Events
Decoding the Habitual. Symposium as a part of the 6th Tallinn Photomonth Biennial
The Symposium "Decoding the Habitual" concentrates on strategies and tactics of decoding and disclosing the policing mechanisms incorporated into the social system, including education, architecture, design and urban planning, digital etiquette and communication, environmental policies and more. Drawing from the concept of intensive places and analysing various spaces that represent the ‘society of control’ the Symposium speakers look more closely into how our minds and bodies are governed by invisible suppressive structures - to develop analytical spatial, digital and infrastructural literacy and awareness to work towards a more sustainable, happier and meaningful future. The Symposium is a part of the 6th Tallinn Photomonth biennial.
The discussion "Voicing the archive" is inspired by the archival and activist work of the Haifa Feminist Institute, which is based in Haifa, Israel. The HFI is a non-governmental feminist establishment of the activist group Isha Le’Isha ('woman to woman' in Hebrew) and home to the first and only queer-feminist archive in Israel. Sociologist and activist Jessica Nevo will speak about the HFI program ‘Tribunal’ and the work that the Institute conducts in order to make visible and decrease gender-based and intersectional violence in Israel/Palestine. Artist Ofri Lapid will present her recent reflections about working with the HFI documents of court observations from the 1990's, and excerpts from Maggie Nelson's book "The Red Parts". The event is held in conjunction with the "Voicing the Silence" apexart exhibition.
INTENSIVE PLACES. Main exhibition of 6th Tallinn Photomonth biennial
The main imperative of the exhibition "Intensive Plces" is to look for multifocal answers to the question: "How can we prepare for a future based on the principles of interdependency and interspecies cohabitation?" The exhibition is a network of intensive places connected through 13 projects by Estonian and international artists that hold historical, emotional, contextual and architectural significance for the city’s residents. The show is the main exhibition of the 6th Tallinn Photmonth biennial.
VOICING THE SILENCE. THE EXHIBITION
"Voicing the Silence" amplifies the positions of Russian and international artists, who contribute to the global feminist agenda through art. The exhibition, along with accompanying public programs, showcases ways of challenging social and gender norms, unveils state mechanisms that control women’s rights and reproductive decisions, and addresses feminist movements across different countries and historical contexts. The exhibition is an apexart internation Open Call winner 2020-2021.
Using the casino as an allegory of housing urbanization in accelerated capitalism, architect Merve Bedir will speak about the negative consequences of the global financial regime on the housing question, which resulted in humanless cities, vacant mega projects at the periphery of the urban sphere that do not respond to people's demands. Speculation on public housing has become gambling, not only gambling by global investment but also through national guarantee schemes, which are funded with public tax budgets. The presentation will bring forward these aspects in a transnational and global context with building or investment cases from Turkey, Qatar, and Hong Kong. The event is a part of "Get Real!" online discussions series.
Matīss Groskaufmanis. The Architecture of Together and Apart
Artist Matīss Groskaufmanis will discuss the architecture of an individual apartment in context political shifts in the 20th century East Europe, and today. Several case studies in Rīga will illustrate how one of the most ubiquitous forms of modern urban dwelling has been instrumentalized both by state and extra-state power structures as means of social, economic, and ideological reform. The talk will trace the recent history of the individual apartment, and its function as an object of a social contract, a unit of economic exchange, and most recently—as an immunological bubble. The event is a part of "Get Real!" online discussions series.
Nucleus of Capital
Exhibition Nucleus of Capital by artist Nina Støttrup Larsen (DK) is unfolding the shielded connections between France/EU and the monetary union called the CFA Franc. The CFA Franc (in 1945 incorporated as Franc of the French Colonies in Africa) - the official currency issued in 14 states of West and Central Africa, the former colonies of France. While other European countries ended their monetary control when the colonies were granted independence in the 1950s and early 1960s, France has continued to manage and govern monetary processes in the region until today. Visually, linguistically and historically, this colonial continuum remains obscured in Europe since the 1960s, which results in the fact that this current major sub-currency of the Euro is little known about, at least in Europe. The exhibition brings to light and bolsters public discourse around these camouflaged processes by which the French and EU economy undermined the sovereignty of the 14 states in the CFA zone.
Ingrid Ruudi. Estonian Soviet and Post-Soviet housing from a feminist perspective
The talk will provide a brief overview of housing policies and architecture in Estonia during the Soviet and Post-Soviet periods with an additional aspect on gendered use of residential spaces. Similarly to the other Soviet socialist republics, industrial methods in mass housing construction were introduced in Estonia with the Khruchchev thaw in the end of the 1950s, and modernist free planning based on the model of microrayons continued well into the 1980s, resulting in big homogenous residential areas with a scarcity of public amenities to support housing. Re-establishment of independence in 1991 culturally and socially meant a strong desire to return to the pre-war values, including a living standard and a family model embodied in a private house, generating a remarkable wave of suburbanization from the end of the 1990s till today. In the talk Ingrid Ruudi will outline some possibilities for an intersectional feminist analysis of those changes in residential patterns over the past half a century. The event is a part of "Get Real!" online discussions series.
Chad Freidrichs. Exposing of urban mythology and history of housing development failure. Case study: Pruitt-Igoe, St. Louis, USA, 1954 - 1976
The conversation with documentary filmmaker Chad Freidrichs will focus on the tragic story of The Pruitt-Igoe public housing development in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Completed in 1954, the government-sponsored 33 11-story buildings became homes for many underprivileged families and people with lower income. Twenty years later the whole housing project was declared unfit for habitation and demolished. In his famous film ‘The Pruitt-Igoe Myth’ (2011) Chad Freidrichs conducts an investigation on the Pruitt-Igoe story and reconstructs a complex picture of city politics and urban policy behind the American modernist architecture. The film also serves as a platform for the voices of St Louis residents who were discriminated against based on their race and social status. The event is a part of "Get Real!" online discussions series.
Architect and architectural historian Dr Zvi Efrat will discuss the Israeli horizontal housing block project of the 1950s and its aftermath as a political symptom of a regime of centralist control over lands, infrastructure, planning, production, and population mobilization. He will argue that only an authoritative state apparatus (or a proto-state monopolistic organization such as the Labor Federation) has the territorial drive and the administrative capability to seize and nationalize lands; to annul existing parcelizations; to disperse ad hoc “facts on the ground”; to lay wasteful infrastructure across the landscape; to devise random urban and architectural compositions; to dictate and regulate zoning and building standards; to duplicate, replicate, and mutate at every scale; and to charge baseline generic architecture with patriotism (“ingathering of the exiles”) and welfare-state (“melting pot”) rhetoric. The event is a part of "Get Real!" online discussion series.
Consumer credit and mortgages have emerged as pivot institutions affecting lives of vast majority of Russians. For many of them consumer loan appears to be the only available strategy for upward mobility and therefore considerably impacts individual and family strategies. This makes credit the foundation of political power and dependence in Russia. Credit limits and structures collective action and radically reshapes the nexus of relationship between individual and community. Drawing on the findings of an ethnographic study, sociologist Greg Yudin will point out three political premises and effects of the current spread of consumer credit in Russia. The talk is a part of TOK online discussion series 'Get Real!'.
WILF SPELLER. Dream Homes: The Speculative Aesthetics of Luxury Real Estate Marketing
Artist Wilf Speller will critically examine the contemporary forms and motifs of luxury real estate marketing as reflections of the modes of production typical to the commodity landscape from which they emerge. In particular they will focus on the CGI videos used for the sale of off-plan property that, Wilf argue, do not only project a particular image of the world, but that the very mode of imaging used in their production reflects the technoaesthetics of the neoliberal ideology. In his argument Speller engage with form through a Marxist analysis of the commodity form as well as a politico-aesthetic understanding of ideology. The talk is a part of TOK online discussion series 'Get Real!'
Artist Ola Hassanain will deliver a compilation of spatial analyses that explore the dynamics between state and people in the context of Khartoum (Sudan) and will discuss how architecture, the physical environment and/ or the Urban-scape are implicated in manifesting terror. The analyses draws from experiential narratives from different positionalities of women as critical spatial practice that evokes a notion of "the Outdoors" as a possibilty to collectively exist outside of state spatial dominance and terror. The talk is a part of TOK online discussion series 'Get Real!'
ANNA ZHELNINA. "Good" Housing and "Bad" Neighbors: How The Housing Demolition Program Divided Muscovites
As a part of the series of online discussions about housing policy "Get Real!" a sociologist of urban studies Anna Zhelnina will talk about housing activism that was instigated around the housing renovation program in Moscow. She will touch upon the socio-political processes that were revealed and the mechanisms were launched by the Moscow's "Renovation".
On November 3, TOK curates an online debate about elections as a platform for representation of the people's collective will. The international group of speakers, while observing the U.S. elections live, will discuss the very mechanisms and procedures in different contexts and potential alternatives to them. The conversation will also reflect on the manipulation and suppression of voters and election processes in different countries. Central to the discussion will be the theme of political imaginary and the role of art and social science (academia) in articulating both current and visionary political horizons.
Interdependency as a Condition. Symposium as a part of the IV Arctic Art Forum
The international curatorial symposium organized, initiated and curated by TOK will serve as a knowledge-production component of the IV Arctic Art Forum by addressing regional issues in relation to the global context through the lens of contemporary curating, artistic production and research, and the potentiality of forms they may take. Landing the symposium on the context of Arkhangelsk and the Arctic region, TOK continues a series of public events about radical democratic structures and projects of contemporary curators, artists and academic researchers that analyze and articulate the conditions of contemporary realities.
Off to Space: Counternarrating the Cosmos
Off to Space: Countenarrating the Cosmos is a group exhibition bringing together works by 6 international artists and collectives dealing with contested narratives, public history and turbulent contemporary political contexts by analyzing and revisiting space exploration strategies that started in the 20th century as attempts to widen geopolitical influence, accumulate power and make utopian futures possible. Presenting space exploration from positions of ethnic minorities, women, animals, small communities, dependent economies and displaying how affected space representations have always been by current dominant ideologies and political visions, the exhibition is a platform for discovering a variety of counterfuturisms and temporalities and offers artistic ways of reclaiming displaced stories and representations of the past and future.
Get Real! Art, Gentrification and Real Estate in the Time of Political Crisis, Climate Change and Shrinking Resources
On October 12, the 5th season of the “Critical Mass” will launch with an open discussion with the artists participating in the new season. Entitled ‘Get Real!’, it is devoted to the emerging and complex issues of housing, real estate and contemporary and historical housing conditions in post-socialist and neoliberal contexts. All the speakers will talk about their projects and initiatives dealing with the issues of real estate and its ownership, diverse housing programs and projects, social urban landscapes and participation of citizens in decision making on city level. TOK curators will speak about their research in the framework of the 5th season of ‘Critical Mass’, which will take place in the South-West of Russia.
Curatorial Turns From Feminist and Intersectional Perspectives. Talk by Mirjam Westen
In her presentation curator Mirjam Westen at the Museum Arnhem (The Netherlands) will focus on expanding formats of contemporary curating that require new contexts of collaborations and interactions. Relying on her experience of connecting female artists of different generations throughout her practice, she will highlight historical and current projects by feminist artists and curators who have redefined curatorship and will elucidate how these new visions have influenced her practice as a curator.
How To Work Together. TOK retrospective exhibition
Feeling the need to analyze the current conditions of the curatorial profession, which have been shaped over the past ten years by political, economic, and environmental degradation, TOK is organizing a retrospective exhibition «How To Work Together» about the duo’s practice and the role of a curator in the contemporary society. TOK curators will showcase archival materials, video interviews, and objects commissioned from artists reflecting the global and local transformations of the past ten years These chronological markers, that have defined the current political agenda, will be mapped alongside the stages of TOK’s development, and will allow us to reflect upon the change in society and within all of us.
Transcending Realities, Overcoming Borders and Creating Structures. Curatorial Symposium
As a part of the 1st Curatorial Forum, organized by the North-Western branch of National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) ROSIZO, TOK will curate an internaitonal symposium that will focus on extending territories of curatorial and artistic practices as well as changing conditions of curatorial profession. Together with the local art community we will analyze the role and impact of curatorship in rethinking historical discourses and reshaping understanding about publicness, sharing, and solidarity in the artistic domain.
Cosmic Ecology: Reimagined Futures, Rediscovered Pasts
The discussion between curator Maria Veits, artists Andréa Stanislav (USA) and Axel Straschnoy (FI) and President of the Finnish Astronautical Society Mika Javala (FI) is instigated by the returning space race and the impact it has had on the environmental, political, economic, and social climate in historical perspective and contemporary context. We will discuss alternative, non-official and silenced narratives connected to the topic of the space and will explore various artistic formats of presenting counternarratives about the cosmos from female, ethnic, racial and ecological perspectives. The discussion is a part of the Shelter Festival in Helsinki.
Yiddish Cosmos. Solo exhibition of Yevgeniy Fiks
In 'Yiddish Cosmos' artist Yevgeniy Fiks offers an alternative view on the Soviet history - by looking at it from the position of the Soviet space conquest and Soviet Jewry, it creates a futuristic narrative where the ideas of technological development merge with the principles of Yiddish culture and reinterpretation of the figure of a Soviet refusenik and his struggle for liberty of movement. The exhibition addresses the history of antisemitism in the USSR, connection between the Jewish and dissident movements, and attempts of the Soviet Jews to preserve the Yiddish culture despite governmental persecutions.
Fast Forward to the Future: the Festival
The two-festival in Södertälje (Sweden) grows out of an intense week of workshops that aims to decode the host city of Södertälje by bringing young people's stories and images back into the streets with the help of artists from Russia and Sweden. Utilizing activist methods through city parade, text/poetry, mental maps, news production and urban sound exploration as well as co-creating the realities of tomorrow through formulating utopian scenarios via performance and collective printing. The festival, which is a part of the 'Fast forward to the Future' project revolts around three main themes: "Youthopia", "Recode the city" and "Youth and urban-related identity: that's what matters".
Debates on Division: When Private Becomes Public. Part 5
'Debates on Division' is an ongoing, interactive performance that deals with the complexity of current political reality and its implications. What begins as a fictional TV talk show with invited actors and artists ends with a performative procession to the European Parliament. Gluklya and Anna Bitkina thus aim to create a public forum that highlights different forms of human fragility and traumas caused by deviating from established political structures.
FreiAir. We give without receiving. Project by Aleksandra Wilczynska
FreiAir Airline project (in Hebrew ''freier'' is used to describe someone who is easily fooled) is an art initiative that takes form of a fictional airline company. It is an experimental collective process of challenging the economic system and power relations in the neoliberal society and suggesting other forms of reciprocity and capital exchange. The FreiAir Airline audiences are invited to co-create a new enterprise of “freierness” and contribute to developing the new company, which main slogan "We give without receiving" subverts the idea of economic reciprocity and financial profit.
Habitat Vol 1. Project by Ksenia Yurkova
Keniya Yurkova decided to enter communication with the community in a peculiar way. Making small installations using leftover of previous tenants, or reshaping common areas, even pranking a management company, she provoked discussions among the community members struggling with an unexpected and uninvited intrusion. Through interventions into spaces, through small transgressions questioning the guest status, then she pursued questions about vulnerable boundaries between notions of public and private, and conditions where hospitality turns into hostility.
Penal Labor. Exhibition and performance by SashaPasha
Consisting of a performance, home videos, archival documents and found objects, the project revolves around the 'penal' ('pencil case' in Russian) of Pasha’s grandfather that became a symbolic object for the family reminding about the deportation of Ingrian Finnish population both by the Soviet authorities and the Nazis and hard labour of GULAG prisoners in the camps during and long after the war, which mainly dealt with tree cutting and woodworking.
Finnish-Russian School: Immigration as Actualization
The lecture will address the significance of the 1990s wave of immigration from Russia to Finland and the relations between the two countries through the prism of school education. Performed in the format of a school field trip, the lecture links theoretical interest to personal experience. Back in 1964, the school was built on the outskirts of Helsinki, and up until 1990s it served as a singular educational experiment in Soviet-Finnish relationships.
The launch of the 'Monument to a Scientific Error'. Ilya Orlov
The new piece by Ilya Orlov presented in the Kallio library refers to literary theorist and critic Victor Shklovsky and his short period of exile in Finland. The sculpture is based on the early 1920s avant-garde visual motives and is dedicated to “Monument to a Scientific Error” (1930), the article that can be seen not as an opportunist text but rather a statement about the end of the formalist theory that didn’t fit into the new political reality.
Anatomy of Karelian Enthusiasm. Lecture event by Minna Henriksson
In her lecture event Minna Henriksson will talk about similarities in discourses of ‘race’ in different periods of time in Finland toward Ingrians and other ethnically Finnish-related peoples in the Russian territory. The lecture will take place in the former Anatomy theater that is now part of the University of Helsinki.
New Icons. Exhibition by Kalle Hamm
In the focus of the newly commissioned series of prints by Kalle Hamm is the complex relations between homosexuality, gender identity and the institute of church as well as their representation in religion.
Performing Words, Uttering Performance. Screening Chapter #2 of D'Est platform
TOK Сurators and Inge Lāce will present the chapter Performing Words, Uttering Performance as a part of the 'D'Est: A Multi-Curatorial Online Platform for Video Art from the Former ‘East’ and ‘West’. The chapter focuses on works that reflect upon shifts in language and meaning and employ diverse silent, verbal, performative, activist, and other strategies to discuss collective and personal memory, identity, power relations, gender roles, and socio-political change.
Russian-Finnish Speech Karaoke. From personal to political
The Speech Karaoke – as the name suggests – works in a similar way to a traditional karaoke. Instead of choosing between songs from a booklet, the user chooses between speeches. Within a relaxed atmosphere one can listen to speeches delivered by other karaoke bar guests – or try out how it feels to interpret someone's speech. Russian-Finnish Speech Karaoke will be based on texts in Russian, Finnish and English that touch upon political and human relations between Russia and Finland.
To be a feminist. Feminist art agenda in Finland and Russia
Art history is filled with names of male artists objectifying women but by by the end of the 1960s female artists determined to break free from the art world's oppressive structures. In her lecture Dr Katarina Lopatkina will discuss what strategies women in Russia and Finland used to reclaim their own voices in the society and arts. The lecture will take place in Monica Multicultural Women’s Association that assists immigrant women in Finland.
Yöväenteatteri / Nightshift theatre
Yöväenteatteri / Nightshift theatre is a series of miniature performances by Livsmedlet theater that directs our perspective towards unnoticed destinies and stories inside urban landscapes. The performances are based on interviews of recent Russian emigrants who moved to Finland. Interactive format of the performance that can be viewed by no more than 10 people at a time makes it very intimate and relatable to all audiences, whether they've experienced migration or not. The performance will be held in the Helsinki city center and a priavte apartment.
Russian Bar: Why Relocate? Moral Choice or Political Action. Conversation between Ilya Budraitskis and Sezgin Boynik
On June 6 at Publics TOK will launch its new project ‘The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? New approach to neighborness and interchange’. The first part of the project will open with a conversation between artist, historian and writer Ilya Budraitskis and artist and researcher Sezgin Boynik, who will discuss the legacy of the Cold War and its effect on the cultural policy in the global and local sociopolitical and cultural contexts.
Fast Forward to the Future
The international conference ‘Fast Forward to the Future’ organized by TOK, a concluding event of the 4th season of the project ‘Critical Mass’, will analyze how various artistic and social practices might be involved in creating new ways of interacting and exchange with young people. Artists, curators, designers, architects, historians, policymakers and educators from Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany and The Netherlands will present the results of their theoretical and practical research and experiences gained during work with the youths. The presentations will touch upon the history and current context of youth movements in Russia and Europe, principles of shaping youth policies in the situations of sociopolitical, economic and cultural challenges and the role of art in building up perspectives for young people.
Politics of Design. Public talk with Ruben Pater
Under the name Untold Stories Ruben Pater creates visual narratives about geopolitical issues. Projects are initiated in which research is followed by visual ways of storytelling for a wide audience, creating new relations between journalism and design. During his talk at the 'Mayak' school Ruben will speak about his past and ongoing project, his vision of design as profession and mission and his recently published book 'Politics of Design'.
Bringing together artists born in Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Russia, and Tajikistan, who experienced migration in the early age, Dreamland Never Found raises issues related to rethinking and redefinition of the concepts of memory, identity, torn connections and belonging to one’s roots in today’s world when we witness large-scale processes of migration and reshaping of borders and nations. It also addresses exile from the perspective of longing for childhood memories that intersect with bits of collective history and search of the past that is nowhere to be found. Turning to the antecedent and questioning what the future holds participating artists reexamine Soviet history through personal lenses and reflect upon the drastic changes in the 1990s that they juxtapose with the current processes at the post-Soviet territory.
I've Got The Power!
Performative talk show “I’ve Got the Power!” deals with media reality, propaganda and post-truth with the participation of experts on media studies, journalists and exhibition artists. Speakers include Maxim Alyukov, Saara Ratilainen, Kalle Hamm, Alevtina Kakhidze, Anna Bitkina, and Maria Veits. The show anchorman is Denis Maksimov (Avenir Institute). Organized as part of the exhibition STATES OF CONTROL
‘States of Control’ aims at constructing a continuous dialogue between artists and the public of different ages and generations in order to stimulate critical thinking around the topics of information manipulation, the history of propaganda, post-truth and constructing news during times of political unrest. The exhibition proposes and tests different methods of historical analysis, journalistic investigation, and creation of additional media discourses by artists from multiple countries and backgrounds. The exhibition is the largest event of the project 'States of Control' curated by TOK in Helsinki.
Like It! Fake it!
The red velvet curtain installed by Lado Darakhvelidze in the store-front window of Alkovi, juxtaposes historical political figures and iconic images and characters of today’s visual culture and media. Being extremely ideologically and politically charged, the images are combined with allegories of the mass and social media, the main tools of ‘cooking’ our worldview and opinions today. The work opens the project 'States of Control' on media realities, propaganda and post-truth curated by TOK in Helisnki.
Debates On Division: When Private Becomes Public. Part 4
‘Debates on Division: When Private Becomes Public’ consists of a performance in Deichmanske Bibliotek in Grünerløkka, a public procession in the Grünerløkka area and an exhibition in the RAM Gallery. Constructed as a TV talk show the performance (r)evolve around personal stories of young people, aged 15-20, who live, study and work in Oslo. Young individuals of different ethnic and subcultural backgrounds bring to light important issues relating to their social and political positions, attitudes towards governmental structures, youth policy in Norway and visions of the future.
‘(De)constructing Borders’ is the first exhibition of contemporary video art from Israel in Dnipro. It brings together videos and video installations by prominent and emerging Israeli artists, who in their works address various boundaries that we face in our everyday life - territorial, political, religious, ethnical, mental, public and personal. The concept of borders as well as processes of enforcing, moving and destroying them have always been crucial for all societies and considering the recent global sociopolitical transformations this issue becomes urgent again on international level. For many Israeli artists, reflection on questions of dis/integration, collective identity and memory, contested history and ideological changes have been central in their work and thus the exhibition focuses on processes and phenomena relevant not only to Israeli society but other countries as well.
During his talk in Taiga, Samuel will show a few of his video projects, most of them are linked to street photography and multiple ways of using the city. He's also going to present some of his projects as a designer and carpenter that he has done individually or with other European design and architect collectives. He will address topics that he finds relevant for his practice and will speak about artistic nomadism, public spaces, building relations with inhabitants and communities, carpentry work, recycling, travelling, working together, and street photography. Sam is a residenct of the 4th season of the project 'Critical Mass'.
Stefan Constantinescu. Artist talk
TOK Сurators are pleased to invite you to an artist talk with Ştefan Constantinescu, new resident of the 4th season of Critical Mass. Ştefan is a visual artist and film director living and working in Stockholm. He works with various mediums including film, artist books and paintings approaching the political through introspection to challenge notions of identity, while working in and with issues of post-communist Romania. His work is often strongly autobiographical. Within the work, monuments are challenged as permanent inscriptions of memory, fictional films resemble unofficial documentaries, and artist books challenge history and education. The artist talk of Ştefan will revolve around his residency research, complete and ongoing projects and films.
Dream Cartographers. Performative conference
In order to achieve something one has to turn a dream into a goal and make a detailed plan of its realization - this principle has been the motto for the residency of artist Alevtina Kakhidze in St Petersburg. The participant of the 4th season of TOK’s project ‘Critical Mass’ has been working with young people from the youth club ‘Energiya’ for three weeks. Over this time they have been discussing each other’s hopes and plans and Alevtina has been helping the young people to create individual routes of achieving their dreams. All the individual routes are to be presented at the event concluding Alevtina Kakhidze’s residency, which will be held in the format of a performative conference ‘Dream Cartographers’. All dream achievement strategies will be revealed!
Alevtina Kakhidze will hold an artist talk and speak about her recents works created for a number of large-scale international projects and biennials such as Manifesta 10, 6th Moscow biennial of contemporary art, performative program ‘Cabaret Kultura’ organized by the ‘V-A-C Live’ at the Whitechapel Gallery in London and some others. This presentation will lead to a discussion of Alevtina’s latest practice - teaching drawing to children and creating gardens with kids and grown-ups. Art works of Kakhidze are based on personal experiences and imagination, talking about consumer culture, gender, love, culture of protest, experience of war, plants and animals.
Urban animation: giving life to memories of the city
Every place carries stories for those who inhabit it. These stories consist for example of historical information and of personal memories that becomes associated to a location for different reasons. In Sandrina Lindgren’s and Ishmael Falke’s theatrical works as the “Livsmedlet theatre” the stories of the cities and its people are mixed and altered with the help of visual theatre. In this talk Ishmael Falke and Sandrina Lindgren will present their work on public spaces as well as their approach to community art. Through examples of previous works and through a short presentation of their current work with the Petrogradsky youth club performance group Rain People, Livsmedlet will discuss the term “urban animation” as well as their approach to political theatre.
Role of art institutions on the city periphery: case of Stockholm
At the public seminar four curators will present projects of the prominent Stockholm-based art centers and will outline their main principles and practices revolving around work with local communities, neglected territories and representatives of different social groups. Curators will speak about the role of their art institutions at the outskirts of Stockholm and their participation and engagement in to the life of the peripheral areas where they are located. The main focus of the seminar will be collaboration of artists and curators with young people and the ways of their involvement into art and socially-oriented projects.
The exhibition 'Very Special Person' is a result of collective work by the Finnish artist Anne Siirtola and a group of teenagers from the youth club 'Meteor' in St Petersburg. During a month they worked together on creating a series of costumes and masks. Every newly created object appears to be a portrait of its author, an attempt to understand their feelings and emotions, listen to oneself and tell one’s story through clothing. During the workshop sessions Anne and the kids would discuss a variety of issues - from social expectations imposed on them by society to the contradictions between our inner self and its projections into the public space and the exhibition appears to be a reflection of these discussions.
Participatory practice: art that creates shared experiences
In her talk Finnish artist Anne Sirtola will speak about her finished and current projects including the project ‘Living Villages’ that took place in Karelia and brought together linguists, artists and local Russian and Karelian speaking communities. She will also present her work in progress ‘Family Stories’ based on the interviews with senior citizens in New York and will talk about the video project she will be working on together with young people of the youth club ‘Raduga’ in St Petersburg during her residency. Anne combines installation, moving image and sound in her work in order to explore interaction and encounters between people.
During their residency in the framework of the project "Critical mass " Avenir Institute together with young leaders from the youth centre "Sreda" created a board game about the future. They discussed possible scenariso of the future and talked about the unpredictable events, which may become as enormous opportunities for development, and the point of the recession and the loss of capacity for moving forward. Critical analysis in relation to the future and its joint planning conducted by Avenir Institute and their project participants will be presented in a format of a board game for children and adults. Come and play!
Subjective Future Scenarios: Youth, Public Space and Mindsets
Denis Maksimov and Timo Tuominen will spend four weeks in residency in St Petersburg and create a new collaborative performative project with young members of one of the city's yoth clubs. In their public talk they will speak about their reseacrh and methodologies influenced by critical theory and post-structural philosophy and continuous projects in collaboration with external partners from various backgrounds of expertise. The processes and results of the investigations are presented in variety of mediums - performance lecture, installation, text, publication, digital art, visual art, design, etc. Potential of the future is one of the main interests of Avenir Institute.
REPRESENTING THE OTHER IN MEDIA AND ART: ETHICS AND POLITICS
The third and final public discussion of TOK at Flux Factory will focus on ethics of representation in the spheres of art and media and nuances of the professions of a journalist and a curator when it comes to describing 'the Other' to various audiences. Invited participants will speak about the process of building/broadcasting political contexts and creating certain narratives in the media during political conflicts and changing relations between countries. We will also discuss the representation of 'the other' in art using as an example the exhibition curated by Olga Kopenkina 'Russia: Significant Other' in 2006 and will analyse the change of representing 'the enemy' in contemporary art and in visual mass culture over the last few years.
Reacting to Changing Political Context: Art in Public Spaces in Russia
During their residency in New York, TOK will conduct a public discussion at Bard College. The curatorial duo will speak about new artistic, activist and social initiatives which have emerged Russia over the last few years as a reaction to the political, social and cultural changes in the country. The discussion will specifically focus on artitstic and curatorial practices taking places in the public sphere and in dialogue with various urban communities.
Propaganda News Machine: Constructing Multiple Realities in the Media
TOK’s first show in New York ‘Propaganda News Machine’ explores the notion of propaganda, processes of constructiing news and designing multiple realities in the media today. The exibition attempts to present, analyze and unveil some of the strategies that governments use in order to create specific images of political and social events and thus influence audience’s opinions and shapу their vision of the global political arena.
Political Conflicts: Media Strategies and Construction of Multiple Realities. America vs Russia. Kitchen Talk 2
The conversation will revolve around the processes of news construction and design in the media today. Also, how audiences' opinions are being formed and shaped by ideologically charged media information and what strategies governments use in order to create a certain image/view of a political or social event for viewers. Are there alternative sources of information? What are ways to stimulate a critical approach amongst viewers to mainstream media sources when we are presented with very convincing (but misleading) information? The talk will gather journalists, filmmakers and scriptwriters interested in the Cold War era, covering the political processes of today.
Conversation on Russian-American media and ideology. TOK Kitchen talk 1
The conversation will focus on the role of the media in forming and broadcasting ideologically charged discourses in the global political and informational context. During TOK’s research at Flux, they will take a close look at the strategies of constructing information that were designed in the era of mass television development and reflection of the Cold War in the media and will see whether some of them are still used today.
Creative practice as a social agent: recent artistic, curatorial and design projects that foster social change
International conference, initiated by TOK as a final event of the third season of their ongoing public art project ‘Critical Mass’, will be dedicated to the recent socially engaged creative practices that foster various social changes in different European and Russian urban environments. The conference will bring together leading international artists, curators, designers, heads of art institutions and researches that have rich experience in socially engaged art practices. At the conference they will share successful and sustainable cases of their practices, exchange knowledge, experiences, working methods as well as touch upon such issues as possibilities, function and territory of art within society.
A new spot has appeared in the cultural map of St. Petersburg. 'Critical mass - 2015' has landed in the Lopukshinskiy garden and will be staying for more than a month! Interactive banner with local residents' stories has appeared on the garden's fence, memorial signs are everywhere to be seen and we have also built some furniture for the community picnic! Time to celebrate - we look forward to seeing you at the opening!
The aim of five little interventions by Kalle Hamm and Dzamil Kakamnger is to return Gromovia pulchella back to the Gromovsky Garden and make its travelling story continue via the Internet and postal mail. We do not want to set up colossal monuments, but rather create little situations, with interacts and activate local park users and show history of the Dacha Gromova through the plants point of view. Artists wish that Gromovia pulchella will be blooming in flower pots again in the garden one day in the future.
Emma. Design and construction workshop by raumlabor
Designers raumblabor are famous for their projects in the urban context that connect different people through collective creative work in the public spaces. Thus they construct not only objects that can be used by communities but design new social interactions open for people of different ages and backgrounds. Join their workshop and create some park furniture at the Lopukhinskiy garden! .
Add your story! Creating an interactive historical banner
In their lecture at Small projects TOK curators Anna Bitkina and Maria Veits will speak about various activist and social practices in contemporary Russian art and will present to the residents of Tromsø the idea of their new project Russian bar that the collective wants to realize in town in 2016. The main idea of the Russian bar is to create a discursive platform for discussions, collective thinking, cultural collaborations and informal gatherings. This project is important for a support of the existing cross-cultural ties between Russia and Norway, which have traditionally been strong and should be maintained this way. It is crucial especially now in a situation when Russia tend to be in cultural isolation due to the recent political events. One of the important aspects of the projects is engagement of the Russian-speaking community of Tromsø into shaping the activities and format of the 'Russian bar.
Artist talk: Meir Tati
In his presentation at the Pro Arte Foundation Tel Aviv based artist Meir Tati will talk about his activities as an artist and the Director of Community and Education Department at MoBY - Museum of Bat - Yam, in the political climate in Israel. He will also speak about his new project Sharashka, which is to a large extent based on his research of the Stalinist repressions in the USSR and current political agenda in Russia and Israel.
The project 'Mobile Archive' hosts its last event in Russia before leaving the country and moving further - an artist talk with Ruti Sela will take place in Niznniy Novgorod on December 12th before the project closes on December 14th. In Arsenal, Ruti Sela, who received numerous art prizes and widely exhibited internationally, will speak about her artistic practice.
"Mobile Archive" in Nizhniy Novgorod
The traveling collection of Israeli video art "Mobile Archive" finishes its trip across Russia and makes the last stop in Nizhniy Novgorod, where at the center of contemporary art Arsenal the local audience can see up to 1500 video works by Israeli and international artists including Yael Bartana, Dor Guez, Sigalit Landau, Guy Ben Ner, Avi Mograbi, Nira Pererg, Public Movement and many others. The project will be accompanied by public talks and screenings.
Artist talk: Omer Krieger
In the framework of 'Mobile Archive' project artist and curator Omer Krieger will speak about his projects related to the public sphere. He wil touch upon actions and perfromances of Public Movement group, festival of new public art 'Under the Mountain' and his collaborations with other artists and various communities.
Art That Heals (Historical) Wounds
At the conference “Dealing with the past” that will take place at The Sakharov Center in Moscow on October 18-19, 2014 the curator Anna Bitkina will talk about art practice that becomes a means of collective therapy and a re-experience of the traumatic historical events for a community. As an example she will speak about a famous re-enactment by the British artist Jeremy Deller 'The Battle of Orgreave: An Injury to One is an Injury to All'.
In the exhibition ‘Outlined Absence’ that comprises two video works by the artist ‘Black and White Rule’ and ‘Mother Economy’ as well as her large-scale charcoal drawings, Maya Zack analyzes the mechanisms of collective and personal memory and explores the intersection between individual recollections and historical events. The show is a part of the parallel program of Manifesta 10.
"Mobile Archive" in Yekaterinburg
"Mobile Archive" keeps moving across Russia. Its next station is Yekaterinburg, where from September 23 to October 26 the visitors of the National Center for Contemporary Art will have a chance to see more than 1500 video works by leading Israeli and international artists. The project will also inclide atist talks and series of screenings.
Guided walikng tour "Dachas and mansions of the Petrograd side"
The Petrogradskaya side of St Petersburg has always been famous for its beautiful mansions and residential houses built in the 19th century. Take a guided tour with us to know more about their history, architecture and residents.
Decontextualized performers and remote controlled audiences
On Friday Stefan Kaegi, the theatrical director from Berlin, will talk about new theatrical performances which its Rimini Protokol theater realizes in public spaces with participation of residents. Event is held within the "Critical Mass on the Gromov's Dacha" art project.
Creative and Social Practices That Change the City and Citizens
On Thursday on the Gromov's Dacha in the Lopukhinsky Garden within educational eventss the lecture "The Creative and Social Practics Changing the City and Its Inhabitants" will take place. Curators of TOK will tell about the Russian and international art projects within which artists and citizens create common art projects in city space.
Open Doors Day on the Gromov's Dacha
On July, 21 in St. Petersburg a long-awaited series of public events within the "Critical Mass on the Gromov's Dacha" project opens. In the opening program: presentation of the development plans of the Gromov's Dacha, opening of the photo exhibition about stories of Petrogradsky district, excursion on the dacha, presentation of the design project of Foundation Projects (Netherlands) created specially for a mansion, the DJ a set.
Debates on Division: When the Private Becomes Public’
‘Debates on Division' is an interactive performance by Natalya Pershina Yakimanskaya (Gluklya) about political, social and ideological divisions as well as about the position of the individual amidst those conflicts. The performance begins with an action at the New Stage of the Aleksandrinsky Theatre and continues with a silent procession along Nevskiy Prospekt. The procession is a part pf the public program of Manifesta 10
Hodja Nasreddin Joke Contest
The purpose of the project of Olga Zhitlina is to show a view on the migration, different from the picture offered by modern mass media. In its framework the artist suggests migrants to think up a witty exit from the typical difficult situations which they come upwith, living in Russia. Within a final competition of the project everyone will be able to try on himself Hodzhi Nasreddin's role and to participate in the battle for the first prize. The best jokes will be presented in a format of interactive performance.
Jeremy Deller. The Battle of Ogreave: an injury to one is injury to all
For the first time in Russia TOK presents The Battle of Orgreave: An Injury to One is an Injury to all (2001) - a film by by Mike Figgis based on the re-enactment of the bloody clash between miners and police in England in 1984 created by Jeremy Deller in 2001. The film will be screened from June 28 to October 31 as a part of the parallel program of Manifesta 10 in St Petersburg.
Silent Among Us
Silent Among Us is the first exhibition in St Petersburg that comprises works by leading Israeli video artists including Yael Bartana, Dor Guez, Sigalit Landau, Glad Ratman and many others. The exhibition takes place at Loft Project ETAGI from April 11th to June 11th, 2014.
Artist talk: Dor Guez
Dor Guez is an artist and scholar from Jerusalem whose installations combine diverse modes of video and photographic practices. Guez's work raises questions about contemporary art's role in narrating unwritten histories, and re-contextualizing visual and written documents. Guez will speak about his works at the opening of the project Mobile Archive in St. Petersburg.
"Mobile Archive" - Israeli video art in St Petersburg
From April 7th to April 30th TOK presents a unique collection of Israeli and international video art 'Mobile Archive' at the Pro Arte Foundation in St Petersburg. More than 1500 video works by Israeli artists including Yael Bartana, Guy Ben Ner, Dor Guez, Sigalit Landau, Avi Mograbi, Public Movement and many others will be available for viewing for the public.
Socially engaged and public art in St. Petersburg: changing the cultural map of dormant districts
MariaVeits will speak about art projects in public spaces in Russia and the city of St Petersburg in particular as well as of the concept of public space in Russia today. The talk will be joined by the Duesseldorf-based artist Andrea Knobloch.
Art as an instrument of social change: art practices in public spaces
During the seminar international specialists will discuss the problems of contemporary art in public spaces, will speak of how they use social practices in their work and how they interact with the different urban communities using their projects and organizations as examples.The seminar is the closing event of the TOK's project 'Critical Mass' in 2013.
Socially integrated design: new ideas for traditional spaces
International conference on socially integrated design. In the framework of the project 'Design Platform'.
Strategies of preserving the old and creating the new in the urban space: cases of the Baltic region countries
Architects, sociologists, city activists and curators from Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Gdansk, Vilnius, Riga and Moscow to discuss ways of connecting the historical heritage and modern trends in the organization of urban space in the capitals of the Baltic region. Special guest - the deputy director of Stockholm City Planning Office of Stockholm Niklas Svensson.
Critical Mass 2013 opening
Second international exhibition of public art Critical Mass will take place at open venues and in public spaces of Frunzensky district of St. Petersburg from May 23 to June 23 .
Russian and international public art: curatorial and art practices that change the city and citizens
Speaking of works by international and Russian artists, the curators of TOK will talk about the evolution of public art, its impact on the urban space and interaction with the public and local communities.
Redesign of school spaces: how to make them appealing for pupils?
In the course of the project Design Platform aimed at transformation in public schools, TOK found out what kind of changes teachers, pupils and their parents expect. Project co-curator and sociologist Maria Veits will present the results of the research conducted in one of the St. Petersburg schools and the suggestions of architects and designers based on the research outcome.
Democracy never happened
How to engage a local community in creating a public art project? How should an artist start a dialogue with the citizens? And are there at all people who would like to work on a common project? Let's discuss it with the artist Asia Komarova who has experience of successful work with communities in Holland and will now try to challenge people from St. Petersburg to make an art project all together.
Spatial Complexities. Relations, learning and power in architecture and the built environment.
Spatial conditions influence our everyday practices even if we often don't think about it. In this talk Swedish architect and architect Ebba Hogstroem will highlight some thoughts on how space is used and experienced and how spatial awareness relates to empowerment.
Projects
Get Real! Online discussions series
"Get Real!" is a series of online discussions about housing policy and new forms of (co)existence with participation of Russian and international artists, curators, sociologists, architects, anthropologists, historians, local storytellers and natives of city areas. The project strives to test and demonstrate the possibilitis of contemporary art and curatorial practices to infiltrate into such social structures and institutions as housing, territorial legislation, urban infrastructures and citizens' associations.
Critical Mass. Season 5
In 2019 - 2020 TOK’s most continuous and long-term project ‘Critical Mass’ swings in its 5th season. Entitled ‘Get Real!’, it is devoted to the emerging and complex issues of housing, real estate, contemporary and historical housing conditions in post-socialist and neoliberal contexts. Throughout the two years we will explore the issues of housing construction, distribution and ownership that concern residents and authorities of all the world's major megacities. Rising real estate prices, gentrification, growing population, large-scale hosing projects on sites of demolished architectural monuments and in city outskirts are radically changing urban landscapes and power relations in the cities. Many people are forced to move out from the city center due to business developments and renovation projects.
Fast Forward to the Future: Empowerment of Young People Through Arts
'Fast Forward to the Future: Empowerment of Young People Through Arts' initiated by TOK and Grafikens Hus (Södertälje, Sweden) is a polyphonic platform where young people can express their opinions about the themes that they find important and engage into a public discussion with people of different ages and background. Invited artists, performers, journalists and educators help them use for that various artistic formats for that - from large-scale posters, zines and videos to sound installations, performances and public actions that will take place in St Petersburg and Södertälje in 2019 and 2020. The results of the project will be reflected in a bilingual publication that can be used by artists and educators in youth-targeted artistic and social practices.
The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? New approaches to neighborliness and interchange. Part 2
The Creative Association of Curators TOK continues its project "The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? New approaches to neighborliness and interchange" with a series of events, exhibitions, lectures and performances. From August 27 to September 9, newly commissioned projects which aim to analyze changing conditions of global migration in recent years and the outflow of artists, academics, journalists, activists from Russia in particular, of both Russian and Finnish artists will be presented in different locations in Helsinki.
The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? New approaches to neighborliness and interchange
'The Russian Bar: Why Relocate? New approaches to neighborliness and interchange' is a research-based art project aimed at analyzing the ‘new wave’ of emigration of Russians to Finland. It will be presented as a series of performances, talks, artistic interventions and small-scale exhibitions in different venues in Helsinki in June and August-September 2018. In their existing and commissioned works Finnish and Russian participants will address current and historical cases of exile and displacement, roots of nationalism and social acceptance, communication and exchange, disappointment and civil powerlessness, social and cultural clashes and reciprocity.
States of Control
The project ‘States of Control’ brings together artists, researchers and curators from a vast geographical background: Georgia, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, Sudan, Ukraine, Poland, and the USA. They refer both to recent and historical phenomena spanning a wide spectrum from opposition of the USSR and the US during the Cold War and controversial position of Finland during that time to espionage tactics in Egypt and Israel in the 1960, and the recent conflict between Russia and Ukraine. In their projects artists use diverse methods to address the multiple ways in which facts (or fiction?) are conveyed by media, mass culture and education to shape the realities we exist in. Focusing on different historical periods and current events the project participants create their own tactics of speaking about the past and the present to force a ‘memoryless’ society out of its comfort information zone.
Critical Mass. Season 4
The fourth season of the project ‘Critical Mass’ lasts for two years and focuses on an analysis of the history of youth movements in the 20th century and the contemporary context of youth initiatives and organizations. It showcases collaborative initiatives with teenagers and young people and facilitate their active engagement into contemporary creative processes, especially those taking place in the urban environment and public space. The main objective of the fourth season of ‘Critical Mass’ is the integration of new artistic, educational and social practices into government organizations working with young people and involved in youth oriented policy making.
Critical Mass 2015. Season 3
Third season of the project 'Critical Mass' is focused on the issues of preserving cultural heritage and analysis of history and cultural collective memory. The main goal of the project this time is to form sustainable scenarios of revitalizing historical buildings and areas using creative and social practices. The venues of the project is a historically significant spot in St Petersburg - the Gromov's Dacha and Lopukhinskiy garden.
Young curators & art operators network
"Young Curators & Art Operators Network" is a curatorial network of young and emerging curators from the North-West Russia and Sweden/Nordic countries initiated by Intercult (Stockholm) and Creative Association of Curators TOK (St Petersburg). The main objective of the network is to stimulate dialogue and cooperation between art professionals interested in sustainable curatorial and artistic practices in public spaces as well as research-based multidisciplinary projects that bring together and connect various communities anf groups.
Critical Mass on the Gromov's Dacha
Third exhibition of public art "Critical Mass" will take place in the Gromov's Dacha, the unique wooden building of the 19th century, in summer-autumn 2015. In July, 2014 TOK arrange a series of the preparatory activities consisting of lectures, performances, summer school and research in order to open the dacha for citizens and to collect a material for the planned exhibition.
TOK at Manifesta 10
TOK curates three and produces two projects in the framework of the public and parallel programs of Manifesta 10, which is held in St Petersburg from June 28 to October 31, 2014. Represented artists include Jeremy Deller (UK), Olga Jitlina (Russia), Gluklya (Russia), Emily Newman (US), and Maya Zack (Israel).
Mobile Archive
Design Platform
Design Platform is an international project of socially oriented design launched by TOK. It is aimed at bringing innovations into the learning environment of Russian public schools and make it more interesting, interactive and open for pupils using contemporary design practices and solutions.
Critical Mass 2010-2011. Season 1
Critical Mass is an international biannual project of public art which explores urban life in a big city, using St. Petersburg as an example. Organized and curated by TOK, Critical Mass is a platform for artists, curators, social scientists and citizens for discussing urban issues and creating beautiful and interactive public art works.
Nordic Art Today
The project Nordic Art Today initiated and organized by TOK brings contemporary artists and curators from Nordic countries to Russia. We want to introduce to the local audience the most interesting examples of artistic and curatorial practices dealing with critical approach in contemporary art.
Towards the Other
The international art project Towards the Other offers the audience a wide range of perspectives on migration, which has become an essential part of Russian and European reality. The project is organized by The Netherlands Institute in St. Petersburg and Creative Association of Curators TOK.
News
ТОК will curate the main exhibition of the Tallinn Photomonth biennial
The Tallinn Photo Month Biennale of Contemporary Art will be held this year for the sixth time (01.09–17.10). Its main exhibition will be curated by the Creative Association of Curators TOK, who were selected based on the results of a closed competition. The exhibition will take place at the Estonian Museum of Contemporary Art (EKKM) from 3 to 17 October 2021. Tallinn Photo Month is an international biennial of contemporary art, initiated by the Estonian Union of Photographers (Foku) in 2011. This year “Photomonth” and its main exhibition will contribute to the establishment of cooperation between the art-cultural communities of the Baltic region and Russia. For the first time, curators from Russia have been invited to develop the concept of the main exhibition. The exhibition and symposium will bring together artists and researchers from different countries - from Sudan to Ireland - who, in their practice, turn to the issues of decolonizing architecture and abandoning the hierarchical approach to the formation of urban spaces and communities.
ТОК will take part in organization of the IV Arctic Art Forum "Ecosystmes of the Invisible"
IV Arctic Art Forum "Ecosystems of the Invisible" organized by Arctic Art Institute in partnership with the Creative Association of Curators TOK will take place during October 10 - December 30, 2020. The Forum will take place online and will comprise exhibitions, screenings, seminars and discussions. The Forum will present artistic, curatorial and research practices of examining the Global North and its ecosystms and aimed at (re)creation and reenactment of unknown and excluded Arctic historical narratives anf contemporary contexts. The key event of the Forum is the symposium 'Interdependency as a Condition" conceptualized and curated by TOK.
TOK has received Innovation-2020 Art Prize
1 Curatorial Forum, organized in 2019 by the NCCA - St Petersburg in partnership with the Creative Association of Curators TOK, has been awarded the All-Russian Prize "Innovation-2020" in the category "Regional Project"
REALTY script presentation at the Dutch Art Institute
For the past year curator and co-founder of TOK Anna Bitkina took part in the seminar REALTY as a part of her studies at The Dutch Art Institute. Realty has focussed on the role of Contemporary Art in recent histories of urban development and gentrification. As groundwork, participants of the seminar have focussed on conditions and analytics specific to the Netherlands and Athens.