COMMUNITY
Poland

Art in a public space – festival or not?


This conference on art in the public domain and digital media was a part of the international Art Line project.

The role of art in the public domain is frequently discussed in the Tri-City artistic circles. One thing that has recently stirred up the discourse is the growing number of festival like projects with a more or less populist profile appearing in the urban space. The festivals vary in form and purpose, but what they all share is the common air of an ephemeral event. Often dubbed interventions in the public domain they aim to familiarize the average viewer with art.

What about the responsibility to local communities involuntarily exposed to and involved in such activities? What strategies, if any, could be employed to initiate cooperation with those locals who experience thousands of strangers flooding their streets in a quest for artistic projects? Should such interventions in the public domain be represented by institutions? Isn’t it then a contradiction? And last but not least, what is the public domain as such since it no longer belongs to an urban space alone?

The conference organized by the Gdansk City Gallery and the Baltic Sea Culture Centre adressed these and other issues. The curators and artists invited shared their experience of performing in the public domain. However, it is the inhabitants invited by the organizers who will remain at the centre of the discussion, both those accepting and rejecting such projects.

The project is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

Programme  (link to more information)

Art Line Gdansk 2013 | Conference
Art in the Public Space – Festival or Not?
Friday, 17th May 2013
9:45 – 10:00
registration
Contexts, spaces and commissioning
10:00 – 10:50 Martin Schibli,
What is it with Public Art that Makes it so Hard to Love it?
10:50 – 11:40 Dominik Lejman,
The Right to Space
11:40 – 12:30 Michał Bieniek,
Curator-Orderer: from the Context and Medium to a Curatorial and
Organisational ‘Failure’
12:30 – 13:30 LUNCH BREAK
Economy, funding and institutions
13:30 – 14:20 Kuba Szreder,
The political Economy of Public Art Projects
14:20 – 15:10 Michaela Crimmin,
Art for All? Observation, Participation, Collaboration and
Opposition in Contemporary Art Practice
15:10 – 16:00
Roundtable Discussion
Saturday, 18th May 2013
9:45 – 10:00
registration
Dialogue, conflict, site-specificity and the role of an artist
10:00 – 10:50 Julia Draganović,
Note on Time Based Public Art
10:50 – 11:40 Julita Wójcik
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Daily Life of a Festival
11:40 – 12:30 Agnieszka Wołodźko,
Discuss, not Decorate!
12:30 – 13:30 LUNCH BREAK
Festival, regionalisation and the public
13:30 – 14:00 Torun Ekstrand,
What and where is Art in the Public Domain?
14:00 – 14:50 Bettina Pelz,
Visual Seismographs
14:50 – 16:00
Roundtable Discussion
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