FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION. MIES VAN DER ROHE
PERFORMATIVE SYMPOSIUM: BETWEEN ONE NORTHEAST AND METAGEOGRAPHY

OCTOBER 7-9, 2018. VLADIVOSTOK, ZARYA CCA / 18+

Between One Northeast and Metageography: towards the new politics of geographical imagination

The center of Contemporary art ‘Zarya’ (Vladivostok) in a period between 10.6.2018 and 10.9.2018 hosts two exhibitions and a series of events dedicated to the geographical imagination in art. Two key anchors in the program are openings of two exhibitions: “One Northeast” on 6, Oct and “Metageography” on 9, Oct. To unveil the theoretical bridges between the two exhibitions, a performative symposium with participants of both exhibitions and specially invited speakers will be hosted.

The symposium will work with the analysis, deconstruction of the geographical imagination from the one side, and with the attention to the emancipatory and social role of the new imaginations of space, on the other. How crucial are the images of the space in its governing? Are independent, multi-verse, progressive politics of geographical imagination possible on the field of art? How important and influential are those tools that artists, geographers, curators and critics can use in their own politics of geo-imagination? Case studies and examples of concrete artistic, cultural and curatorial tactics in the policy of geographical imagination.

In light of the geopolitical positioning of Northeast Asia, or “Primorye” the symposium will include political-poetical contributions dedicated to the transgressive movements of the region. Tectonic shifts and rifts at the far end of the Eurasian landmass give rise to a kind of ‘Northeast’ or ‘Primorian’ thinking (the title depends on where we look at the area from, and reflects in its diversity the potential for multiple, including hybrid, geographic imagination) and are tied into changing geopolitical landscape. Embodied as much by radical artists and writers in history, as by the paths and traces of the ‘common’ people, the program refocuses on the Northeast or Primorye as a potent site for geo-imaginations, including new, emancipative and hybrid ones.

Conveners: Nikolay Smirnov & Unmapping Eurasia

SCHEDULE

6.10.2018 (Sat)

  • 19:00 Opening of the“One Northeast” exhibition (curators Mi You and Binna Choi) Including Minja Gu's ritual and Lucie Tuma’s performance

7.10.2018 (Sun) performative symposium, 1st day

  • 11:00 Symposium Opening
  • 11:15 Anastasia Ryabova. Star Road – 3
  • 13:00 Break
  • 15:00 Nikolay Smirnov. Speculative Geography: Orientalisms in 山水style
  • 16:00 Coffee break
  • 16:30 Lucie Tuma. Somatic Workshop
  • 17:00 Mi You, Binna Choi (Unmapping Eurasia)
  • 18:00 Anton Karmanov, Jeonhwan Cho. Intervention

8.10.2018 (Mon) performative symposium, 2nd day

  • 15:30 Dmitry Zamyatin (geographer, poet, artist, the ideologist of “Metageography”)
  • 16:00 Vladimir Sokolov (historian, author of the research and exhibition about “Chinese Tartary” and geohistorical images of current Primorye, Vladivostok)
  • 17:00 Coffee break
  • 17:30 Vladimir Bulatov (geographer, head of cartography department of State Historical Museum, Moscow)

9.10.2018 (Tue)

  • 15:30 Kirill Svetlyakov (curator, chief specialist in contemporary art of State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)
  • 16:30 Cosmin Costinas (Para Site, Hong Kong). A Journal of the Plague Year
  • 17:30 Anton Vidokle (artist, founder of e-flux, New York/Berlin). Biocosmism in Japan. Screening and Conversation with Koichiro Osaka (curator, Tokyo, Asakusa)
  • 19:00 Opening of the“Metageography” exhibition (curators Nikolay Smirnov, Kirill Svetlyakov, scientific adviser Dmitry Zamyatin)
  • 21:00 Pill Couple concert