THE SCHEDULE OF THE OPEN INSTITUTE 2021/2022:
Open Institute programme is a training process realized through workshops and a practical part which covers inventing a concept and realizing an artistic activity engaging a community under the care of a curatorial team: Agnieszka Róż, Alicja Borkowska and Igor Stokfiszewski.
Meeting 1: October 9, 10
CREATIVE SENSITIVENESS
The first meeting will be opened with practical ways of building space for common work. We will think about the role of an artist, animator, activist in enhancing a community endangered with exclusion, with particular focus on migrant and refugee communities. In experiences and conversations, which will allow us to get familiar with our creative practices and with each other, we will think about how art builds a community and how it influences people actively engaged in artistic activities in their community. The meeting will be an active reflection in action on what it means to tell people’s stories and biographies in artistic work, and what possibilities and dangers come with it.
_________________
Agnieszka Róż – initiator and curator of the Open Institute. Builds educational spaces in the gestalt current, takes care of creative processes aimed at changing social attitudes and counteracting exclusion. Curator of i.a. Generator Malta within the framework of Malta Festival Poznań (2016- 2019), academy for women creators Neighbourhood – limits of proximity (2016-2019), activities for young people: Urban Relaxation Course, H2O The future will involve us (2020-2021), Experiment: DIALOG (2017). Consultant for intimate scenes in the emerging production “Immoral Stories” (2021), producer of the podcast series Familia – And in Poland about a non-heteronormative family (2020). Teaches how to design and implement socially responsible activities in cultural institutions, art and NGOs. Cultural educator within the programs Structures of Culture (National Very Young Culture Program, 2016, 2017), Center for Educational Practices (2016, 2015), Coalition of Cultural Creators (CIF, 2016, 2018).
Alicja Borkowska – founder and co-creator of Strefa Wolnosłowa foundation, director, culture animator, graduate of the Theatre Studies Department at The Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw and the Polish School of Reportage. She studied at the DAMS department at the University in Bologna where she collaborated with Teatro dell’Argine for many years. She directs performances, runs theatrical workshops for children and adults. For years as a part of Strefa Wolnosłowa foundation she has realized intercultural performances, workshops and theatrical activities.
Meeting 2: October 23, 24
COMMUNITY ART
Engaged art, dialogical art, interventionist art, relational art, contextual art, cooperative art, art in public space, site-specific art, art of new technologies – all of these descriptions refer to artistic practices complementary to community art, with which it is combined by the engagement of participants in creative activity, and they are based on participation. But community art is something more – it is an action in the frames of which the creator takes the role that facilitates the creative process realized by the community which decides on its course, goal, aesthetics, policy and final overtone. Community art is for the people a platform of expressing themselves and making a change of reality according to their own sensibility, convictions and needs. We will discuss the foundations of attitude towards contemporary community art on the basis of the examples of artistic-social actions.
______________
Igor Stokfiszewski – an activist, researcher and initiator of activities related to social theatre, community theatre, and socially engaged art. He cooperated with i.a.: the Łaźnia Nowa Theatre in Kraków, the Workcentre of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards (Pontedera, Italy), the German Rimini Protokoll collective, and artists such as Artur Żmijewski, Paweł Althamer, and Jaśmina Wójcik. As a playwright, he worked on plays directed by Wojtek Klemm, Agnieszka Olsten, and Bartosz Szydłowski in the National Stary Theatre in Cracow, the Studio Theatre in Warsaw, and the Współczesny Theatre in Wrocław. A co-curator of socio-artistic undertakings in post-industrial space: Zakłady. Ursus 2014 [The Works. Ursus 2014] and Ursus – spacer w czasie [Ursus – a Walk in Time] (2015). A member of the team at the Seventh Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2012). The author of the book titled Zwrot polityczny [A Political Turn] (2009), the editor of the ebook titled Culture and Development: Beyond Neoliberal Reason (2017), and a co-editor of the publications: Kultura i rozwój. Analizy, rekomendacje, studia przypadków [Culture and Development. Analyses, Recommendations, Case Studies] (2016), Built the City: Perspectives on Commons and Culture (2015), and Jerzy Grotowski. Teksty zebrane [Jerzy Grotowski. A Collection of Texts] (2012), and others. A member of the Krytyka Polityczna team.
Day 1 and 2
RELATIONS IN THE GLOBAL WORLD. INTERCULTURAL AND ANTI-DISCRIMINATION TRAINING.
The base for the workshop will be the intercultural experience of participants as well as various (traditional and innovative) methods of intercultural training. We will touch upon issues of diversity, intercultural sensitivity, today’s racism, ethnocentrism and cultural daltonism. We will discuss how to shape flexibility of perspectives and acceptance of otherness within ourselves in order to discover how it can become helpful during mindful work with others. We will work with body and voice: various techniques such as emotional release, shaking or bioenergetics with elements of intuitive movement will allow us to take a glimpse into ourselves. Coming back to our roots and actual needs will give an opportunity to build and develop intercultural competences. It is extremely valuable to have a good relationship with oneself and others in the World.
______________
Margaret Amaka Ohia-Nowak – linguist and culture expert, intercultural and anti discrimination trainer. In her workshops she uses the techniques of body awareness, shouting and breathing, NVC and self-awareness. She defended her doctoral thesis on racist expressions in Polish language. A graduate of specialist seminars on racism, xenophobia, communication of equality and multiculturality. She collaborates with Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Polish Humanitarian Action, Critical Education Association, Global Learning & Education Network and “Never again” Association. She is a FRIS® certified trainer.
Agnieszka Bułacik – is a queerfeminist creative and facilitator with a broad history of working in culture, arts, and education. Co-founder of new visions, an educational collective supporting cultural practitioners, change-makers, communities, and organizations in adopting new practices and approaches to become more equitable and inclusive. She has deep experience in holistic anti-discrimination and critical global education creating engaging, interactive, and compassionate learning spaces. As an educator and facilitator, she have facilitated numerous workshops across Europe impacting various groups by creating spaces for uncomfortable conversations about discrimination and unlocking capacities of imagination, compassionate self-reflection and critical thinking; created learning tools that facilitate self-paced learning, educational video materials, and published texts and photos dealing with the topic of systemic oppression.
Meeting 3: November 13, 14
FROM REALITY TO METAPHOR AND BACK part I: STREFA WOLNOSŁOWA FOUNDATION
How to translate the stories about migration into the language of art? How to tell, give voice, create connections between seemingly remote worlds? The meeting will be focused on outlining the currently most important issues concerning migrants and refugees coming to Europe and on reflection on drawing from culture texts about migration. We will try to place our local activity with migrant communities in the context of social-political events in the world, referring to our own experiences and stories at the same time.
ANNA ALBOTH – journalist and activist, focused mainly on the topic of minorities and migration, publishes in Polish and foreign media. The March for Aleppo she organized in 2017 was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She is currently working for a non-government organization Minority Rights Group (MRG) as a coordinator of a media project Media, Minorities, Migration. Together with her husband, she runs the „Family Without Borders” blog which was twice in the top ten on the list of the most influential blogs in Poland, and in 2011 received the “National Geographic Traveller” award for the best travel blog.
______________
Alicja Borkowska – founder and co-creator of Strefa Wolnosłowa foundation, director, culture animator, graduate of the Theatre Studies Department at The Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw and the Polish School of Reportage. She studied at the DAMS department at the University in Bologna where she collaborated with Teatro dell’Argine for many years. She directs performances, runs theatrical workshops for children and adults. For years as a part of Strefa Wolnosłowa foundation she has realized intercultural performances, workshops and theatrical activities.
Paweł Mościcki – philosopher, essayist and translator, assistant professor in the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, member of the Franz Kafka University of Muri. He is interested in contemporary philosophy, various areas of art (literature, theatre, cinema, visual arts), as well as critical political discourses. He is the editor of Maurice Blanchot. Extreme literature (2007) and author of books: Theatre policy. Essays on engaging art (2008), Godard. Passages (2010) and Idea of potentiality. The possibility of philosophy according to Giorgio Agambena (2013), We have also already our past. Guy Debord and history as a battlefield (2015), Photo-constellations. Around Marek Piasecki (2016), Pictures from the tradition of the repressed (2017), Chaplin. Predicting the present time (2017), Football lessons (2019). In 2015, together with the Strefa WolnoSłowa foundation he created the Refugee Atlas inspired by Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne and taking from the migrant and refugee stories. He also runs a blog: pawelmoscicki.net.
Meeting 4: November 27, 28
FROM REALITY TO METAPHOR AND BACK part II: CANTIERI METICCI
How to combine the motives, events and experiences of our everyday life with literature? This workshop will explore the methods of literary montage of existing texts with current events and direct experiences of participants of the artistic activities with the community. During the exercises we will be looking closer at the connections of a thematic and morphological character, creating texts as well as conceptual and emotional maps based not only on literature but also on other artistic, visual, documentary materials or philosophical texts. We will use the tools that enrich culture texts with analogies and also the ones that will allow us to deconstruct, transform or rewrite them into our own experiences. This workshop will bring us closer to Pietro Floridia’s method of work on scenarios of performative events with participation of communities, created i.a. in Italy, Maroko, Palestine, Iran or Brasil.
______________
Pietro Floridia – an actor, director, and writer. In 1994, he founded Teatro dell’Argine in Bologna and was its art director for many years. A dozen or so years later, he gathered 30 performers from 14 countries living at that time in Bologna and created the Cantieri Meticci organisation as well as the MET theatre and culture centre. For years he’s been working with multicultural groups, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in Italy. He stages plays and organises interactive theatrical performances engaging locals of places where he creates. He worked in such countries as Germany, France, Sweden, Morocco, Palestine, Brazil, Bolivia, and Iran.
Sara Pour – a visual artist, illustrator, and graphic designer. She comes from Iran and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. She cooperates with the Cantieri Meticci organisation in terms of scenography, theatrical props, and visual production. She organised art workshops for children and adolescents and worked at refugee centres. She pursues illustration projects and creates large-scale dolls, often as part of workshops with communities.
Meeting 5: December 11, 12
Day 1
INDIVIDUAL CURATORIAL CONSULTATIONS
Between December 13, 2021 and January 28, 2021, individual curatorial consultations will take place with the participants of the Open Institute regarding the moment at which they are in the implementation of their projects. We will discuss the challenges faced by participants, and we will try to find solutions to all the problems encountered during the implementation. Curatorial meetings will also provide an initial idea of the shape that the presentations of individual works can take with a view to summarizing the process of the Open Institute in March 2022. Together with the group, two dates will be set in December and two in January, when the curatorial team will be at the disposal of the participants of the Institute.
Day 2
DECOLONIZATION OF “THE WORLD OF ART” AND ITS PRACTICAL TOOLS.
Talking through artistic activities in public spaces.
Contrary to the “essence of artistic activity”, the “world of art” today is burdened with a multitude of dependencies and coordinate systems determined by market or etatist values, such as the positioning of artists, institutions and places. After a great global accident from 2020 (“Big accident” – a concept coined by the French philosopher Paul Virilio), can we shift some accents and, at least to some extent, deal with the return of good work ethics in audiovisual culture? Why will the Indonesian collective RUANGRUPA in 2022, in place of the former hegemonic curators, organize the largest artistic event, which is DOCUMENTA? What tools of contemporary art can be used to include “Others” in the processes that once belonged only to creators educated in art schools? When does art really become public? How and where to create artistic presentations so that they are directed to a wide audience? How do viewers change into participants?
____________
Krzysztof Łukomski – a researcher and a curator of artistic events. He deals with artistic education, teaches at the Intermedia Department of the University of Arts in Poznań and conducts workshops at the international design university School of Form. He focuses on new process-oriented methodologies and communication between participants. Together with Marianna Dobkowska he worked on two exhibitions and long-standing programs at The Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art – “Gotong Royong. Things we do together “and” Social Design for Social Living “(exhibition and program of activities at the National Gallery of Indonesia in Jakarta). For several years, he has been co-creating the cultural exchange between Poland and Indonesia. He is interested in interdisciplinary and performative experiences in contemporary art and social design, as well as community artistic practices. In educational practice, he uses travel as an art tool and creates team-works of artists, designers and activists. One of the team practices organized by him called “ART (OF) JOURNEY” was an official part of the Kathmandu Triennial program in 2017.
INDIVIDUAL MEETINGS WITH CURATORS
(four agreed on meetings in December 2021 and January 2022)
Between December 13, 2021 and January 28, 2021, individual curatorial consultations will take place with the participants of the Open Institute regarding the moment at which they are in the implementation of their projects. We will discuss the challenges faced by participants, and we will try to find solutions to all the problems encountered during the implementation. Curatorial meetings will also provide an initial idea of the shape that the presentations of individual works can take with a view to summarizing the process of the Open Institute in March 2022. Together with the group, two dates will be set in December and two in January, when the curatorial team will be at the disposal of the participants of the Institute.
Meeting 6: January 29, 30
SOCIAL ON-LISTENING pt. I
“Those who have never worked in a factory will never know that this is pure magic” – how to listen and strengthen communities deprived of agency.
As part of the Open Institute there will be two workshops (in the form of a meeting and exchange) with the research and artistic method of Jaśmina Wójcik, on examples of her many years of artistic, activist, animation and educational activities. They have become a tool of change beginning on a micro scale (each time connecting with personal observations and cooperation to build relationships and strengthen discriminated groups). The first workshop will be devoted to eight years of creative cooperation with former employees of the bankrupt tractor factory in Ursus, which was summarized in the feature-length creative documentary Symphony of the Ursus Factory (2018).
_______________
Jaśmina Wójcik – a visual artist, director, author of listening-focused, participatory socio-artistic actions. She deals with including and giving subjectivity to communities that lack visibility and expression. A co-editor of the book Art with the Community (2018) centered around her best known undertaking – a long-term activity with the community of former workers of the factory in Ursus crowned with the award-winning creative documentary film directed by her entitled Symphony of the Ursus Factory (2018). For several years, she has been involved in alternative education through the development of proprietary practices in the creation of children’s artistic expression. She gives agency and subjectivity to children, treating them as co-creators and inviting them to a dialogue. Currently, Wójcik focuses mainly on grassroots education practices, which will result in her new film based on the novel by Janusz Korczak, King Maciuś the First.
Day 2
LABORATORY. SOCIO-ARTISTIC PROJECT FROM THE SCRATCH / PT. I
Artistic, animation and activist work requires many managerial, production and often research competences. Often, wanting to contribute to strengthening the systemically excluded communities, to a fairer distribution of competences and goods, we confront the competitive grant award procedure, the lack of research and access to reports that help us understand the needs of given communities and cultural groups. In effect, we practice flexibility and soft competences in meetings with directors of cultural institutions, we learn after hours how to write grant applications and, often working over 8 hours a day, we try to combine our competences with a vision of a fairer world. The aim of the Laboratory is to develop hard, project skills for artists, animators and social activists by providing them with the necessary skills and knowledge in defining, building and managing socio-artistic projects so that the creation of socially responsible activities brings the assumed results and contributes to the creation of utopias in action.
_____________
Agnieszka Róż – initiator and curator of the Open Institute. Builds educational spaces in the gestalt current, takes care of creative processes aimed at changing social attitudes and counteracting exclusion. Curator of i.a. Generator Malta within the framework of Malta Festival Poznań (2016- 2019), academy for women creators Neighbourhood – limits of proximity (2016-2019), activities for young people: Urban Relaxation Course, H2O The future will involve us (2020-2021), Experiment: DIALOG (2017). Consultant for intimate scenes in the emerging production “Immoral Stories” (2021), producer of the podcast series Familia – And in Poland about a non-heteronormative family (2020). Teaches how to design and implement socially responsible activities in cultural institutions, art and NGOs. Cultural educator within the programs Structures of Culture (National Very Young Culture Program, 2016, 2017), Center for Educational Practices (2016, 2015), Coalition of Cultural Creators (CIF, 2016, 2018).
Meeting 7: February 12, 13
Day 1
LABORATORY. SOCIO-ARTISTIC PROJECT FROM THE SCRATCH / PT. I
Part two of the workshop with Agnieszka Róż, the purpose of which is to develop hard, project competences for artists, animators, social activists and activists by providing them with the necessary skills and knowledge in defining, building and managing socio-artistic projects so that the creation of socially responsible activities brings the assumed results and contributed to the creation of utopia in action.
Day 2
SOCIAL ON-LISTENING pt. II
“To reform the world means to reform education” (Korczak). Intuitions of change, paths of cognition, pedagogies that unleash mental stereotypes in artistic and educational practices.
During the second meeting with participants, Jaśmina Wójcik will talk about how to draw from your own experiences, failures, mistakes, how to listen to local communities and how working with the community can translate into educational work (Alternative Education Manifesto) – similarities, differences, challenges. The workshops will be aimed at strengthening the participants’ self-esteem, their unique path, allowing themselves to err, slow building and organic growth – not assuming growth as a goal, but enjoying the pleasure of living with others, even in different experiences or view
Meeting 8: February 26, 27
COMMON EXPERIENCE
This workshop will be focused on the recipients of the final presentations of common work done by the participants of the Open Institute, as well as on the meaning and sense that can be read from the artistic and social experiences designed by us. Just before inviting the viewers-participants we will consider the coexistence of objects and content in common space, we will talk about ways of building relations and smoothing the boundaries between individual works. We will look closer at the connections and formal procedures, as well as the effects they can bring on the people who interact with our presentations.
Leading: Alicja Borkowska, Agnieszka Róż, Igor Stokfiszewski
On Tuesdays March 1, 8, and 15 between 6-8 p.m. we are planning working meetings before summing up the process – installation presenting the projects created in the frames of the Institute.
INSTALLATION March 19, 20
ARTISTIC INTERVENTIONS OF THE OI 2022
Installation of the Open Institute – the record of participants’ work in the frames of their original projects with communities – will be opened in the center of Krytyka Polityczna Jasna 10. At the same time, the creative process will be presented online.
Meeting 9: evaluation – March 26, 27
EVALUATION
During the whole time of the Institute’s activity we will be encouraging you to consult the concepts of your work in the frames of group and individual tutoring meetings with Agnieszka Róż, Alicja Borkowska and Igor Stokfiszewski. In this concurrent process there will also be a place for deconstructing the knowledge of individual work and reflecting on its next steps. At the evaluation meeting we will talk about the methods acquired in the education process and we will think about the self-agency of our actions, possibilities and risks to common work, we will also reflect on our individual attitudes and exchange the good practice for the future.
Alicja Borkowska, Agnieszka Róż, Igor Stokfiszewski
https://strefawolnoslowa.pl/at_home_2024
