Vision Forum (art organisation)

Vision Forum is an organisation that carries out research in contemporary art and organises events that transgresses the boundaries between performance, exhibition, workshops and education. It grew from a series of events organised by Curatorial Mutiny in collaboration with KSM[1] at Campus Norrköping, Linköpings Universitet[2] in Sweden 2005-2007. Vision Forum took its present form in 2008. It does not have a physical location or a program, but responds to the needs of the group of artists, curators and researchers that are part of the network at any given moment. Its members are mostly based in Europe and have carried out projects all over the continent, in North America, Australia and Asia. In 2009, Steven Whitmarsh, a Dutch brain researcher joined the group showing that the organisation can host members outside of the artistic community. A strategy that has been developed further in subsequent years.[3]

Workshops and Public Presentations

Yang Zhifei's performance in Beijing that was part of The Invisible Generation, October 2009.

In 2008-09, Vision Forum organised two major projects. (Anti)Realism[4] brought together young contemporary visual artists based in Sweden, China, Great Britain, Holland and France.[5] The first part of the project was a practical workshop that took place in Guangzhou, China, in September 2008. The European participants developed collaborative projects with their Chinese peers that focused on time-based art.

”The title and the conceptual framework of the workshop (Anti)Realism was created to look into the differences and similarities of how we look at reality (both as individuals and as members of different cultures) and how that can be used to further our understanding and appreciation of life. The project allowed the participants to both understand differences between European cultures, as well as how these differ from Chinese contemporary art and life.”[6]

The results of the workshop were presented to the public at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art and a second were later developed into an exhibition which was shown at Verkstad in Sweden, Ècole Régional de Beaux Arts de Besaçon in France and at Adele C in Italy.[7] Parallel to (Anti)Realism Vision Forum created four workshops in Rome,[8] Zürich,[9] Amsterdam,[10] and Stockholm.[11] These involved a completely different group of artists and curators from (Anti)Realism and focused on architecture, artistic production, curation and presentation respectively.

The Development of Nodes

Video stills of Dinu Li's performance on the Shenzhen Metro that was part of The Invisible Generation, November 2009.

In 2009-10, Vision Forum focused on four major projects or “nodes”. They were each made up of a number of artists and curators who, like the Vision Forum workshops in 2008-09 met regularly. The nodes were held together by all doing research on time and temporality in different ways. “If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse” was curated and developed by 1:1 Projects in Rome.[12] The project was focused on workshops in Rome, Skopje and Paris. At the last meeting, the participants reformulated themselves into “OuUnPo” (Workshop for Alternative Universes), inspired by French literary group Oulipo. The participants organised a public event at MACRO in Rome and at Tate Britain in London [13] in spring 2010 under the new name. Ouunpo has since then carried out events in Porto, Athens, Belgrade, Amsterdam-Nijmegen, Stockholm-Norrköping[14] in collaboration with art and science institutions like Deste Foundation and Max Planck Institute. Australian artist duo A Constructed World started “Speech and What Archive?” which continued its activities in 2010-13.[15] The node focused on alternative forms of communication and organised events in Paris, Nice, San Francisco and Melbourne working with art institutions like Villa Arson and CCA. Curator Claire Louise Staunton carried out research which later lead to the creation of the temporary gallery “Inheritance Shenzhen”[16] in the Chinese region of Guangdong.[17] This project was developed in Milton Keynes in 2011 with a large exhibition, seminar and publication.[18] They then travelled to Chandigar and as an outcome of this research the node presented an exhibition about British architect Jane Drew and the artistic work that flourished around her at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London in 2014.

The Invisible Generation

Installation view of poster project “Young Dictators” (Hitler as child), by Per Hüttner at public location in Melbourne, September 2009.

The fourth major project realized in 2009-10 was The Invisible Generation.[19] It was conceived by artist Per Hüttner and Curator Daniele Balit and created new meeting places between art and its audiences. A great number of projects were realized in Melbourne, Shenzhen, Beijing and Kiev in 2009-2010. For each city the program and artist list was totally new. No, project was ever repeated twice. The project always allowed the audience to meet art in new and unexpected situations and played with or confused the audiences’ expectations about what art is, where it normally appears and what shape it should take. In the introduction to the project in the catalogue Gerrie van Noord writes:

“The Invisible Generation is a collection of artistic interventions that spread virally across the continents of our globe. It used the artistic and curatorial network of Vision Forum as a platform to multiply and make its way into the perception of people in unexpected spaces of selected cities around the world. The project takes its starting point in performative traditions, but focuses on practices and events that cross over into other time-based activities such as sound, film, video, literature, theatre and workshops and draws inspiration from other related fields such as journalism, fashion and design, but also from those further removed like mathematics and physics”[20]

Redefining Communication

Since September 2011 Vision Forum organizes two international workshops a year in Östergötland in Sweden. These bring together members of the different international nodes (in 2012 Vision Forum ran 10 nodes) and interact with local institutions and art organizations. This means that the research carried out in the individual nodes have started cross referencing and exchanging methodology between each other. Vision Forum, through its structure, develops modes of communication and knowledge production that make use of current technology. The nodes of the network also allow a deeper dialogue with their audiences that, in their turn, are inscribed into in numerous interconnected networks.[21] It has become increasingly clear that the network focuses on research about how art uses, retains, distributes and develops knowledge along with how this can be fed back into the everyday lives of art's audience.[22] This ties in with Vision Forum's founder Per Hüttner's work that can be exemplified by projects like I am a Curator”,[23] Democracy and Desire[24] and (In)Visible Dialogues and have allowed them to participate in collective work in the Caribbean and in biennials in Brazil.[25] The methodology builds on Deleuzian ideas about knowledge and creativity and has been developed in Vision Forum’s nodes and networks, particularly in OuUnPo. This idea of exchange is based on co-producing knowledge with the collaborating institutions and audiences, rather than a top down knowledge distribution. The strategy that they call "collapsing the global with the local" is currently being developed by the network in collaboration with Global Art and the Museum at ZKM in Karlsruhe.[26]

Residency and Interdisciplinary Activities

In 2011 Vision Forum started publishing books and catalogues regularly to document its activities.[27] The organisation also started to produce experimental films in a separate node called Vision Forum Film. Two films were in Production in 2012: "Effektivia" directed by Jesper Frilund and Marcus Fernstad and "The River" by Sino-Swedish director Ting Ting Yang (杨婷婷).[28] In June 2013 Vision Forum opened an international residency program called "Norrköping Air.[29]" The program was initiated in collaboration with KSM at Linköpings universitet, IASPIS and offers three artists the opportunity to work in parallel Sweden for 3 months during the Swedish summer months. The project focuses on experimental art in public spaces, drawing inspiration from the Invisible Generation and similar projects and was developed in close dialogue with the centenary of Norrköping Art Museum.[30]

Selected Workshops

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

Selected Exhibitions, Performances and Projects

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

Publications

References

  1. ↑ KSM website (in Swedish)
  2. ↑ University website
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Time Capsules and Conditions of Now, Edited by Fatos Ustek, David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK and Vision Forum 2012, ISBN 978-91-978934-6-6.
  4. ↑ Documentation of workshop and exhibitions
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Youth, Youth, Youth, p. 120-121, Catalogue Produced by Huang Xiaopeng, Guangzhou At Academy, Guangzhou, China, 2008
  6. ↑ (Anti)Realism, Numéro 1, D'Ailleurs, Cold Mountain, France ISBN 978-2-9518588-4-8
  7. ↑ Youth, Youth, Youth, p. 87, Catalogue Produced by Huang Xiaopeng, Guangzhou At Academy, Guangzhou, China, 2008
  8. ↑ Documentation of workshop organised by Formazero
  9. ↑ Curatorial workshop in Zürich organised by White Space and other local players.
  10. ↑ Utopia workshop in Amsterdam
  11. ↑ The Stockholm syndrom organised by Good TV at Konsthögskolan Stockholm
  12. ↑ Blog devoted to the project
  13. ↑ Yane Calovski, Obj'ct, Ed. Basak Senova, Ponder Pause Process (a situation), p. 90-97, Zorlu Center Art Collection, Istanbul, Turkey ISBN 978-605-63320-0-5
  14. ↑ Music for Works, Takahashi and Miliani, Jacopo Miliani - Do you Believe in Mirages, a+mbookstore edizioni, Milano, 2012. ISBN 9788887071429.
  15. ↑ The project’s official blog
  16. ↑ Article in Artforum picks by Robin Peckham
  17. ↑ Documentation of the Gallery’s activities December 2009 – April 2010
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 http://www.mkgallery.org/education/projectspace/community_without_propinquity/
  19. ↑ The Invisible Generation, published by Vision Forum, Stockholm, Sweden, 2010. ISBN 978-91-978934-2-8
  20. ↑ Gerrie van Noord, p.8 The Invisible Generation catalogue, published by Vision Forum, Stockholm, Sweden, 2010. ISBN 978-91-978934-2-8.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 OuUnPo[RTO], edited by Claudia Squitieri and Samon Takahashi, texts by OuUnPo, designed by Åbäke published by Dent-de-Leone and Vision Forum, 2013.
  22. ↑ The Invisible Generation, Gerrie van Noord, 2011, published by Curatorial Mutiny and Vision Forum, Sweden. ISBN 978-91-978934-2-8
  23. ↑ Hüttner, Per (2005). "Introdictionary". I am a Curator (DOC). Stockholm: Föreningen Curatorial Mutiny. ISBN 91-631-5132-4.
  24. ↑ Democracy and Desire, 2007, 158 pages (A3) including 10 colour fold out pages. Languages: English, Swedish, Spanish and Rumanian. Design by Åbäke. Published by Vacio 9 and The Rumanian Cultural Institute. ISBN 978-91-633-0548-1
  25. ↑ Lisette Lagnado, p.134 Formas Unicas da Continuidade no Espaco, 33 Panorama da arte brasileira, Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
  26. ↑ OuUnPo and Globalisation on Global Art and the Museum website
  27. ↑ The Organisations website for publications
  28. ↑ Vision Forum Film, edited by Rudi Heinrichsen, translated by Yan Rong and designed by Erik Månsson. Texts by Rudi Heinrichsen, Per Hüttner, Yang Tingting, Jesper Frilund and Rebbecca Catching. published by Vision Forum, 2013. ISBN 978-91-978934-8-0.
  29. ↑ David Isaksson, Norrköpings Tidningar, p. B2-3, 20 July 2013
  30. ↑ http://norrkopingair.blogspot.ch/
  31. ↑ http://vfvolume.blogspot.fr/
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 http://www.ghettobiennale.org/project/artist-list/
  33. ↑ http://vision-forum.blogspot.com.br/2013/09/vision-forum-autumn-meeting-2013.html
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 http://ouunpojapan.blogspot.fr/
  35. ↑ http://temporality-and-dis-location-of-self.blogspot.se/
  36. ↑ http://vision-forum.blogspot.fr/
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 http://vision-forum.blogspot.hk/2012/08/vision-forum-autumn-meeting-2012.html
  38. ↑ http://ouunpolebanon.blogspot.fr/
  39. ↑ http://visionforum-unitedpeople.blogspot.com/
  40. ↑ http://visionforum2011.blogspot.com/2012/02/program-vision-forum-spring-meeting.html
  41. ↑ http://visionforumouunpo.blogspot.com/2011/08/program.html
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 (In)visible Dialogues, 2011, Edited by Per Hüttner and Elias Arnér. Published by Dent-de-Leone. ISBN 978-91-978934-3-5 and ISBN 978-0-9561885-5-7
  43. ↑ Introduction to Yane Calovsky’s project at Tate Britain which hosted the Vision Forum event.
  44. ↑ Christophe Bruno’s blog with documentation and information about the event.
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 45.2 45.3 Speech Objects, curated by ACW and Etienne Bernard, edited by Anna Hess and ACW, published by Musée de l’Objet, Blois, France
  46. ↑ Time Capsules and Conditions of Now, 1 multifold page and cover, b/w, edited by Fatos Ustek, with contributions by Fatos Ustek, Lisa Skuret, Vanda Playford, Kaz, Ole Hagen and Soledad Garcia. Published by Vision Forum and David Roberts Foundation 2012
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 The Quantum Police, with texts by Anne Klontz; Johnny Ross and Willie Hansen (1969) and a short story by Wang Xiao Ping (in Chinese and English). Published by Lambert Gallery and Vision Forum 2011, ISBN 978-91-978934-5-9.
  48. ↑ 48.0 48.1 48.2 SWANewspaper, 16 pages, colour, edited by Anna Hess et al (Speech and What Archive). Published by A Constructed World 2011.
  49. ↑ 49.0 49.1 49.2 The Invisible Generation, 2011, Published by Curatorial Mutiny and Vision Forum. ISBN 978-91-978934-2-8
  50. ↑ The exhibition’s official website, where Vision Forum co-organized Pauline’ Jardin Curnier and Les Vroum’s participation in the project.
  51. ↑ Pressrelease and links to other collaborators
  52. ↑ Press release and press images
  53. ↑ Official OCAT website
  54. ↑ Intro to the project on Birdcage website
  55. ↑ Info and press release on Italian art site Undo.net
  56. ↑ Excerpt from video installation onYoutube

External links