PROJECT_16 began at the beginning of 2015 with a simple question: ‘How would you like art to engage with your city in 2016?’. Comprised of three site-specific projects in the streets of Lahore, São Paulo and London, PROJECT_16 commissioned artists engaged with participatory practices to reflect on questions of public space and its audiences. Emerging artist Paula Nishijima (Brazil), Emma Smith (UK) and the recently created Awami Art Collective (Pakistan) propose A project for people I don’t know, Chora and Black Spring respectively, in which they directly engage audiences of their cities to discuss art, their locality and the state of the world.
PROJECT_16 Lahore
Black Spring by Awami Art Collective, 2015-2016
Consisting of an almost 2000m web of lights, Awami Art Collective’s Black Spring connects the rooftops of the haveli (townhouses) of the Taxali Gate — one of the entrance of the Walled City that hosts the historical ‘red light district’. The luminous orange web evokes the colour of the upcoming Metro Line and the urban development projects and government regulations, which are changing the character of this ancient city and affecting its inhabitants.
Officially banned in 2011, Basant, a popular kite flying festival, is one of the events prohibited for security reasons. During Basant the local residents of the Walled City used to gather on the rooftops of the townhouses to fly the kites or enjoy the spectacle. In addition to recall the Metro Line, Black Spring was conceived as an initiative to bring back the local community to the rooftops of the Walled City to remember the celebrative spirit of Basant. To gain access to the rooftops the members of the collective gradually built a direct relationship with the local residents who actively participated in the making of the work. As a result, the intervention became an opportunity to raise awareness and share concerns on the current urban development and government regulations. On 13 February this year, the date the kite festival used to happen, the orange web installation was light up.
An 11 mins. film documents this process and includes some of the conversations between the members of the collective and local residents. The memories of Basant together with the consequences of the urban developments of the area interweave throughout the conversations. Through this collection of oral history and hopes for the future of the city, the documentary bears witness to a community that thrives through collective efforts.
PROJECT_16 São Paulo
A project for people I don’t know by Paula Nishijima, 2015-2016
In Brazil, Paula Nishijima proposes A project for people I don’t know. Composed of a two-day happening in São Paulo and an 18 mins. film, this work is the outcome of a two-year research project initiated with the Goethe-Institute of Brazil and developed through the collaboration with PROJECT_16’s curators.
With almost 600,000 visitors, the exhibition Frida Kahlo — connections between surrealist women in Mexico at Instituto Tomie Ohtake, is the occasion chosen by the artist to engage new audiences of her city and address questions of the use of public space and the role of art. On 19 December 2015 and 10 January 2016, thirteen people queuing to get into the exhibition were selected to talk to thirteen people leaving the show. They didn’t know each other; they were connected online. Scripted at some points, these conversations between strangers created mirror-spaces to counter two different temporalities and spaces. Drawing on psychoanalysis, the action gave voice to the audience to reveal the common expectations and anxieties of the people who form the queue and their journey from the street to the space of the gallery. Through these interactions, the happenings highlighted the audience’s unique position as a community in the public space and the potential for them to share thoughts while they are waiting. In this process, the online became the starting site for socialisation.
Whereas in the happenings the artist passed the three questions posed by PROJECT_16 onto to the audiences; this 18 mins. film presents the artist’s direct response to them. Rather than a documentary of what happened at Instituto Tomie Ohtake, the film unfolds as an extended part of Nishijima’s work, as her personal account of the state of art and audiences in her city. ‘How are these people trying to be part of their city?’ — poses Nishijima — ‘What do we want to show to ourselves and others by going to these exhibitions?’. In so asking, the artist deconstructs and reassembles the conversations between strangers in a new narrative, one that amplifies the project’s scope from the art and anthropological spheres to the political one. ‘To me’ —says the artist— ‘the political dimension of São Paulo as a city matters to understand why the audience of blockbuster exhibitions keeps increasing’.
PROJECT_16 London
Chora by Emma Smith, 2015-2016
Taking the concept of ‘cosmopolitanism’ as a starting point, Emma Smith proposes Chora. Composed by a one-day happening in the streets of London, a workshop at the Royal College of Art and its online manifestation, Chora is an invitation to reflect on our shared humanity.
Related to a previous thought experiment in September 2015 at Kunstmuseum Luzern, the work was initiated on 9 February 2016 through a happening in Trafalgar Square, the historic epicentre of London from which all distances to other cities are measured. The point marked by a plaque on the floor at the southern edge of Trafalgar Square served as a site to test the public nature of the city space and the modes of contact and exchange it affords. From this symbolic location, the artist started the dissemination of ‘chora’, a term derived from Plato as pertaining to a third space beyond the city. Through her interpretation of the Platonic ‘chora’, Smith proposes to found a new state, ‘a state of mind’ solely dependent on the power of thought, as a way of enabling the possibility for a global citizenry, free from conditions of citizenship, definition or border.
Based on this notion, passers-by were invited to take part in the artwork by means of taking a minute to imagine what it means to them to be a citizen of the world. What does it mean to have a global citizenry based on difference? What is the role of the city space? Through this happening, manifested as a ‘state of mind’, Chora’s meaning and actuality became entirely dependent on each person thinking it and as numerous and various as its participants.
As a way to capture the traces of this thought experiment and spread further the notion of Chora, participants are invited to post their silent pictures online and follow Chora’s social media accounts (@GloablChora #GlobalChora); sites that don’t post anything but just collect followers. In so proposing, the artist expands the scope of the work to the extended public domain of the World Wide Web. So Chora’s existence is established, consolidated and circulated online.
PROJECT_16 at translocalia.com
Curated by Lavinia Filippi and Amanda Masha Caminals
Conceived as curatorial research to challenge the principle of the ‘contemporary’ exemplified by biennales, PROJECT_16 is the first initiative of translocalia.com: a network of artists, designers, curators, audiences and professionals from different domains to discuss, share and plan for the future through art. Developed by Barcelona based designers Eva Domènech, Laura Quintana and Claudia Oliveira, the website acts as a public domain where to address the query ‘what do we want to add to the world and why?’ (Maria Lind, Art Forum, October 2009).