• CO-CREATION LIVE FACTORY: Prologue 1 (2017)
With a new project under the title CO-CREATION LIVE FACTORY: Prologue 1, the VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK heads into a new direction. Founded on the principles of artistic collaboration, cooperation and temporary artistic community, CO-CREATION LIVE FACTORY: Prologue 1 was born to be an artistic experience of a different kind. The concept developed out of the ART WEEK's core mission and its Educational Learning Program.
Within the project's residential nature, 75 artists from 27 countries selected through an open call, developed and shared their individual praxis at the ART WEEK venue Palazzo Mora – an independent, temporary autonomous zone of co-creation, and under the tuition of the artists Marilyn Arsem, VestAndPage and Andrigo & Aliprandi. The culmination of the 10-days immersive co-creation process opened to the public on December 14-16, 2017: transforming the ART WEEK venue European Cultural Centre | Palazzo Mora into a dynamic site of art through a series of collective performance operas, as well as solo and collaborative performances. Artists, performers and visionary poets, came together to articulate and refine their skills, expand their practice, inquire into ideas and approaches, and allow their work to become more fully realised. The opportunity to expand to new artistic territories in an extended, intensive period of time outside of an academic setting, presented both a learning path and a unique occasion of building collaborations, while strengthening the creative talent and intellectual freedom of each participating artist.
CO-CREATION LIVE FACTORY: Prologue 1 consisted of:
- 10 days of intensive Co-Creation workshop processes for selected international artists in tutor groups led by the artists Andrigo & Aliprandi (Italy), Marilyn Arsem (US) and VestAndPage, including discussions on specific topics structured in the form of roundtables and open dialogues.
- Morning lectures by Robin Deacon (Artist, Chicago), Elisabetta di Mambro (Artistic director and producer, Rome), Jill McDermid & Erik Hokanson (Artists and directors, New York); Preach R Sun (Artist, US), and Marcel Sparmann (Artist, Germany).
- Three days program of performances open to the public on December 14-16, 2017 at the ART WEEK venue Palazzo Mora, Venice (Admission free), including an exhibition section displaying performance pedagogical material.
CO-CREATION LIVE FACTORY: Prologue 1 focused on the activation of a testing-ground of different performance art experiences converging together – a temporary artistic space of human actions and interactions, open to the unpredictability of the process itself. It allowed for the unexpected. Within each participant, each encounter, each proposal lied a realm of possibilities.
MARILYN ARSEM
Milton Afanador Alvarado (CO) • Ronald Bal (NL) • Sabrina Bellenzier (IT) • Cristiane Bouger (BR) • Batu Bozoğlu (TR) • Fay Burnett (UK) • Gillian Carson (NO) • Giorgia de Santi (IT) • I. Ata Doğruel (TR) • Gustavo Frigerio (IT) • Sara Kostić (RS) • Vasiliki Koutrouli (GR) • Fenia Kotsopoulou (GR) • Eva Martino (IT) • Giulia Mattera (IT) • Peter Reischl (AT) • Inês Rodrigues Miguel (ES) • Cristiana Zeta Rolla (IT) • Marita Isobel Solberg (NO) • Gary Varro (CA) • Sašo Vollmaier (SL) • Susanne Weins (DE) • Christian Weiss (DE) • Nicole Zaaroura (UK)
ANDRIGO & ALIPRANDI
Marie Beausacq (CH) • Anna Biesuz (IT) • Weronika Cegielska (PL) • Shola Cole (US/UK) • Elisa Curzi (IT) • Silvia Del Grosso (IT) • Noemi Diamantini (IT) • Maria Luigia Gioffre (IT) • Cosetta Graffione (IT) • Andrea Greenwood (UK) • Mengqi He (CN) • Meri Hiertala (FI) • Jolanda Jansen (NL) • Carla Kienz (DE) • Gülbeden Kulbay (SE) • Ivana Ranisavljević (RS) • Maria Seltsova (RS) • Yağmur Taçar (TR) • Andrea van Gelder (NL) • Katie Louise Vowles (GB)
VESTANDPAGE
Sylvie Barbier (TW/FR) • Stefan Biere (DE) • Madeleine Virginia Brown (UK) • James T. Bullimore (UK) • Bruno Camargo (BR/IT) • Don Chow (CA) • Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu (TR) • Erin Devine (US) • Samira Engel (DE) • Julha Franz (BR) • Marisa Garreffa (AU) • Ria Jade Hartley (UK) • Paola Kodra (AL) • Marie Künne (DE) • Gerhard Liska (AT) • Nancy Gewolb Mayanz (CL) • Ashley-Louise McNaughton (UK) • Yuan Mor'O Ocampo (PH) • Daniela Francesca Lillo Olivares (CL) • Eva Pyrnokoki (GR) • Daiane Rafaela (BR) • Enok Ripley (CA) • Jewel A Rob (BD) • Sara Simeoni (IT) • Alex Spyke (RS) • Alex Talamo (AU)
In 2011, when we conceived the VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK with the Trilogy of the Body (2012-2016) and the related Educational Learning Program (since 2013), we did not rely on arid schematisms of hypertrophic art platforms as there are so many in the world, nor common performance art festival formulas. Since we live in a Social Age, a time that is all about human connections, social relations, changes and innovations, our urgency was to first realize a long term art project that could connect artists and people, and where the expression of human values and social concerns is not second to the artistic proposition of the project itself. We envisioned the overall project as a moment of gathering reunion among artists of different generations and cultures; a space of encounter and dialogue where to share common interests, exchange ideas, plan future jointed activities, while spending qualitative time together, eventually a common ground and an ideal territory where ethics and aesthetics converge.
Being performance artists ourselves, we chose performance art as the content and backbone to the project, because we consider performance art's multifaceted practices the most appropriate to let emerge vitally human values and social concerns that characterize the evolutionary and devolutionary processes of human civilization. Veritably, for us it was not enough to display selected pioneer performance documentation alongside contemporary performances in line with our curatorial focus, but to lay the foundation for establishing a recognizable place emanating intellectual freedom and a pervasive noble sense of humanity. A place of magmatic creativity not institutionalized, inspiring, and capable of attracting new audience.
After the completion of the VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK Trilogy of the Body (Hybrid Body – Poetic Body, 2012; Ritual Body – Political Body, 2014; Fragile Body – Material Body, 2016), and four editions of the Educational Learning Program (2013 to 2017), we now confront new challenges. During these seven years of activity, our team has consolidated. Together we have come to the conclusion that to keep the art we love flourishing and vital, it is right to insist and give more and more importance to the investigation and development of the many creative processes that lead to performance, as the crucial questions are: How do we respond with art to a global state of emergency? And how do we perform in such a context?
At the conclusion of the first edition of the VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK in December 2012, Singaporean artist Lee Wen portrayed the spirit of the project with these rewarding words: "This is not a circus, this not a show, this not a biennale, this is a meeting of artists and people who looked for the pearls in the rivers of human civilizations and came to share what they found." With the new format CO-CREATION LIVE FACTORY, we want to continue on this same road with all respect. It remains a priority to enforce the idea of a temporary artistic community that has been the cornerstone of the foundation of the ART WEEK. At the same time, the determinant for all this to happen is the exploration of performances' making processes in a context of creative sharing.
VestAndPage, August 2017
VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK – CO-CREATION LIVE FACTORY Prologue 1 is a project conceived by artist duo VestAndPage and independent curator Francesca Carol Rolla, realised in cooperation with Live Arts Cultures nonprofit Cultural Association, We Exhibit, Venice Open Gates and Studio Contemporaneo nonprofit Cultural Association, and with the in-kind support by the European Cultural Centre | GAA Foundation and ConCAVe Venice.