Where Imagination Slips Into Reality
Mentor:
STEALTH.unlimited (Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen)
When:
12 Oct / 16 Oct, 2015
Deadline for application submission:
12.09.2015
Where:
Cittadellarte, Biella
Language:
English
TOPICS/TAGS: spatial practices, self-organisation, urban commons, reimagining urban life, responsibility, participation
Module outline

Gradually, over more than a decade, the responsibility for re-drafting the socially engaged future of the city is being taken upon by an unusual coalition of those that would have - until recently - hardly be considered eligible. This module will dive into social, political, but also practical sides of a wide range of projects, encompassing STEALTH.unlimited’s own work as well as projects developed by other practitioners in the artistic and cultural field.

Factors like a dissolving welfare state, deregulation policies, privatisation agendas, but equally an increasing awareness of the unsustainability of the ongoing financialisation of urban development (think of the ongoing economic downfall), have laid open a terrain in which artists, spatial practices, cultural and artistic institutions, NGO’s or neighbourhood initiatives have claimed a territory previously reserved for governmental organisations, real-estate developers and urban planners. Accompanied by a new kind of engagement that seeks to involve citizens as well as a new realm of professionals, these actors or organisations are already making many vital contributions, even if they are still primarily perceived as peripheral or secondary to the discussion on urban development.

Where Imagination Slips Into Reality will explore the transformation of such practices, and their transition from temporary artistic interventions, via larger urban imaginations, to interventions that clearly step beyond the field of art. What they have in common is a search for a shared creation, different models of governance, and intense participation of communities in various, essential aspects of a life in common. We will explore what are the motives to embark on such endeavours, but equally what are the toolsets we can work with, and which the potential of such approaches. Can our imagination consciously and with determination be transposed into reality? And importantly, once achieved, how can these initiatives carry on beyond the presence of that initial creative force?

This module is meant for artists, architects, citizens groups, activists, curators, city administrators etc.
Mentor

BIOGRAPHY AND STATEMENT

STEALTH.unlimited (Rotterdam / Belgrade) is a practice set up in 2000 by Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen. Through intensive collaboration with individuals, organisations and institutions, STEALTH connects urban research, spatial interventions and cultural activism. Ana and Marc’s projects mobilise thinking on shared future(s) of the city and its culture, like, Archiphoenix: Faculties of Architecture at the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennial (2008), the Tirana International Contemporary Art Biannual (2009), IMPAKT Festival Matrix City in Utrecht (2010), the fiction-based project Once Upon a Future made for Evento in Bordeaux (2011) or the exhibition A Life in Common with Cittadellarte/ Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella (2012) and Medellin (2014).

Participation fee
570.00 € Including accomodation and half-board