30.06.2012 | 10 pm | KW Institute for Contemporary Art
A Gentrification Program
Screening and conversation with Delphine Hesters and Renzo Martens from the Institute for Human Activities
The video reports from the opening Seminar of the Gentrification Program by the Institute for Human Activities that took place on the verge of a former Unilever plantation, on the Mompoyo river, Democratic Republic of Congo, some ten days ago. The Gentrification Program initiated by the Institute for Human Activities is a 5-year endeavor to establish a study site where a radical acceptance of the terms and conditions of the production of artistic critique does not undermine it, but feeds its articulation. The aim is to recalibrate art’s instrumentalization for the accumulation of capital, (the shorthand for which is of course, Gentrification) into a critical, progressive, and interventionist tool, and forge unapologetic relations to the real.
Discussants Botalatala, Eyal Weizman, TJ Demos, Mumbanza mwa Bawele, Marcus Steinweg, Nina Möntmann, and Réné Ngongo, touched upon current discussions on the history of the plantation economy, immaterial labour, institutional critique and arts universalist claims, while Richard Florida made a very special appearance by satellite connection.
The Institute for Human Activities is supported by VPRO (Hilversum), Lichtpunt (Brussels), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, (Berlin), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), KVS (Brussels), Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunsten (Amsterdam), Mondriaan Foundation (Amsterdam), KASK/ University College Ghent (Ghent), Feronia Inc. (London), Bralima, (Kinshasa).
“A Gentrification Program” by Institute for Human Activities
If we feel art should fully embrace the terms and conditions of its own existence, it may be good to inquire where art has a bigger impact on social reality. Is it at the sites where critical artistic interventions take place [...]More >
