10.00 am – Leave from NAI Rotterdam, Museumpark 25 3015 CB, Rotterdam
On the way to the port you can listen to interviews on headphones in the bus. Amongst others, Hans Aarsman, an industrial ecologist, a botanist and an archaeologist, will describe his vision of the Maasvlakte on the basis of his field of expertise. The artistic duo FGA broadcast this and other conversations from a temporary web radio station in a container united placed on the Maasvlakte between 21 August and 21 September.
10.45 am – Visit to wastelands by artist Lara Almarcegui and botanist Remko Andeweg
The Spanish-born Rotterdam-based artist Lara Almarcegui has published a free newspaper research project concerning the ‘wasteland’ areas which can be encountered throughout the Port of Rotterdam. In contrast to the vast planning involved in Maasvlakte 2, she is interested in the spaces which are defined by an apparent lack of human design and development, which in turn relate historical legacies and changing land-use practices. The public experiences the port as an interconnected territory through self-determined tours as well as a botany excursion to selected sites. The artist wishes that the project “will act as a tool for knowing the port better. To know these places is another way of seeing how the territory is changing. In the future when most of these terrains will be developed or changed, the guide will remain as a document of how the harbour was in 2009.”
1.00 pm – Tour of the artworks in and around Futureland
You can view work by Paulien Oltheten and Hans Schabus and explore the nearby area picking up Ilana Halperin’s audio tour. Halperin created a compelling narrative of fragments which draws on fact, fiction and personal fieldwork – as well as site surveys by volcanologists, geologists and the experts involved in the construction of Maasvlakte 2.
1.30 pm – Performance 'Postpetrolistic Internationale'
The project by Swiss artists Roman Keller & Christina Hemauer emerges from the medium of the collective human voice, the tradition of the aspirational social anthem alongside the artists’ long standing interest in energy use. The project starts with the transportation of a wooden stage along the Rhine from Basel (where the Rhine begins), near the artists’ home, to Rotterdam (where the Rhine joins the sea). Upon arrival a local choir will perform this anthem of hope-in-action (composed by the artists in collaboration with musician Mathias Vette) on the stage, against a backdrop of local industry, to mark man’s changing relationship with fossil fuels and energy use.
2 pm. – Return to NAI Rotterdam with a number of stops at various art projects along the way: wastelands by Lara Almarcegui and works by Paulien Oltheten
3 pm – Arrival in NAI Rotterdam. End of the journey
'Portscapes' is an accumulative series of art commissions taking place throughout 2009 alongside the construction of ‘Maasvlakte 2’, a 2,000 hectare area of reclaimed land that will extend the Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest seaport and industrial area by 20%. Projects of variable scales will be produced under the leitmotif itineraries and destinations comprising tours, audioguides, performances, radio programmes, interventions, for example. + info...
Hinterland will be inviting specialists in the field of commissioning temporary site-specific art to present their practice. Alongside informal discussions with artists currently engaged in commissions for Hinterland, this one day event will question the responsibilities of artists when creating work in the public realm. Biographies of the speakers here. + info...
Location: Broadway Media Centre, Broad Street, NG1 3AL Nottingham, UK
Bookings: Contact Broadway Box Office, Tel. 0115 952 6611 or book online www.broadway.org.uk Tickets: £12.50, £7 conc. Complimentary tickets available for press
The catalogue – see images here – follows his recent exhibition at the SUITCASE Art projects space run by Beijing's Today Art Museum located at the Yintai Center, which took place between 22 May and 22 July this year. The catalogue includes an essay by exhibition curators Latitudes as well as numerous installation images of the project which spreads throughout eight window displays in three floors. Aballí's project responded to the retail context of the commercial center as well as an artistic history of absence, nothingness and invisibility.
'Nothing, or Something', softcover, 88 pages, 21 x 14,5cm, colour. Essay by Latitudes. English/Chinese.
Publisher: Today Art Museum
Publication of the exhibition catalogue 'Sharjah Biennial 8. Still Life: Art, Ecology and the Politics of Change (Part II)' (2007)
The Sharjah Biennial 8 has recently published the second part of the exhibition catalogue – see inside here – titled 'Still Life: Art, Ecology and the Politics of Change (Part II)' which includes installation shots of the 2007 exhibition as well as transcripts of the 3-day conference Latitudes organised in collaboration with the Royal Society of Art's Arts & Ecology programme back in April 2007 (+ info...).
568 pages, 23,3 x 16,5 cm, softcover; English/Arab.
Publisher: Sharjah Biennial; ISBN 978-9948-04-328-6 Part II
Latitudes is a Barcelona-based [41º23’ N, 2º 11’ E] independent curatorial office initiated in April 2005 by Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna. Latitudes collaborates with artists and institutions in the conception, organisation and production of exhibitions, public commissions, conferences, editorial and research initiatives across local, pan-European and international situations. Latitudes is on the editorial board of Archive Books (formerly The Bookmakers Ed.),Turin/Berlin and is a curatorial advisor for APT Intelligence. + info...