https://stationofcommons.org/events/the-coming-community
https://www.hfbk-hamburg.de/en/aktuelles/kalender/the-coming-community/
How do we work together, build and understand community against, within and beyond capitalist structures?
What is a collective exhibition under the conditions of isolation? How do we host each other, how are we each others guests in increasing privatisation processes of both physical and digital spaces?
Knowing that we have no quick answers to big questions we propose formats and strategies to experiment with collaborative imaginations of institutional frameworks. Exploring the current situation in terms of collective understanding we decided to start by being less stuck and alone. Coping with the gap between what we wish for and what we can do, we keep on nevertheless in a research on exposure in interwoven relations that affect each other.
Thinking about para-institutions, we take Manifesta as a starting point. In a moment of its closure we realise that it became an empty signifier, a context that created economies, a pretext that brought us together. Practices from different fields converge to try to understand what a para-institution is when the institution is closed and the para persists.
The Coming Community aims to experiment the possibilities of ephemeral cohabitations and gathering in a specific space-time: a place inhabited by “disseminated, temporary and nomadic” communities - to use the words of Giorgio Agamben, who inspired this project.
Nine artists from France, Switzerland, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Russia developed through video, voice, movement or sculpture subjects related to: performativity, language, ritual, mythology and technology. Originally planned to be held at Coco Velten in Belsunce, Marseille (November 13-28 2020) as part of Manifesta 13, The Coming Community emerged from the encounter and dialogue between two duos of curators based in France and Switzerland – each imagining different strategies on the importance of interpersonal relationships and collaborative process within the frame of curatorial practices.
Thought as an “active space” (stage, content and context - F. Malzacher, J. Warsza), this collective project explores potentialities and policies of ephemeral communities as tools to create a space of commoning, With this approach, it works on and with the local context, using the relationship between public space and audience to study situations participating in collective power or in new narratives.
A proposal by ex situ – Cassandre Langlois & Simona Dvořáková – and the curatorial duo Gabrielle Boder & Tadeo Kohan.
With contributions by Station of Commons (Grégoire Rousseau and Juan Gomez), the artists Flora Bouteille, Anatol Dirkas, Michala Julínyová, Nastasia Meyrat, Nicolas Pesquier, Rudolf Samohejl, Trapier Duportē, Victor Villafagne, Victor Yudaev, and Nora Sternfeld (HFBK Hamburg)
The project was planned as a part of Manifesta 13 in Marseille. It is supported by Cité international des arts, Czech centre in Paris, Slovak Institute in Paris, Etat de Vaud, Fonds cantonal d’art contemporain, DIP, Genève, Pro Helvetia - Fondation suisse pour la culture, Ricard Foundation, Ville de Lausanne, French Institute in Prague, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, Aalto University and is realised in collaboration with the HFBK (University of Fine Arts) Hamburg.
Credits: Edited by Flora Bouteille.
