Gathering for Rehearsing Hospitalities Autumn 2022
A selection of case studies from the Arte Útil archive was on display as part of Gathering for Rehearsing Hospitalities, a 4-days convening organised by Frame in Helsinki (5-8 October 2022).
This year’s programme focused on practices that deal with the redistribution of power, wealth, and resources within the art field and society at large.
The programme highlighted institutional, curatorial and artistic practices that go beyond offers of hospitality, and transgress unbalanced forms of power distribution, such as those instilled in host and guest dynamics. Rather than simply working through “inclusion” and “invitation”—which often privileges the host—we imagined what the decentralisation and redistribution of institutions, land and public life and the power they hold, might do to support a more equal and just arts ecology, and world. How might redistributing power and wealth remove some of the access barriers which block marginalised communities from participating in and (re)forming the fields of arts and culture?
On October 5th archive researchers and coordinators Gemma Medina and Alessandra Saviotti introduced the evolution of the Asociación de Arte Útil, its archive, and the selection of case studies on display. They presented examples focused on redistributing power, resources, and knowledge within and outside the artistic institutional sphere.
The Arte Útil archive and the Asociación have challenged artistic and institutional paradigms and their contradictions. Starting from collective effort as an imperative to expand the discussion and research around the possibilities of art as a tool to affect change in daily life, the archive–this selection of projects in particular–questions the conventional models (structural and organisational) that regulate our existence. They activate and foster other forms of survival, communal ways of organisation, and collaboration between artists and other professionals. In this way, such projects allow for decentralisation of economy and knowledge.
During the presentation, Medina and Saviotti focused on the notion of interdependence and the porosity of Arte Útil’s case studies, highlighting other ways of approaching the practice of art, both inside and outside the art world.
Gathering for Rehearsing Hospitalities autumn 2022 programme was organised and curated in collaboration with artist, curator and storyteller Farbod Fakharzadeh, LAPS – Live Art and Performance Studies at the Theatre Academy of Uniarts Helsinki, artist Iida Nissinen and art educator Kaura Raudaskoski, and Steve Maher, producer of Pixelache (2019–2021) together with Mary Conlon, Artistic Director of Ormston House in Ireland, Frame’s Head of Programme Jussi Koitela and associate curator Yvonne Billimore.
Contributors include Marwa Arsanios, Anastasia Artemeva & Arlene Tucker (Prison Outside / Free Translation), Federica Bueti, Birgit Ærenlund Bundesen, Florian Carl, Dahlia El Broul, Ida Enegren, Johanna Hedva, Sigrid Holmwood, Isa Hukka, K-oh-llective (Nada Elkalaawy, Engy Mohsen, Mohamed Al Bakeri, Soukaina Joual, Rania Atef), Pilvi Kalhama, Xenia Kalpaktsoglou, Kaisa Karvinen, William Keohane, Raija Koli, Eva Koťátková, Jenni Laiti, Anissa R. Lewis, Jemina Lindholm, Gemma Medina Estupiñán & Alessandra Saviotti (Arte Útil Archive), Massimiliano Mollona, Eoin O’Dowd, Paul O’Neill, Vishnu Vardhani Rajan, Farid Rakun (ruangrupa), El Reid-Buckley, Anna Rieder, Sandra Ruiz, Ailie Rutherford, Station of Commons (Grégoire Rousseau, Minerva Juolahti & Eddie Choo Wen Yi), Anna Talasniemi, Minna Tarkka, Meenakshi Thirukode, Hypatia Vourloumis and Mike Watson.
The live notations by Yvonne Billimore, created for each discussion, are available as PDFs on Frame’s website.
The Rehearsing Hospitalities Companion 4, is available as PDF on Frame’s website.