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:: CHANGING OF PLACES :: |
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CHANGING OF PLACES
2000-2001
Organizer: "The 8th of March"
group |
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Curator: Maria Vassileva, art critic
and curator
3, Fr. Nansen Street,
Sofia 1000, Bulgaria,
phone: 00359 2 319136,
00359 2 9872181;
mobile 098419003;
fax: 00359 2 9873378, 9885349;
email: mariaart@bol.bg |
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Project basis: Initiators of the project
are a group of women-artists, who during the past three years
were organizing together exhibitions, discussions and conferences.
For the first time in the history of Bulgarian art, through
their actions, some of the taboo topics, which till then were
considered to be priority only for men, were "pronounced
aloud". For the first time, women's point of view was directly
pronounced with it's all aspects - social, political and aesthetic.
This group calls itself "8-mi Mart" ("The 8th
of March"). Members of the group are led by their wish
to call society's attention to live problems from artistic and
social existence of the women in the present world. They do
not try to fight, or to ridicule with the men's part of the
society. Their main idea is to display by means of visual arts,
the point of view of the women, her feelings, sensations, ambitions
and views, as well as her failings.
Project description: The project "Changing of Places"
gets it's inspiration from the artist's wish to "look through
the eyes of the other", to project works of art on different
political, economic and social environment in order to be visible
to what extend processes in art fall under the influence of
these conditions. 11 women artists participate in this project:
5 from Bulgaria, 3 from Switzerland, 1 from Macedonia, 1 from
Rumania, and 1 from Austria. The idea is for the period of 10
days each of the participants to change her personal identity
as she occupies position of the "other" in her studio,
home, country, and world. The produced work of art has to reflect
this "moving" with all consequences of it. We pose
the following questions through this project: Do all women artists
speak the same artistic language? In what way does social reality
influence on the creative process? To what extend is a creative
person free? Can she disregard specific conditions? In what
way does contemporary aesthetics fall under the influence of
ideology, religion, politics? Are there any distinctions in
existence of the contemporary woman at her position as an artist
in different countries? Do we live in one Europe or in many
Europes? Can we use the language of art to approach the desired
common European home? We should remind here the words of Simon
de Bovoar that the feminine is nor a nature, neither a character,
but a condition, found by the civilizations on the ground of
some psychological facts.
Stages of realization:
A. Acquaintance with participants by means of electronic communication
and determination of a "new home" for each of them
B. Trips and work. This stage includes not only particular
work for each participant, but also compulsory keeping an
electronic diary - correspondence with the "host",
description of impressions from sojourn at the new place in
the form of text or picture, carrying on conversations over
the network
C. Exhibition at ATA center for contemporary art, Bulgaria
/installations, objects, artistic books, video, net-art, performances,
etc./
D. Catalogue and web-site
Sponsor: PRO HELVETIA, Switzerland |
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