Matter the Matters: How to Recondition the Unjust Conditions
Since December 2019, we have seen many of the assumptions about society, culture and economy upturned or broken. Evidently, we are inside a period of disruption that neither began nor will end with the COVID-19 pandemic and in which the larger social-economic-ecological crises of our time become vivid and present. Therefore, a comprehensive and profound analysis of the crises and exploring the possibilities of just working and living environment today have never been as urgent as it is now.
National
Spain
Andalusia, Almeria
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Forging other national and EU rules or making ‘ceremonial’ artistic work or superficial activism won’t bring ethical change unless the mentality changes. However, bringing the concerned issues closer to people’s surroundings could engender a dynamic climate for the mentality to change. The Obama precedential campaigns “Change We Can Believe In” in 2008 and “Forward” in 2012 brought Trump to ‘Make America Great Again’. The Bièvre river was current in Paris up to 1912; by then, it was buried due to households and industrial wastes. Apparently, the Paris Agreement 2015 dropped its ink in the twin river, Sein, before entering into force on November 4, 2016. I propose an art-led intervention to tackle the migrant labourers’ work and living conditions in Southern Spain. I’ll develop my project by studying literature review, archival materials, site analysis and conversations with the local communities. My works could take an interventional form of installation art, sculptural object, drawing, text-based art, photograph, video and performance. The outcomes will be represented in various formats across the city of Almeria; e.g., as loose prints or bookmarks to insert in some books in the public library, photographs in hairdresser’s salon and police station, door hangers, a sculpture in a fruit box in grocery, silkscreen print on tablecloths and placemats in café or restaurant, on scaffold mesh of under-construction building or prints on public’s clothes, bags, etc., postcards in a display in a souvenir shop, and in digital print and online gazettes.
In collaboration with local cafes, bars and restaurants, I’ll curate ‘Talk Corner’ for farmers, residents, migrants and politicians to have drink or dining conversations. I’ll design a unique table and three chairs, tablecloths and placemats to serve the conversations and bring the concerned issues to the dining table. The cafes, bars and restaurants will be encouraged to offer the meal at discount prices.
intervention
engagment
informality
dynamic
sustainability
This public intervention creates platforms which allow gathering delight and dialogue among people to exchange their views. It is designed to place people varying in interests on an equal footing to meet, where meaningful exchange can take place so that all parties acquire new understandings of issues explored. The talks could be broadcasted live in public spaces and recorded in hard print and electronically. This creates a series of ever-widening networks, each working through its own means of communication, thus broadening the involvement of the people and institutions.
I will curate a thematic dining conversation in collaboration with a chef and food expert, e.g., setting up a cooking workshop about affordable healthy food recipes out of limited ingredients; in the inspiration of the book, “The Wartime Kitchen: Living off Rations”. The Covid 19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis have highlighted societal inequalities and the challenges many families face globally. I’ll curate sequences of ‘First Migrant Supper’ in collaboration with the prospective restaurants and migrants in Andalusia, inviting migrants to cook traditional dinners for the clients one time in different restaurants. I’ll curate ‘Topics Tapas’ events. I create unique porcelain plates to serve soup on a long table (H:96 L:700 W:30 cm) that I’ll create. The table could be installed at various indoor and outdoor locations across Almeria. These interventional events can be seen as a forum for residents to share their concerns and views and discuss urgent and relevant topics. The Tapas will be served on the base of the first free and the second ‘Pay As You Wish’ to finance the continuation of conversations (project).
Art-led intervention functions as a change-making instrument in the transformation of the city and society. It seeks to inspire and encourage people to engage in these critical issues while promoting critical, long-term thinking about civil engagement’s role in the world.
The EU fruit and vegetable sector is heavily dependent on a non-national labour force, either from other EU Member States or third countries. Germany, Italy, Spain, France and Poland, in particular, employ high numbers of migrant seasonal farm workers. While these numbers have been steadily increasing, they compensate only partly for the ongoing decline in national agricultural workforces. Migrant seasonal workers from the EU are entitled to fully equal treatment with nationals of the host country under the fundamental right to the free movement of workers within the EU, whereas third country nationals are covered by the Seasonal Workers Directive of 2014, which grants them equal treatment as regards terms of employment and some social benefits.
EU Member States manage their own seasonal worker schemes depending on the needs of the domestic labour market, their ties with third countries and their broader immigration system. The reality of seasonal agricultural work is a harsh one, with generally poor working and living conditions. Undocumented migrants, but also legal ones, can fall victim to illegal gang-master practices or even modern forms of slavery. The exploitation of women occurs in certain regions.
Here, in the middle of Spain’s Mar del Plastico (Plastic Sea), the 31,000 hectares (76,600 acres) of farms and greenhouses in the region of Andalucía known as “Europe’s garden”, many of El Barranquete’s inhabitants don’t have electricity, running water or sanitation. The Guardian 20 Sep 2020
The coronavirus pandemic, which disrupted harvests in the spring of 2020 as seasonal workers faced travel restrictions, also highlighted their essential role in EU agriculture and laid bare their sometimes appalling working and living conditions. Reacting to this situation, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the protection of seasonal workers in June 2020, calling on Member States to ensure proper implementation of the relevant EU legislation and on the European Commission to issue new specific guidelines and propose long-term solutions to fight abusive practices and protect victims. In July 2020, the Commission responded to this call by issuing new guidelines on the protection of seasonal workers in the context of the pandemic, announcing further action, including ongoing work with the European Labour Authority.
Since December 2019, we have seen many of the assumptions about society, culture and economy upturned or broken. Evidently, we are inside a period of disruption that neither began nor will end with the COVID-19 pandemic and in which the larger social-economic-ecological crises of our time become vivid and present. Therefore, a comprehensive and profound analysis of the crises and exploring the possibilities of just working and living environment today have never been as urgent as it is now. My research project can also be seen as an open laboratory for altering the education and the practice of art and curating throughout the pandemic and aftermath; a discursive platform from which to investigate how artists, curators, art professionals and the general public can join these pressing debates.
Let them eat dolphin sandwiches, made with fish-mail bread! Francisco Franco. The famine ravaging Spain in the 1940s.
propose an art-led intervention to tackle the migrant labourers’ work and living conditions in Southern Spain. I’ll develop my project by studying literature review, archival materials, site analysis and conversations with the local communities. My works could take an interventional form of installation art, sculptural object, drawing, text-based art, photograph, video and performance. The outcomes will be represented in various formats across the city of Almeria; e.g., as loose prints or bookmarks to insert in some books in the public library, photographs in hairdresser’s salon and police station, door hangers, a sculpture in a fruit box in grocery, silkscreen print on tablecloths and placemats in café or restaurant, on scaffold mesh of under-construction building or prints on public’s clothes, bags, etc., postcards in a display in a souvenir shop. I’ll design digital print and online gazettes, engage various individuals to guide people to experience the works and curate thematic tours. People will be provided with works locations map.
This public intervention creates platforms which allow gathering delight and dialogue among people to exchange their views. It is designed to place people varying in interests on an equal footing to meet, where meaningful exchange can take place so that all parties acquire new understandings of issues explored. The talks could be broadcasted live in public spaces and recorded in hard print and electronically. This creates a series of ever-widening networks, each working through its own means of communication, thus broadening the involvement of the people and institutions.
I will curate a thematic dining conversation in collaboration with a chef and food expert, e.g., setting up a cooking workshop about affordable healthy food recipes out of limited ingredients; in the inspiration of the book, “The Wartime Kitchen: Living off Rations”. The Covid 19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis have highlighted societal inequalities and the challenges many families face globally. I’ll curate sequences of ‘First Migrant Supper’ in collaboration with the prospective restaurants and migrants in Andalusia, inviting migrants to cook traditional dinners for the clients one time in different restaurants. I’ll curate ‘Topics Tapas’ events. I create unique porcelain plates to serve soup on a long table (H:96 L:700 W:30 cm) that I’ll create. The table could be installed at various indoor and outdoor locations across Almeria. These interventional events can be seen as a forum for residents to share their concerns and views and discuss urgent and relevant topics. The Tapas will be served on the base of the first free and the second ‘Pay As You Wish’ to finance the continuation of conversations (project).
In recent years few topics in the visual arts have created such controversy as the debate surrounding the significance of the constitutive relation between artwork, location and public encounter. I intend to investigate these relationships critically and creatively, with a broad historical and geographical perspective–confronting and crossing the boundaries of a wide range of genres; physical and symbolic, material and immaterial. It intends to create vital perceptions and scenarios, generate interactions with various publics, develop a process of experimentation and exploration, and build bridges for trans-disciplinary work–using traditional media–in a non-traditional setting. It seeks to surprise and inspire the public while inciting critical, long-term thinking about art’s role in the contemporary world. It reflects the criticality of civic engagement, and collective action, involving creative practitioners and the public in the social and cultural practices that are in constant transition. It is also a response to the challenges of various disciplines, including art history, cultural and political studies and sociology, as well as the people’s usage of public space – their questions relate to the work of art as an immaterial or material object and the public space as the context in which the work of art is positioned and identified.
Knowledge-sharing takes a central role in my vision of a dialogue-based practice that intends to develop a sustainable human-centred research perspective from the inside out, focusing on human concerns. It examines the human condition from an anthropological and philosophical cultural vantage point. Public participation throughout the conceptualisation, creation and presentation processes is the core of my practice.
I will curate a thematic dining conversation in collaboration with a chef and food expert, e.g., setting up a cooking workshop about affordable healthy food recipes out of limited ingredients; in the inspiration of the book, “The Wartime Kitchen: Living off Rations”. The Covid 19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis have highlighted societal inequalities and the challenges many families face globally. I’ll curate sequences of ‘First Migrant Supper’ in collaboration with the prospective restaurants and migrants in Andalusia, inviting migrants to cook traditional dinners for the clients one time in different restaurants. I’ll curate ‘Topics Tapas’ events. I create unique porcelain plates to serve soup on a long table (H:96 L:700 W:30 cm) that I’ll create. The table could be installed at various indoor and outdoor locations across Almeria. These interventional events can be seen as a forum for residents to share their concerns and views and discuss urgent and relevant topics. The Tapas will be served on the base of the first free and the second ‘Pay As You Wish’ to finance the continuation of conversations (project).
Art-led intervention functions as a change-making instrument in the transformation of the city and society. It seeks to inspire and encourage people to engage in these critical issues while promoting critical, long-term thinking about civil engagement’s role in the contemporary world.
The world changes rapidly. We need to be aware of these changes and developments and know what our role may be on every level. Knowledge and decisions on a macro level need intelligent translations on a micro level and vice versa: local needs and traditional sources, techniques and markets contribute to global developments. Artists and designers are dealing more and more with complex assignments in multidisciplinary teams. We should take a large responsibility in connecting developments and visions. The world is not only in need of skilled and creative minds but also of analytical minds, of artists and designers with passion and persistence, who are engaged with the needs and possibilities of the world and know the mechanisms of global and local markets. We don’t have to wait for assignments; we can formulate our views on the world and elaborate on the role craftsmen and designers can play within specified contexts. Artists and designers not only develop products but also the context in which they exist.
The economic, governmental and democratic systems are in crisis, powers are shifting and we have to develop vital relations and values between people, people as users, producers and distributors. My research responds to these changes and formulates hypotheses and propositions that will be embedded and tested within the context for which they are intended. I inhabited a self-critical, reflective and constructive attitude towards artistic, societal and cultural practices that are in constant transition. Art and design can actively influence and change the way people act and experience the world, contribute to raising social and environmental awareness and promote a significant shift in public perception.
