WE PARAPOM! Lectures and artist talk in English on 2 July, from 2 pm
Topic: How can art activate new and lost qualities in our everyday lives?
The art project "WE PARAPOM! - European Parade of Apple Trees" is one of the first visible projects in the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 programme. Up to 4,000 trees of different European apple varieties are to be planted along an axis across the city and across property boundaries.
As part of their research into the development of an art project/artistic intervention for WE PARAPOM! July, the artists Zbyněk Baladrán, Amica Dall/Assemble, Paul Rajakovics/transparadiso and Apolonija Šušteršič will present their working methods and selected projects. The event will take place from 2 to 5 pm in the former EDEKA supermarket/shopping centre (Bahnhofstraße 62, 09111 Chemnitz).
In the subsequent exchange with the audience, cultural actors from the city, all interested Chemnitz residents and guests are invited to propose topics for WE PARAPOM! and discuss them - with reference to current social issues in Chemnitz - together with the artists present and urban ethnologist Kathrin Wildner. The exchange of different perspectives on the city, experiences and wishes will open up new visions that leave the "unfeasible" behind and strive for the impossible.
After the event, there will be an opportunity to visit the MOVING GARDEN art installation by Maider López(www.movinggarden.de). The meeting point for this is 18:30 on Brückenstraße.
Background:
The apple tree plantings will be accompanied by artistic interventions on an ongoing basis until 2025. These will address current social issues such as migration, working conditions, ecology, soil sealing, questioning the representation of power and stimulate discussions on the current situation of democracy and a new commitment of civil society to active democratic participation. The project is curated by the artist Barbara Holub.
Further information on the event: www.chemnitz2025.de and www.weparapom.eu
Please send press enquiries about the event to:
Julia Kurz, contact person project WE PARAPOM!
E-mail: julia.kurz(at)chemnitz2025gmbh.de
PROGRAMME
Location: former EDEKA supermarket/shopping centre, Bahnhofstraße 62, 09111 Chemnitz
14.00 - 14.30: Apolonija Sustersic, Oslo/Ljubljana
14.30 - 15.00: Paul Rajakovics (transparadiso), Vienna
15.00 - 15.15: Coffee break
15.15 - 15.45: Zbynek Baladran, Prague
15.45 - 16.15: Amica Dall (Assemble), Barcelona/London
16.15 - 17.00: Discussion moderated by Kathrin Wildner, Berlin
LECTURES
Apolonija Šušteršič
Neighbours & Citizens
Apolonija Šušteršič will present her practice and talk about the ongoing project NEIGHBOURS & CITIZENS. The focus will be on the concept of "neighbours" and the role of "citizens". The history and future of our society will be questioned and the question of a just past and future in our immediate neighbourhood will be addressed. The project is an exercise in cooperation, solidarity and care for the immediate neighbourhood.
Apolonija Šušteršič is an artist and architect who has taught at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, where she led the Art and Public Space programme. Her research-based practice is designed to connect different areas of spatial practice and critical theory with projects that aim to activate collaboration between individuals or groups. She creates processes of engagement and platforms for action where people can rediscover their sense of agency by participating in working with space and place.
Exhibitions include: Tirana Biennale 3, Tirana; 12th Architecture Biennale, Venice, and Gwangju Biennial.
https://apolonijasustersic.com
Paul Rajakovics (transparadiso)
Direct urbanism: artistic-urban action for the city and society
transparadiso's transdisciplinary action is characterised by the method of direct urbanism, in which artistic-performative actions and urban interventions are used to address the increasingly unplannable challenges of urban development - for a socially engaged society.
transparadiso works on shifting boundaries and creates situations for which they use artistic strategies such as wish production, anticipatory fiction or macro-utopia. Based on the projects Commons kommen nach Liezen, Times of Dilemma and Harbour for Cultures, Paul Rajakovics shows how boundaries between popular culture and high culture are broken down and how art projects can oppose liberal economic interests.
Paul Rajakovics is an architect, urbanist and artist. In 1999 he founded transparadiso with Barbara Holub as a transdisciplinary practice between architecture, urban planning, art and urban interventions and is a member of the editorial board of the dérive journal for urban research. He teaches at the TU Vienna and has realised workshops at the Universidad Católica/Valparaíso, London Metropolitan University and IUAV Venezia, among others.
Prizes and scholarships: Schindler Scholarship/Los Angeles, 2004, Otto Wagner Urban Planning Prize 2007, Austrian Art Prize 2018 for Fine Arts. Partner of the EU project SPACEX (Spatial Practices in Art and Architecture for Empathetic Exchange, 2022-2025).
Zbyněk Baladrán
The limits of collaboration
What are the limits of collaboration? Is individually conceived art still an expression of social desires and passions? Haven't the Internet, mass media and corporations taken over this role? The lecture is a description of the artist's practice at the border between art and knowledge production and an attempt to articulate activities after postmodernism ended and nothing else began.
Zbyněk Baladrán is an author, visual artist, curator and exhibition architect. In his work, he explores the territories occupied by the part of civilisation that we call Western. Using methods similar to those of ethnographers, anthropologists and sociologists, this post-humanist "archaeologist" excavates the remains of the not-too-distant past, particularly investigating the social systems linked to the legacy of the political left. He studied art history at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University and new media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. In 2001 he co-founded Display - Association for Research and Collective Practice, where he works as a curator and organiser. He has participated in exhibitions such as Manifesta 5 in Donostia/San Sebastian (2004), the 11th Lyon Biennale, the 56th La Biennale di Venezia (2013) and at MoMA (2015). He is represented by Galerie Jocelyn Wolff in Paris, Galerie Gandy in Bratislava, Hunt Kastner in Prague and the Salvator Rosa Co-operative.
Amica Dall (Assemble)
Never work with children or animals
Amica Dall will give a brief overview of her work with children and describe some of the theoretical and cultural frameworks that support, energise and enable this work. Working with children is often seen as a social act or a way of 'giving back'. Amica Dall's work is instead based on an opposite dynamic, in which children's creative, political and social insights are the driving force, offering new ways of approaching and acting in the world.
Amica Dall is an interdisciplinary practitioner and founding member of Assemble, founder of Assemble Play, founding trustee of Baltic Street Adventure Playground/Glasgow, and of Theatrum Mundi, London/Paris. She is an expert in participatory practices for the inclusion of children in organisational and design processes and for the design of play and learning spaces. She has taught at the Architecture Association (2018-21), Bartlett School of Architecture (2019-2021) and Kingston School of Art (2018-19) and has been a guest lecturer at Dirty Art Depart, Sandberg Institute Amsterdam and the Royal College of Art/ London. She currently teaches in the area/field of Situated Practice at the Bartlett School of Architecture, undertakes design and research projects and works as a designer, curator and occasional educator at Banana Mountain, an independent learning community for children aged 6-16, where she also runs an AIR programme for artists:Inside programme for artists working with children. In 2015 Assemble Play was awarded the Turner Prize.
The artist talks will be followed by a final discussion, moderated by Kathrin Wildner, Berlin
Kathrin Wildner is an urban ethnologist researching in New York, Mexico City, Istanbul and other urban conglomerations. Her research focusses on ethnographic methods of spatial analysis, theories of public space, transnational urbanism and artistic practices. She is involved in numerous international projects, publications and exhibitions, is a founding member of the group "metroZones" and scientific-artistic coordinator of the research and exhibition project "Global Prayers. Liberation and Redemption in Megacities". From 2013 to 2015, she was a visiting professor in the Master's programme in Spatial Strategies at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art. From 2012 to 2021, she held the professorship for Cultural Theory and Cultural Practice at HafenCity University Hamburg.