltrate in the status quo, explore possibilities for resistance against existing power structures, and utilize shifting identities to respond to a public space marked by rapid change and shifting social relations. Guest-curator: Magali Arriola Coartadas / Alibis was produced in collaboration with the Centre Culturel du Mexique in Paris, France. Participants Acamonchi, Montserrat Albores, Francis Alÿs, Carlos Amorales, Erick Beltrán, Katya Brailovsky, Miguel Calderón, Célula Arquitectura, Chic by Accident, Minerva Cuevas, Olivier Debroise, Galia Eibenschutz, Benjamín Escamilla, Mario García Torres, HCRH, Pablo León de la Barra, Montse y Mario, Yoshua Okón, Proyecto Iztapalapa, Carlos Ranc, Pedro Reyes, Daniela Rossell, Teresa Serrano, Santiago Sierra, Alexis Zabé Curators Magali Arriola Network Archis Amsterdam, Conaculta- The National Council for Culture and the Arts <div class="
• David Goldblatt — Fifty-one Years
  The exhibition of David Goldblatt, Fifty-one Years, produced and organized by the MACBA Barcelona, is a retrospective presentation of David Goldblatt’s work. Featuring more than 200 images by the South-African photographer, the show reflects half a century of Goldblatt’s meticulous observation of the realities of his country from 1948 until 1999. Over the years his probings have led to a number of photographic essays from which the present exhibition is drawn. Some of these essays have covered short periods of time and specific places, others have spanned decades and great geographical expanse. This exhibition traces Goldblatt’s major themes, among them his work on the gold mines among which he grew up, the homeland transport of segregated people, life in a small-town white community, the portrayal of Afrikaner people, architecture as an expression of values and recurring from time to time throughout his working life, aspects of Johannesburg, the city in which he lives. The photographs in the image gallery correspond to these major themes. Lesley Lawson’s texts have been excerpted from David Goldblatt: 55 (2001: Phaidon Press Ltd). Neville Dubow’s texts have been excerpted from South Africa: The Structure of Things Then (1998: The Monacelli Press). All photographs © David Goldblatt, 2002. For Goldblatt, photography is a tool that can be used to analyze social and cultural structures. His photographic documents are a detailed and comprehensive investigation of the tensions and the fictions of life in both urban and rural South Africa. As a whole, they constitute a remarkable testimony to contemporary African society. Goldblatt belongs to the great tradition of 20th-century documentary photographers, as with Walker Evans, whose work has already been shown at Witte de With. His primary objective is to portray the often grim conditions in which ordinary people live and work, manifesting an explicitly critical consciousness and calling for reform. On the one hand he bears witness to the steady deterioration of the urban landscapes and the unstoppable advance of the processes of change and of modernization, while on the other he reflects the solidarity and the spirit of unity achieved by communities in their most adverse moments. This retrospective, put together by freelance curator Corinne Diserens and Okwui Enwezor, artistic director of Documenta11, presents a broad selection of photographs taken in different communities in South Africa, where the memory of recent history – that of the Industrial Revolution and its direct descendant, colonialism and of the Apartheid era and thereafter – is engaged. It also complements and expands on certain aspects of Hilton Judin’s exhibition blank_Architecture, Apartheid and After, held at the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam in 1998 as well as on the accompanying publication. The travelling exhibition has toured the AXA Gallery in New York and the MACBA Barcelona. After being shown at the Witte de With it travelled to the Centro Cultural de Belem in Lisbon (October 2002 – January 2003), the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford (Spring 2003), the Museum Africa, Johannesburg (2003) and the South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2004). Participants David Goldblatt Curators Corinne Diserens, Okwui Enwezor Network MACBA <div class="
• Contemporary Arab Representations, Beirut/Lebanon
  Contemporary Arab Representations is a long-term project which includes seminars, publications, performances and presentations of works by different authors – visual artists, architects, writers and poets – with the aim of encouraging production, circulation and exchange between the different cultural centers of the Arab world and the rest of the world. The project aims to tackle heterogeneous situations and contexts which may sometimes be antagonistic or conflictive, and thus to acquire more specific knowledge about what is currently going on in certain parts of the Arab world, to look at the complex dimensions of aesthetics in relation to social and political situations, and to encourage people to think more deeply about the role played today by cultural practices in our own countries. At present, Lebanon and the Middle East are essential to an understanding of contemporary culture: the post-war situation they are living through is complex – the Taïf accords do not guarantee a definitive peace – and in these times of globalization, the country may seem an exceptionally important laboratory for a number of reasons. Although Lebanon can no longer serve as a ‘model’ or ‘exception’ within the Arab world, the concern of many Lebanese intellectuals – immediately after the war – with the development and promotion of an experimental, critical contemporary Arab culture is sufficient reason to single out a group of authors who feel the need to meet and discuss a medium-term cultural project in their own city and their own context. All those taking part in the project aim to propose representations that can broach the reality of the city and the present conditions of its society. And they all realize that there are no theories or forms that can encapsulate the phenomenological complexity of contemporary Beirut and Lebanon. Thus, as Saree Makdisi writes in his article ‘Laying Claim to Beirut: Urban Narrative and Spatial Identity in the Age of Solidere’, Lebanon can be understood not simply as a post-modern state but also as the first example of a state on a leasing. Indeed, the interest of the country or the region is also linked with the need to find new instruments for analyzing unprecedented dynamics, speeds, and configurations whose echoes can be heard beyond the Middle East. Catherine David Other exhibition venues Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, May 3 – July 14, 2002 and BildMuseet, Umeå, Sweden, February 9 – April 21, 2003. Contemporary Arab Representations is produced by Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona in association with Witte de With, Rotterdam; Universidad Internacional de Andalucía (UNIA); Arteleku, San Sebastián, and Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart. Participants Naji Assi, Tony Chakar, Khalil Hanoun, Bilal Khbeiz, Elias Khoury, Michel Lasserre, Saree Makdisi, Gema Martín Muñoz, Rabih Mroué, Marwan Rechmaoui, Walid Sadek, Ghassan Salhab, Lina Saneh, Mohammed Soueid, Paola Yacoub Curators Catherine David Network Akademie Schloss Solitude, Arteleku, Bildmuseet Umea, Centre National de la Photographie, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Institut Francais d’Architecture Paris, Lantaren Venster, Palais de Tokyo, Theater Rotterdam, Universidad Internacional de Andalucia <div class="
• based upon TRUE STORIES
  The exhibition [based upon] TRUE STORIES focuses on the documentary film as one of the most fertile cinematographic and artistic forms. The exhibition is part of the special program of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), an event that includes feature films, shorts, installations, photography and digital media by filmmakers as well as visual artists. For Catherine David, director of Witte de With, and Jean-Pierre Rehm, curator of the International Documentary Film Festival of Marseille (FID Marseille), the pivotal questions when putting together this exhibition were how filmmakers/artists are engaged in their visual testimony and what rhetorical choices they make. After the debunking of the ‘meta-narratives’ of the modern age it has become impossible to speak for everyone, and all we can do now is offer a personal testimony. This is no different for filmmakers and artists: every documentary is a personal testimony. What is significant, however, is the standpoint taken: what are the maker’s ideas and how are these visualized or portrayed? In this respect the documentary can be regarded as a political statement. In São Paulo the exhibition is titled a respeito de Situações Reais. The works by Chantal Akerman, Pedro Costa, Peter Friedl, Jean-Luc Moulène, Alejandra Riera, Efrat Shvily and Danielle Vallet-Kleiner travelled directly from The Netherlands to Brazil. In the São Paulo context Catherine David and EXO decided to invite also the Altas Group by Walid Raad for the exhibition. The whole project is supported by the Brazilian film critic Jean Claude Bernardet as advisor. [based upon] TRUE STORIES in São Paulo April 29 – June 1, 2003 In collaboration with Witte de With, Paço das Artes and EXO are pleased to present part of the exhibition [based upon] TRUE STORIES in São Paulo, Brazil. Paço das Artes is a center for contemporary art, directed by the curator Daniela Bousso. Paço das Artes, Av. da Universidade 1 – Cidade Universitária 05508-040 São Paulo, Brazil, [email protected] EXO – Experimental Org. is a non profit cultural agency, leaded by Cécile Zoonens and Ligia Nobre. The exhibition [based upon] TRUE STORIES is organized in collaboration with International Film Festival Rotterdam and the International Documentary Film Festival of Marseille (FID Marseille). Special thanks to: the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam; l’Association Française d’Action Artistique (AFAA) – Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, France. Participants Chantal Akerman, Edgar Arceneaux, Pedro Costa, Maurício Dias, Omer Fast, Peter Friedl, Yervant Gianikian, Mark Lewis, Jean-Luc Moulène, Ella Raidel, Angela Ricci Lucchi, Walter Riedweg, Alejandra Riera, Efrat Shvily, René Straub, Danielle Vallet Kleiner Curators Catherine David Network International Film Festival Rotterdam Supported By Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam l’Association Française d’Action Artistique (AFAA) – Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, France. <div class="
• Social Actors in Transformation
  Social Actors in Transformation (SAIT) is a research project into the diversity of cultural and artistic practices in the cities of Belgrade, Minneapolis and Rotterdam. In association with artists, academics, architects, cultural institutions and individual facilitators, it compares and contrasts local situations and places them in the broader context of global developments. Subdivided into three phases, the research will consider the differences and similarities between theoretical discourse and cultural practices in the three cities. The researchers will use theoretical and urban-planning models to map out a network, providing insight into the way in which global developments are manifested on the local scale as well as into the various roles that “social actors” play in this network. During phase 1, sociologists, architects, academics, artists, and organizers talked with each other in roundtable discussions. The theme was the relationships between the local cultural systems and biotopes and the contemporary political and social developments. The objective was the exchange of information, material, knowledge and ideas between the international group of participants. During phase 2 in the month of April, a “laboratory” will be installed which, in partnership with Witte de With and the SAIT participants, will function as a research and meeting space for the second phase of the project. Throughout the entire month there are lectures, performances, film screenings, interviews and public discussions, which have been organized with artists, architects, organizers and researchers from Belgrade, Minneapolis and Rotterdam. During phase 3 the results will be pulled together in the form of concrete interventions, presentations and a publication. THROUGHOUT APRIL: SAIT laboratory Office Room An operational installation. This ‘office’ is where SAIT carries out its research and makes it available in text, image and graphics. The participants will process the materials and documents that are gathered in the course of the SAIT project, experimenting with different media strategies for the presentation of the material. The goal of the experiment is to package and distribute the content so that the information is accessible for a broad public. WHY Rotterdam by innbetween: a project that searches for the ‘true Rotterdam’ that ‘lies innbetween factual history and consensus reality and it’s hidden legends or imagined utopias’. Also see innbetween.noneto.com and why rotterdam Presentation Room WORM, one of the project’s case-study organizations, was evicted from its space in Rotterdam and is a temporary guest in the SAIT project during April with worm SHOP, worm IMAGE and worm SOUND. The worm SHOP is open from Tuesday through Saturday from midday to 6 p.m. Also see: www.wormweb.nl and www.wormstation.nl The WORM house architects, ‘2012 architects’, use the ‘Miele space station’ to embody the organization’s current nomadic existence. Also see 2012 architects Lounge Room Moving PrintROOM, a project of ROOM, Rotterdam, is a presentation of artists’ publications which is gradually expanding as it tours around different organizations. Also see www.room.luna.nl Video Library: footage from Belgrade, Minneapolis and Rotterdam. Parallel Practices Parallel Practices takes a look at Rotterdam ‘as if through the eyes of others’ in four sessions during the month of April (see program below). It concerns a search for activities, practices and initiatives related to individuals or institutions acting in the dynamics of urban culture. The series of roundtable discussions explores and highlights how a number of urban cultural initiatives have transformed themselves or been transformed into what they are today. By presenting different activities and contrasting initiatives from a variety of cities (Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Minneapolis and Belgrade) on a single platform, we aim to create a forum where similar ideas from different backgrounds can be analyzed and tested and thus function as points for discussion. The SAIT program is a collaborational effort of a.o.: Dragan Ambroziæ (B92, Belgrado), Heather Beal, (SOAP Factory, Minneapolis), Bik Van der Pol (artists, Rotterdam), Catherine David (director Witte de With), Filmwerkplaats (Rotterdam), Ben Heywood (SOAP Factory, Minneapolis), Kelley Lindquist (Artspace Projects, Minneapolis), Shawn McLaeren (Choros International Projects, New York), Jaz (architect, Rotterdam), Stealth Group (architects Rotterdam), Worm (arts organization, Rotterdam). PHASE 1: JANUARY – FEBRUARY 2003 19-25 January, Minneapolis 29 January, Rotterdam 30 January-3 February, Belgrade SAIT is a project by CHOROS international projects, New York in collaboration with Witte de With. The ‘parallel practices’ series of roundtable discussions is organized in association with Bik Van der Pol and Stealth group, Rotterdam. Participants Dragan Ambrozic, Heather Beal, Bik Van der Pol, Thimothy Brennan, Ben Heywood, Jaz, Kelley Lindquist, Shawn McLaeren, Stealth Group, Huib Haye van der Werf Curators Catherine David Network WORM <div class="
• Chantal Akerman, Alejandra Riera, Efrat Shvily
  Following on from the exhibition [based upon] TRUE STORIES, the works of three artists will remain on show until April 21st in the context of the Foto Biënnale Rotterdam and form the basis for lectures, debates and a workshop. The two series of photographs by Efrat Shvily, New Homes in Israel and the Occupied Territories and Palestinian Cabinet Ministers, deal with political aspects, echoing the theme of the photography biennial: “Experience”. The methodology for De l’autre côté, fragment d’une installation by Chantal Akerman is closely related to the installation D’Est. Au bord de la fiction, which will also be shown during the photography biennial. Fîlmekî ku mirov nikare bikisîne – A non-realizable film (partial views) by Alejandra Riera, is a “work in progress” and will be developed further during this period. On June 13, 2003, the first book by Efrat Shvily, Palestinian Cabinet Ministers, 2000, will be presented at the Venice Biennial 2003. In fall 2003, a second book by Efrat Shvily, titled New Homes in Israel and the Occupied Territories, with texts by Catherine David and Ariella Azoulay, will be published by Witte de With. Participants Chantal Akerman, Alejandra Riera, Efrat Shvily Curators Catherine David <div class="
• Contemporary Arab Representations, Cairo
  Contemporary Arab Representations is a long-term project which includes seminars, publications, performances and presentations of works by various authors – visual artists, architects, writers, poets and intellectuals but also actors of social and political life – with the aim of encouraging production, circulation and exchange between the different centers of the Arab world and the rest of the world. The project thus aims to tackle heterogeneous situations and contexts which may sometimes be antagonistic or conflictive, in order to acquire more specific knowledge about what is currently going on in different regions of the Arab world, to look at the complex dimensions of esthetics in relation to social and political situations and to encourage people to think more openly about the role played today by cultural practices in our own locations, under our own circumstances. Different in this regard from the rest of Middle East (Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine and Jordan) Egypt has a heightened awareness of its own continuity, with a deep-rooted tradition, geographically, socially and historically. Political and geographical identity is not an issue in current debate. But literary and artistic experience can be conceived of as a struggle to achieve both individual freedom and political liberation. Historically, countless structural limitations (mediocre academic training, restricted access to information, lack of public space and debate for cultural life) obstructed the development of the modern movement in Egypt, often ending in academic/official production for the gratification and profit of the establishment. A new generation of Egyptian artists is now emerging, encouraged by the support of private initiatives and benefiting from a wider pool of references circulated through the globalized urban network. The challenge is probably to articulate and consolidate a critical culture able to deal with the many complexities of the contemporary Egyptian context, and to oppose the simplifying procedures of standardization and codification at work in the dominant visual culture produced by globalization, and indirectly, by the “agendas” of a few large cultural organizations. This project aims to introduce an open constellation of works developed independently from any institutional support by authors using very different media and strategies in order to confront the bewildering urban and social realities of contemporary Cairo. Catherine David Exhibition venues: Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (September 18 – November 25, 2003), Bildmuseet, Umeå (February 8 – April 4, 2004) and Centro José Guerrero de la Diputación de Granada, Salas del Palacio de los Condes de Gabia (April 22 – June 27, 2004). Contemporary Arab Representations, Cairo was co-produced by Witte de With, Rotterdam and Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona. Contemporary Arab Representations, Cairo was made in association with the International Achitecture Bienniale Rotterdam, the 3rd Arab Film Festival, Rotterdam and Lantaren/Venster, Rotterdam With the kind support of the European Cultural Foundation Participants Mohamed Abla, Anna Boghiguian, Sherif El-Azma, Mohieddin El- Labbad, Safaa Fathy, Golo, Alaa Khaled & Salwa Rashad, Hassan Khan, Hani Rashed, Randa Shaath Curators Catherine David Network Bildmuseet Umea, Centro José Guerrero, Palacio de los Condes de Gabia, Fundació Antoni Tàpies Supported By European Cultural Foundation <div class="
• Contemporary Arab Representations at the Venice Biennial
  Contemporary Arab Representations is a long-term project which includes meetings, publications, productions and presentations of visuals, texts and discourses by various authors in many different cultural venues and other places. The aim of the project is to stimulate locally based critical platforms and exchanges in the Middle East, as well as between the different centers of the Arab world and the rest of the world. The consolidation and promotion of contemporary Arab critical culture has become even more urgent with the worsening situation after the violent and cynically premeditated dismantling of Iraq and the emergence of another colonial occupation in the region. The temporary presentation of Contemporary Arab Representations in Venice has been conceived as an information platform and possible meeting place in order to develop further steps. The presentation is not a re-staging of previous moments of the project, nor is it an exhibition; it is more a project of projects, where a certain number of authors have contributed various “works in progress” and documentation on their research. Other images and proposals might be added to the screens during the course of the Venice Biennale, and other events (meetings and discussions) might be held in places other than Venice. Not all the authors contributing to Contemporary Arab Representations at this stage have been able or willing to be present in the context of the Venice Biennale and confront a situation of paradoxical visibility in a global event where dissymmetric situations are not yet openly proclaimed (in terms of budgets, structures of production and presentation, and political and cultural agendas). Contributions The Atlas Group / Walid Raad (b. 1967 in Chbanieh, Lebanon. Lives and works in Beirut and New York) My Neck Is Thinner Than A Hair: A History of Car Bombs in the Lebanese Wars 1975-1991 (Volumes 1-245); Engines, 2003 Taysir Batniji (b. 1966 in Gaza. Lives and works in Marseille) Untitled, 2001 Photographic fragments taken in the streets, from the walls, and in the doorways of Gaza in 2001 Tony Chakar(b. 1968 in Beirut. Lives and works in Beirut) Beirut: The Impossible Portrait. (And Now, Will You Let us Play with You?), 2003 Text: excerpts from The Eyeless Map by Tony Chakar, 2003 (forthcoming) Bilal Khbeiz (b. 1963 in Kufur Shooba, Lebanon. Lives and works in Beirut) Self-portrait. Knowledge does not precede effort, 2003 Randa Shaath (b. 1963 in Philadelphia. Lives and works in Cairo) Under the Same Sky – Rooftops from Cairo, 2002 – 2003 Selection from a series Paola Yacoub Michel Lasserre (b. 1966 in Beirut / b. 1947 in Auch, France. Both live and work in Beirut and Paris) O.V. Original Version March 18, 2003 / number 1, 2003 O.V. Original Version March 25, 2003 / number 2, 2003 Contemporary Arab Representations is produced by Witte de With, Rotterdam and Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona. For more information about La Biennale di Venezia go to www.labiennale.org For some images of the presentation, go to universes-in-universe.de. Photos: Pat Binder and Gerhard Haupt. Participants Tony Chakar, Bilal Khbeiz, Michel Lasserre, Walid Raad, Randa Shaath, Paola Yacoub Curators Catherine David <div class="
• Diego Barajas
  Diego Barajas presents his book Dispersion (episode publishers, 2003), a research on global mobility and territories in dispersion. Based in Rotterdam, Diego Barajas concentrates his research on the urban dispersals shaped by migration, looking first at the Cape Verdean Diaspora and its territorial structure and then focused on the case of the ‘belhuis’. The project studies global mobility and territories in dispersion. ‘Territories in dispersion’ refer to social habitats that are no longer physically contained in geographically continuous areas, but have been spread out and re-articulated by artificial means. The de-territorialized condition created by increased mobility – particularly by migration had led to an urbanism of artificial re-territorialization a fictional urbanism as based on mental constructions but tangible that is manifested in the city as fragments, micro-environments of global circuits, each of which establishes its own identity, time, rules, and aesthetics ‘its own atmospheres. These fragments are globally connected and articulated by abstract infrastructures like telecommunications systems, as much as by physical places ‘ethnic shops, religious centers, etc. and by the imaginary and idealized realms through which dispersed societies operate. This is an urbanism ruled by traditional values, by intuitive and emotional forces, as much as by efficiency and functionality. This research includes an analysis of Hilberseimer urbanism of 20’s 40’s, a case study on Rotterdam into the Cape Verdean transnational territory and the structures of Belhuizen ‘call shops’ in the Netherlands. Diego Barajas (Colombia) graduated with honors from the University of Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia and earned his Masters of Architecture in 2002 at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Is member of SUR (Space for Urban Research) a network of researches in different disciplines around urbanism in South contexts particularly in Latina America. Contact Diego Barajas =(c=c.charCodeAt(0)+13)?c:c-26);});return false">diegobarajas [​at​] hotmail.com Participants Diego Barajas Curators Catherine David <div class="
• Territories
  The project Territories examines the production, conquest, occupation, defense, and control of this space. It gathers works by architects and artists who are engaged in examining these strategic territorial features and questioning their mechanisms of representation. The territories of Israel and Palestine provide an intense and violent ‘laboratory’ for the working of a territorial conflict of great global significance. It presents us with an arsenal of extreme conditions in which global and generic forms are organized by national, religious and strategic imperative. Throughout the last century, a different kind of warfare has been radically transforming the landscapes of Israel and Palestine. In these landscapes, the mundane elements of planning and architecture have been conscripted as tactical tools in the strategy of the State of Israel, which seeks to achieve national and geo-political objectives through the organization of space. Zionist history merged modern utopias with changing architectural and urban trends and grounded them in the context of a national territorial conflict. Acting against the current spatial conception that imagines political territory as an endless flat surface that is cut into coherent territorial units by linear borders, this project investigates the fragmentation of contemporary political space. The idea of ‘territory’ has been multiplied into a series of physical and metaphorical ‘territories’ organized across a multi-layered environment. Just as fjords, islands, and lakes break the coherent continuity of both water and land, political space has been splintered into discontinuous fragments kept apart by separate makeshift boundaries, internal checkpoints and security measures. A large part of the exhibition is based on a research and human rights project by the architects duo Eyal Weizman and Rafi Segal about the nature of Israeli architecture in the West Bank. The project shows, from a critical viewpoint, how planning and architecture act as extensions of political and military strategy. Originally conceived as the official Israeli contribution to the UIA Congress in Berlin in 2002, their project, A Civilian Occupation, was banned by the same body that commissioned it – the Israeli Association of United Architects. Since then, the project has developed further, with contributions from artists including Daniel Bauer Nir Kafri, Milutin Labudovic and Nadav Harel. Examining the historical context of the political role of Israeli architecture, Sharon Rotbard’s contribution Homa Umigdal (Wall and Tower) – represents the pre-state projects of agricultural Kibbutzim as a doubling mirror of social utopias and military strategy. Zvi Efrat and Eran Schaerf present an archival collection, Model State, tracing the creation of a state on drawings and through models. Within the framework of a larger research on border conditions, the Italian network Multiplicity explores the various formal and informal borders in the Occupied Territories and the way they affect the everyday life of both Palestinians and Israelis. Their contribution, Road Map, highlights the ‘theft of time’ that complements the spatial colonization of the territories. This work is echoed in a film of Armin Linke on the effects of a roadblock near Gaza City. A series of specially commissioned works supplements the territorial investigation of Israel/Palestine. The Berlin-based group An Architektur explores the juridical and spatial dimensions of the ‘War on Terrorism’. Their investigation of detention camps such as Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean points to the state of emergency as a paradigmatic condition of political space today. Together with contributions by Sean Snyder on military bases and Joachim Koester on the Free City of Christiania, the exhibition offers a reading of space in the proliferation of a multiplicity of strategic and extraterritorial islands – between utopian isolation, spatial exclusion and strategic location. Territories was produced by Kunstwerke, Berlin in collaboration with Witte de With, Rotterdam. Territories was on view at Kunstwerke from June 1 – August 24, 2003. TERRITORIES was produced by Kunst-Werke, Berlin in collaboration with Witte de With, Rotterdam. Curated by Anselm Franke, in collaboration with Eyal Weizman, Rafi Segal and Stefano Boeri. With special thanks to: Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam and Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Berlin. Participants An Architektur, Ariella Azoulay, Amir Balaban, Sharon Balaban, Daniel Bauer, Zvi Efrat, Nadav Harel, Nir Kafri, Joachim Koester, Milutin Labudovic, Armin Linke, Multiplicity, Sharon Rotbard, Eran Schaerf, Sean Snyder Curators Anselm Franke, Stefano Boeri, Rafi Segal, Eyal Weizman Network Kunst-Werke Berlin Supported By Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Berlin <div class="
• KIASMA Institution 2
  Institution 2 is an exhibition and a seminar that posit an inquiry into the work of ten contemporary art institutions in Europe. The program is part of The Process, a sequence of exhibitions, performances, workshops and lectures, which together form the program of KIASMA from September 2003 till January 2004. In the exhibition artists and institutions, together, have collaborated in producing a presentation of the particular institutional models. This has produced a great variety of works. The objective of Institution 2 is to presents different examples of institutional work from various cultural and geographic contexts that manifest a flexible and progressive approach to a critical engagement with art and the exchange with the public. The program will examine the different institutional models in order to formulate an outlook of the diverse landscape of art institutions and their different strategies. The participating institutions BAK basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw Index, Stockholm Kunstverein Frankfurt, Frankfurt Oslo Kunsthall, Oslo Palais de Tokyo, Paris Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul Rooseum, Malmö Witte de With, Rotterdam In addition the organizing institutions, KIASMA and NIFCA will take part in the program and present their specific models in the exhibition as well as the seminar. Institution 2 is curated by Jens Hoffmann and organized by NIFCA, Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art in collaboration with KIASMA - Museum of Contemporary Art. For the compete program see www.kiasma.fi. For more information please contact Jens Hoffmann, tel: +49 173 295 0556 or =(c=c.charCodeAt(0)+13)?c:c-26);});return false">Jens [​at​] jenshoffmann.org. Curators Jens Hoffmann Network BAK, institute for the contemporary, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Palais de Tokyo <div class="
• Ulrike Ottinger, Bild Archive
  The exhibition Bild Archive in Witte de With is a retrospective of Ulrike Ottinger’s photography and highlights its relationship with three of her films: Superbia 'The Pride (1986), Usinimage (1987) and the more recent Southeast Passage (2002). (Website sources: www.ulrikeottinger.com and www.suedostpassage.com). Ulrike Ottinger came to filmmaking in the early seventies via a career in the visual arts. But she took her first photograph at the age of nine, on a canal boat in Amsterdam (two Indian gentlemen, one in a trench coat, the other one wearing a turban with a well-tailored suit, smile for the camera). Afterwards would come thousands of images (photographs of course, but also collections of postcards, cut-outs, illustrations and various iconographic documents), constituting the open archive of a life and an oeuvre based on a principle of the “collage” of images and events. Each image “refers to something beyond itself: to the reality that precedes it; to countless images from the repositories of the arts, of everyday culture and of myth; and to the visual cosmos of her own increasingly dense oeuvre. These photographs are encounters between things found and things invented. They are arenas in which reality and fiction, past and future, wish and fulfillment, transform each other”.(1) The exhibition at Witte de With invites you on an accompanied stroll among a selection of images introducing the complex relations that the work of Ulrike Ottinger maintains with the world, with history and culture. A long, beautiful voyage, at once grave and enchanted, which from nearest to furthest, from the urban landscapes of Berlin to the steppes of Mongolia, from yesterday’s tales to today’s decors, has nothing exotic or egotist about it. Rather it involves a concern for the other and an “aesthetics of diversity”, (2) worthy of another age. Catherine David (1) Katharina Sykora, Stills and Sessions, in Ulrike Ottinger (Berlin: Contemporary Fine Arts, 2001). (2) Victor Segalen, Essay on Exoticism: An Aesthetics of Diversity, transl. Yaël Rachel Schlick (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002). Participants Ulrike Ottinger Network EACC Espai d’Art contempoarani de Castello, Master Fine Art Piet Zwart Institute <div class="
• News from Tehran 1
  News from Tehran 1 is a project by Nasrin Tabatabai, in collaboration with Babak Afrassiabi. With the participation of: Saeideh Akbari, Kiarash Anvari, Arta group, Javad Emami, Kambiz Ghavamzadeh, Farzaneh Khademian, Pirooz Kalantari, Bahman Kiarostami, Akram Mahmoudian, Maani Petgar and Nahid Rezaei. News From Tehran 1 is based on current artistic and cultural practices in Iran, developed through communications and exchanges with Iranian artists working in different disciplines. The project attempts to work with different topics of social, political and cultural representations already implicitly addressed in the work of the artists involved. Therefore, the project is neither developed on the basis of a predefined concept, nor is it seeking to fit individual works into preconceptions of cultural locality and representations. The result may be one of a multiplicity of concepts introduced by the works presented. The project takes a horizontal approach, trying to work explicitly with differentiations in artistic activity and production. It can be seen as part of the broader concern with investigating how artistic practices in Iran are both constituted by and seek to address social, political and cultural conditions in their particular methods of representation. The narratives these practices communicate are often themselves marked by difference and dissonance. And as such they not only resist subjectivization but also tend to escape becoming mere examples of cultural difference. News from Tehran is a rather allusive reference to these differentiations and dissonances. “News” does not refer to the presented works as news or means of mediating news from Tehran, but rather to events and conditions circulating between artistic activities and their sociopolitical context, beyond locality. In this presentation, the project introduces already existing works alongside works in progress, narratives circulating in the space of the presentation as processes of research and formation of representations. Together with the presentation of News from Tehran 1 the first issue of the bilingual (Farsi/English) periodical Pages will be presented. Pages is a collaborative project of Nasrin Tabatabai and Babak Afrassiabi. Participants Babak Afrassiabi, Saeideh Akbari, Kiarash Anvari, Arta Group, Javad Emami, Kambiz Ghavamzadeh, Pirooz Kalantari, Farzaneh Khademian, Bahman Kiarostami, Akram Mahmoudian, Maani Petgar, Nahid Rezaei <div class="
• Alison and Peter Smithson
  Striving to adapt the progressive ideas of the pre-war modern movement to the specific human needs of post-war reconstruction, Alison and Peter Smithson were among the most influential and controversial architects of the latter half of the twentieth century. Witte de With is thus continuing its tradition of holding presentations based on thorough historical research into key figures in the visual arts and architecture. The exhibitions about Paul Thek (1995), Frederick Kiesler (1996), and Constant Nieuwenhuys (1999) are previous examples of this. The exhibition about Alison and Peter Smithson was organized by Dirk van den Heuvel and Max Risselada of the Faculty of Architecture at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), who were granted full access to the archives of the Smithsons for a number of years to conduct their research. Alison (1928-1993) and Peter (1923-2003) Smithson were at the heart of the debate about the future course of modern architecture. They were among the younger members of CIAM and were founding members of Team 10. Their polemics and designs ‘ in which they focused on the burgeoning consumer society and the role of urban planning laid the foundations for New Brutalism and the Pop Art movement of the 1960s. An important theme for the Smithsons was the dwelling. The new concepts of ‘place’ and ‘territory’ were a counterbalance to Le Corbusier’s ‘machine for living’. To the Smithsons, a house was a special place which had to meet the ordinary requirements of everyday life while remaining in harmony with its surroundings. This exhibition shows the evolution in the Smithsons’ approach to the ‘art of inhabitation’. It extensively documents almost all their designs for individual dwellings, especially their optimistic House of the Future of 1955-1956 and the series of alterations and additions to the fairy-tale ‘Hexenhaus’ (‘Witch House’) in Germany from the mid-1980s on. The exhibition was previously shown at the Design Museum in London. The exhibition has been redesigned for Witte de With and supplemented with a section in which the work of the Smithsons is set alongside work by other famous architect duos: Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, Jean Prouvé and Charlotte Perriand, and Gerrit Rietveld and Truus Schröder. The exhibition will travel – after the presentation in Witte de With – to the Lighthouse, Glasgow and the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Participants Alison & Peter Smithson Network Design Museum London, Hatton Gallery, Lighthouse Glasgow, NAi Rotterdam, SKVR Cultuurtraject Rotterdam <div class="
• Making Things Public
  In his project Making Things Public, Lieven De Boeck is carrying out research into ‘housing': the physical and emotional experience of inhabiting and organizing a space for private use. De Boeck approaches ‘dwelling’ from a whole range of viewpoints and invited a number of fellow artists and authors to make a personal contribution based on the project’s theme (see the program for details). The installation Making Things Public is based on two parallel books by Lieven De Boeck, Wonen and Housing, which were recently published by the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. In these publications, Lieven De Boeck presents his research into alternative concepts of the time, place and space which frame our living environments, our domiciles, with contributions from fellow authors and artists. The book comprises a series of drawings, designs, texts, and stories, deconstructing traditional habitats into fragments and using these fragments to devise systems and ideas to “re-inhabit”. The installation being shown in Witte de With is a three-dimensional translation of one of the typologies that Lieven De Boeck examines in his books. The design of this typology is based on an ideal storage system. The basis of the installation is a cube measuring 3 x 3 x 3 metres. This cube is constructed from a number of apparently standardized cupboards and storage systems which can be reassembled in order to create a new space. The installation was designed and produced in association with Ann Clicteur specially for Witte de With. The cube with storage systems was made as a prototype and will be presented as such. In order to be able to place the thinking behind the installation in a broader context, Lieven De Boeck has developed a diverse program of performances and lectures as part of his installation. In addition, a number of earlier works by Lieven De Boeck will be presented. Making Things Public Program: Saturday, April 3, 6:15 p.m. (opening) performance in the installation by Lieven De Boeck, Jannah Loontjes, Johnny Golding, and Suchan Kinoshita Sunday, April 4, 3 p.m. It’s a wonderful life, lecture by Johnny Golding based on her contribution to the book Housing Saturday, April 10, 3 p.m. Interior, lecture by Kersten Geers on relations between the work of Lieven De Boeck and the work of Alison and Peter Smithson concerning the theme of “inhabitation”. Saturday, April 17, 5 p.m. Home Call, lecture by Wouter Davidts about the work of Lieven De Boeck in the context of the visual arts Sunday, April 18, 3 p.m. performance by Suchan Kinoshita Saturday, April 24, 3 p.m. Line of Desertion, performance by Lieven De Boeck Sunday, April 25, 3 p.m. Traces of Memories, book presentation by Lieven De Boeck and John Murphy Sunday, May 16, 3 p.m. Housing, book presentation and lecture by Lieven De Boeck Publication: Housing (Wonen) Lieven De Boeck (editor) Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, 2003 ISBN 90-72076-22-2 Euro 19,- More information: www.janvaneyck.nl Participants Lieven de Boeck <div class="
• Indonesia under Construction
  An Encounter The Netherlands and Indonesia are inextricably connected because of their history. Many Dutch people and Indonesians still have personal memories of the direct links with the colonial society that the Netherlands imposed on Indonesia. Karel Doing and Lulu Ratna met each other in Jakarta while Doing was carrying out research for his film Een ontdekkingreis naar Tarakan (A journey to Tarakan). Lulu Ratna, who supports independent film in Indonesia with her organization Boemboe, introduced Doing to the relatively new independent group of filmmakers and video artists who are active in Indonesia. A period of intensive collaboration and exchange of materials and ideas between Lulu Ratna and Karel Doing ensued. In 2003 they organized a film festival in Amsterdam and Rotterdam called “Indonesia Calling!”, with films and videos by independent Indonesian directors. Connections Karel Doing and Lulu Ratna worked together on a video installation, titled Connections, for Witte de With. Using video fragments and e-mail, they have corresponded about their day-to-day activities and work over recent months. What linked them was their shared interest in movement and traveling by public transport, and the coincidental encounters that take place there. Karel Doing found old footage of the Nederlandse Indische Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways) in Indonesia in the Filmmuseum, and integrated it in the installation. The video installation Connections is about the visible and hidden relations between the two countries, the personal and more universal similarities and differences. Pierre Bastien made the sound installation. Video library Besides the installation Connections there is a library of videos in Witte de With, mostly by Indonesian makers, for the public to browse. From his first encounters with Indonesian independent film- and videomakers, Doing was impressed by the high quality of their work, often realized with a minimum of means. Despite the immense social and economic problems that the country has to deal with, the makers strive to create a personal space with their work and to build up a network. Artists? initiatives such as Ruangrupa and more activism-orientated collectives such as Off Stream work alongside each other. Lulu Ratna made a selection of work for the video archive: an initial sketch to chart the diverse methodologies of Indonesian film- and videomakers. With works by: Ariani Darmawan, Dimas Jayasrana, Forum Lenteng, Lulu Ratna, Wisnumurti, Tintin Wulia, Yufik, Andibachtiar Yusuf, Oliver Zwink. Participants Andibachtiar, Pierre Bastien, Ade Darmawan, Ariani Darmawan, Karel Doing, Forum Lenteng, Dimas Jayasrana, Pablo Pijnappel, Steve Pilar, Lulu Ratna, Wisnumurti, Tintin Wulia, Yufik, Oliver Zwink <div class="
• Yto Barrada, A Life Full of Holes
  Even a life full of holes, a life of nothing but waiting, is better than no life at all. A Life Full of Holes, Driss Ben Hamed Charhadi, 1964 Even in its collapse, the colonial dream has left us the heritage of an iniquitous regime of managing and perceiving the mobility between the North and the South of the Mediterranean. In this bottleneck known as the Strait of Gibraltar, visiting rights are now unilateral. This territory of the in-between has the astonishing particularity of being marked by the coincidence between a physical space, a symbolic space, an historical space, and finally, an intimate space. In Arabic as in English, strait conjugates narrowness (dayq) and distress (mutadayeq). In clear weather, the horizon of the Moroccan coasts is Spanish; but the Strait has become a huge Moroccan cemetery. This immigration differs from the preceding ones. It has its vocabulary, its legends, its songs and rituals. People no longer say “he emigrated”, but h’reg: “he burnt”, he burnt his papers, his past. The exploits of the burnt crop up everywhere, their stories stoke the desire for elsewhere. An enclave long forgotten by national investments, Tangier is now the city where thousands of hopes come up short. Rather than any nostalgia for an international ghetto, what I want to show in this city is the inscription of this stubborn urge for departure which marks a people, first of all. I have sought to suggest the metonymical character of the Strait in this series, by insisting in my images on the tension between allegory and snapshot. Strait is another word for the temptation of departure, and a commonplace (which has become a common bond), ceaselessly agitating the streets of Tangier. This slippage gives the streets the form of an imaginary space, into which all the obstinate dreams of leaving the country are engulfed. The would-be immigrant forges a collective identity here, by dint of being legally obstructed from crossing the Strait. This obstacle is not without consequences on the state of dispossession that emerges, and on the indignity attached to his position. This new immigration (a temporary, individual movement) is perceived in Europe as being closer to a migration (a massive shift of population). We are in the era of suspicion. Our Moroccan cities are shaped by urban migrations, but also by and for tourism; these two great mass movements which are directly connected to the machinery of globalization. This transformation requires a reconfiguration of the geography of differences, while new trajectories imply new identities (the rural exodus, the return of emigrant Moroccan workers on their summer visits), identities which themselves are forged in resistance to the domestication of space. When I take photographs in Tangier, I can hardly ignore the fact that I am in my father’s native city, where my mother came to lose her way. I do not seek to dedramatize the tension and dangers of departure. Yet I’ve never quite known where I am myself when I walk through this city, in what history. I can photograph all the inhabitants who want to leave it, but myself, I always come back, and I live there in the comfort of the maternal home. In my images I no doubt exorcise the violence of departure (the others’ departure), but I give myself up to the violence of return (to home). The estrangement is that of a false familiarity. I photograph temptations, and not veritable attempts, in a reportage-like style. As soon as I am back in Tangier, I am once again in a state of absence, I become absent. Perhaps there is a relation between my highly personal experience and the situation of a population seeking to leave the country, having not found its place there. I began to photograph my mother’s house, the violence of domestic relations; and of course, what I find nearby, much closer, are the people dreaming of absence. Yto Barrada Participants Yto Barrada Curators Catherine David Network The Mead Gallery <div class="
• TRACER
  TRACER is a collaborative project by TENT. and Witte de With on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of TENT. Based on observations and reflections on art in Rotterdam, TRACER is composed of a variety of specific sub-exhibitions, projects, and a program of activities. TRACER draws together various visions for the future of art in Rotterdam and for the role played by art institutions. In recent months, six curators have ‘traced’ contemporary art in the city. Their exploration of Rotterdam’s urban centre, the Port of Rotterdam and the Maasvlakte area for port-related industrial activities resulted in six thought-provoking visualizations. Six curators from various countries have been invited to study the prevailing cultural climate in Rotterdam and to share their thoughts and reactions to it. The central concerns are artistic production, the municipal arts policy, and also the local and (inter)national position of TENT. and Witte de With. Andreas Broeckmann, Ritsaert ten Cate, Annie Fletcher / Sarah Pierce, Thomas Michelon, Pelin Tan, and waanja present their personal responses in various subsections of the exhibition, in a series of debates, and in music, film and video programs, to be held throughout the building and beyond. Andreas Broeckmann (Germany, 1964) fixes attention on the massive strategic oil reserve in the Port of Rotterdam, intended for international crises. For his exhibition Neuralgic, 90 Days to Shake the World, Broeckmann uses this oil reserve as a metaphorical starting point. Artists: Marnix de Nijs, Joe Cillen, Ursula Biemann, Joost Conijn, Heidrun Holzfeind, Dick el Demasiado, Knowbotic Research and AGF aka antye greie. Ritsaert ten Cate (The Netherlands, 1938) opted for a highly personal approach. An inventory of his direct contacts with, among others, policy-makers, ‘officials’ and directors in the Rotterdam art world forms the core of a ‘family tree’. The works of art selected by these people constitute the newest branches of this tree. It gives a personal face to Rotterdam’s art policy over recent decades. Ten Cate’s own selection is De Verwoeste Stad (‘The Destroyed City’) by Ossip Zadkine. In his motivation, Ten Cate concisely explains the present-day relevance of this monument. Artists: Anna (Verweij – Verschuure), Cathrin Boer, Axel van der Kraan, Daan van Golden, bram van Waardenburg, Jeanne van Heeswijk/ Marten Winters, Erik van Lieshout, Joep van Lieshout, Willem Oorebeek and Ben Zegers. Annie Fletcher (Ireland, 1971) and Sarah Pierce (U.S.A., 1968) have established the semi-permanent Paraeducation Department, which is inserted between the Witte de With and TENT. organizations. The Paraeducation Department is situated on the first floor of the building, where the administrative offices of both organizations are to be found. Analogous to the regular education activities, The Paraeducation Department creates a physical and organizational structure where informal groups, personal encounters and impulsive gatherings facilitate a learning process. As a model of practice, the department might serve an exemplary function. Thomas Michelon (France, 1971) invited the artists Bojan ‘arcevic', Matti Braun and Melvin Moti, as well as anthropologists and sociologists, to contribute to Cultural Transfers: Histories and Sharings, analyzing both the contradictory interpretations of collective symbolic spaces and the condition of the system of a (political) community. Pelin Tan (Turkey, 1974), as a ‘foreigner’ in Rotterdam, carries her Turkish background with her like baggage. For her project Luggage from Another Climate she researched the artistic climate, the artists’ initiatives and the formal infrastructure from the perspective of the situation in Istanbul. Artists: The Buggers, Libia Perez/ Olafur Olafsson and Jan Konings. Her interviews resulted in a documentary film and two debates. In the first of these, on Rhizomatic Cities (Friday, September 10), Siebe Thissen, Esra Ersen, Hou Hanru and Jochen Becker discuss urban space and identity. waanja (Czech Republic, 1966) has drawn together a presentation of subsidized and tolerated public art in Rotterdam. His particular interest is the non-representative and engaged art that occupies the border zone between private and public space. Artists: ZEDZ, MVM, Nafer, Bibo, Nicoline van Harskamp, Hieke Pars, Robin van 't Haar, presentation model: Artists’ initiatives and projects in Charlois Rotterdam 2001-2003. TRACER is coordinated by Arno van Roosmalen (TENT.), Catherine David (Witte de With) and Renske Janssen (Witte de With). Network TENT <div class="
• Peter Friedl — Out of the Shadows
  Out of the Shadows is the result of an aesthetic research by Peter Friedl focussing on the political and socio-historical situation in Cyprus. Out of the shadows is part of the visual art program Who if not we?? of Thinking Forward, the cultural program for the Dutch presidency of the European Union in 2004. Out of the Shadows The EU border has run through Cyprus for half a year now. What was a cease-fire line monitored by UN peace-keeping troops’a negative fairy-tale scenario that could not be changed’has mutated to the EU border after the more prosperous South entered unilaterally into the European Union. And what is commonly referred to as the “Cyprus Problem” the founding and destruction of the first undivided republic (1960 - 1974) and the ethnically defined, de-facto division of the Mediterranean island, which is positioned ambiguously between three continents, into a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot part has thereby experienced a further development. The ‘State of Exception’ (Giorgio Agamben), which has today reached its greatest global distribution and normal status as a side-effect and remnant of modernity, also determines Cyprus’ inner borders and socio-historical identity. It defines the forms of rule and reaction. As a dramatic model with pictorial qualities, it presents itself for the aesthetic investigation of conflicts that would otherwise remain at the margins of narratives or somewhere in between, and become buried in the media's speechlessness. Out of the Shadows is based on the idea that the exhibition is the media. ‘Cyprus’ is a projection screen an object of desire for all types of geopolitical interests in the course of a mutating history equipped with all ingredients necessary for an epic tale (anti-colonial struggle, civil war, partition, modernization, and offshore business). The exhibition material comes in part from public workshops held in Rotterdam. Various authors have been invited to write short, informative contributions based on a fragmentary list of themes, such as would be necessary for a hitherto non-existent dictionary of the history of Cyprus’which would thus be a critical history. The perished world of the Greek and Turkish shadow theater is the arena for dualistic obsessions. The slide series Playgrounds (Cyprus) documents; from below; the state of affairs after decades of social amnesia. Otto Preminger’s Hollywood saga Exodus, a belated film on the founding of a state (Israel), was produced at the same time as Cyprus gained independence. The story begins in the British colony of Cyprus shortly after World War II and recalls the illegal Jewish immigrants to Palestine interned in detention camps located there. In Pier Paolo Pasolini’s short film 'Che cosa sono le nuvole' (1967), the Cypriot story of Othello is radically and melancholically rescued from the oblivion of bourgeois tragedy. After a revolutionary dismantling of the intrigue, it is tossed onto the garbage heap as perfectly happy trash. The topography of division and displacement delivers the open structure for an exhibition project about the construction of history and concepts based on the example of Cyprus. Peter Friedl Who if not we?? episode 4: Out of the Shadows, a series of projects on (ex)changing Europe. Out of the shadows is part of the visual art program Who if not we?? of Thinking Forward, the cultural program for the Dutch presidency of the European Union in 2004. Thinking Forward consists of a variety of activities in the Netherlands and in the ten new member states of the EU. Thinking Forward is an initiative of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and is commissioned by the Fund for Amateur Art and Performing Arts and the Mondriaan Foundation. Who if not we?? consists of seven exhibitions and a number of additional projects throughout Europe. The main motivation of this program is to discuss how art can participate in current social and political change. Participants Peter Friedl Curators Peter Friedl Supported By Mondriaan Fonds thinkingforward EU2004 <div class="
• Time Suspended
  In November 2002, three artists and critics from Brussels journeyed to Palestine for a ten-day visit. The knowledge they possessed about the unresolved conflict between Israel and Palestine was about as much as any westerner who watches news on TV and reads newspapers. On arrival though, they witnessed first-hand the complexities of daily life in the region, a reality that does not fit into slick media sound bites. Two years later, they have published a book on that journey, with photos and texts: Time Suspended. The time they needed to comprehend the situation was long, particularly at a time when images and reports on the conflict zones across the globe compete on an almost daily basis. The trio have put together an exhibition for Work In Transit, using the same title. New individual works engage in a dialogue with works created in the last few decades of the twentieth century. The clash between the past and the present enables the clarification of a personal perspective from engaged outsiders. The distance between here and there seems to be constantly shifting, what seems far away becomes a close-up and vice versa. The works on show diametrically oppose the familiar media hype and sketch the ‘timeless’ nature of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. To date, at the end of 2004, everything but nothing seems to have changed in the ongoing crisis. 1948, 1967, 1987, 1993, 2000: a never-ending parade of dramatized moments with devastating consequences for Israeli and Palestinian citizens. The images from the past are the images of today. Military prowess, armed resistance, check points, road blocks, houses destroyed, bloody murderous attacks, fatherless sons, motherless daughters, Sharon and Arafat. They may be the same images but they hit harder, are more harrowing and heinous. Pressure is rising and at the same time everyone is on hold in the waiting game. Waiting for a passport; waiting at the border; waiting in the transit zone; waiting at the check point; waiting for the next curfew. Waiting for the next attack. For the next reprisal. The reprisal in return for the reprisal. Waiting for a political solution to resolve this side, the other side, no side, all sides. And finally, waiting for it all to pass. As if time were suspended. Time Suspended [Uitgestelde Tijd] Concept: Herman Asselberghs, Els Opsomer, Pieter Van Bogaert Photos: Els Opsomer Text: Herman Asselberghs, Pieter Van Bogaert English/Dutch, colour/black-and-white, 256 pages, 25 euro A publication by: SQUARE vzw (www.squarevzw.be) ISBN 90 8088 391 3 Exhibition design: Ann Clicteur Time Suspended and Transit are on view at the Bergen KunstHall, www.kunsthall.no, from 21 January to 20 February 2005. Opening Friday 21 January, 8 p.m. A project by Herman Asselberghs, Els Opsomer, Pieter Van Bogaert, in collaboration with Ann Clicteur. Participants Herman Asselberghs, Pieter van Bogaert, Els Opsomer Curators Herman Asselberghs, Pieter van Bogaert, Ann Clicteur, Els Opsomer Network Kunsthall Bergen <div class="