The Fugue - OuUnPo Research Session XIV STOCKHOLM | 4-8 FEBRUARY 2015

(Program på svenska)

The European artistic network OuUnPo invites you to the Fugue, an experimental festival in collaboration with Swedish artists, researchers and institutions. Each day OuUnPo carries out actions, talks, screenings, workshops and performances in different venues and locations across the city of Stockholm.



The session takes its starting point in the fugue state, a rare psychiatric disorder that is characterized by complete but reversible amnesia. The patient loses all traces of personal memory and identity and condition can last hours or days. People suffering from dissociative fugue often undertakes unplanned travel or wandering during which the patient might establish a temporary new identity.

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PUBLIC PROGRAM: 
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WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 4


Artists Adrift
 18:00 -20:00


Bonniers Konsthall, Torsgatan 19



An evening with artist talks, performance and sound art.


Part of the public opening of CityWalks


TICKETS AT ENTRANCE

We Are What We Lost | XIII OuUnPo Research Session

São Paulo | November 7-16, 2014

OuUnPo, Vision Forum and Curatorial Mutiny are proud to announce:

We Are What We Lost

XIII OuUnPo Research Session, São Paulo, November 7-16, 2014
Curated by Sara Giannini.

We Are What We Lost is a mobile festival organised by the European artistic network OuUnPo | Ouvroir d’Univers Potentiels in cooperation with Brazilian artists, researchers and institutions. Each day a series of actions, talks, screenings, workshops and performances will be enacted in different venues and locations across São Paulo.

We Are What We Lost is the 13th session that the group arranges and will close the cycle “Catastrophe & Heritage” (2012-14) where OuUnPo has investigated crisis, conflict and how these affect the formation of identities. Previous sessions have been held in Beirut (2012), Tokyo (2013) and Gibellina (2014). In each country the group has explored different forms of collaborative expressions by working with local artists, curators, researchers and institutions.

Over the span of 10 days, We Are What We Lost will become a platform to experiment with disappearance as a metaphor and research question. The session will look at how loss influences our being in the present as well as in what way it affects our dialogue with the past. How do we take in voids and vestiges to generate sense and revisit memory? How do ruptures and new constellations shape our experience and understanding of time and temporality?

Dates and New Partners for the Sao Paulo Session Announced

OuUnPo is proud to announce the dates for the upcoming session in Sao Paulo along with partners Casa do Povo, Kunsthalle Sao Paulo and Videobrasil.

The session will open on November 7 with a presentation of the events and a welcoming to friends from close and afar. The session will then move across Sao Paulo until the closing event on November 16.

Further details, program and partners will be disclosed on this website continuously, so keep your eyes peeled.

OuUnPo wins Kulturbryggan grant

Vision Forum and OuUnPo are proud to announce that we have won a grant from Kulturbryggan for the session in Sweden. We are proud that Stephen and Elena have come to such a brilliant start. More info here.

Sao Paulo Session Taking shape

In conjunction with the opening of the 33rd Panorama at MAM in Sao Paulo Per Hüttner and Sara Giannini visited Brazil and developed the dialogues with our existing partners and developed new connections for the session that is planned to be realised in 2014. For more information click here.

Project description - OuUnPo – Catastrophe and Heritage

Four Sessions in Lebanon, Japan, Sweden and Brazil 2012-2014 in collaboration between Vision Forum and GAM/ZKM.



The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the "state of emergency" in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. -Walter Benjamin, Illuminations (257)

Background
OuUnPo is a pan-European research group made up of artists, curators and researchers who together look at the boundaries of performance by appropriating and stretching the language of workshops, seminars and meetings. The group travels to different cities and investigates a given problem. By collaborating with a number of local institutions on in each location (museums, art organisations, research centres, residency programs, informal groups etc.) UnUnPo collapses the local with global. This offers a particularly creative situation that allows the partners of the project to get a deeper understanding of how the local and global interacts and how the art world is dealing with the current changes. OuUnPo has therefore teamed up with the ZKM’s research program "GAM-Global Art and the Museum" in order to get a deeper critical and academic and understanding of the working methods developed by the group and their potential to be used by other institutions.

The core group of OuUnPo has been in flux since the start in 2009. They interact extensively with local institutions and creators at every location, so that the local contingency is larger than the visitors. OuUnPo has previously collaborated with Tate Britain, in London; MACRO in Rome; Serralves in Porto and Deste Foundation in Athens to mention some of the most well known. The group is usually made up of 10-15 creators who travel to each meeting and who collaborate with dozens of local players. Sessions have been held in Athens, Belgrade, Amsterdam-Nijmegen, Paris, Skopje, Stockholm, Porto and London. Meetings are planned for Japan, Lebanon, Sweden and Brazil in 2012-14.

Field of Research
The human condition is marked by continuous threats that are inscribed into a historical context. The Tsunami in Japan; the change in global climate; the shortage of fresh water, energy and base materials; the growing population of the planet all show that our (near) future will be filled with challenges. We need great ideas to go deal with these unforeseeable situations. We need variety and multiplicity.

OuUnPo has over the last years approached issues of artistic, political and economical urgency in Serbia, Portugal and Greece. As OuUnPo for the first time arranges meetings outside of Europe, with a broad European participation base, we have decided to look at how heritage and crises are linked together to offer a broader and deeper knowledge based around how the two interact. The research will be carried out in three interconnected fields.

Three Research Guidelines:

1. Catastrophe and Creation. OuUnPo will during the four sessions look at how a threat, a catastrophe or a situation of crises can offer opportunity for creation. The group will look into the potential of new thought and new ideas from a situation that at first glance appears to be negative. Or, phrased differently, is heritage always connected to successful expressions of survival instinct, problem resolution and the human capability to turn a problem into an advantage? Special emphasis will be put on temporal aspects and how destruction and rebirth are connected and how the two interact over time.

2. Temporary architecture. In a majority of countries around the world, a larger part of the population lives in temporary architecture. These are usually created as a response to a crises situation and gradually become permanent. The group is interested how emergency shelters in Japan relate to favelas (subnormal agglomerations) in Brazil, to informal architecture in Lebanon and to the relative stasis of small town Sweden.

3. Heritage. The activities in Japan, Lebanon, Sweden and Brazil will provide the group with new insights on the tensions between stasis and flux in situations marked by natural disasters, economic downturn or post-war reconstruction. The questions addressed are how to move forward, using the experiences of the past that can help and to aid the collective memory to stay awake. The research also unfolds several possible models for Europe and potential crisis-resolution. The European urban and cultural tissue is in fact woven with an old and preserved heritage that demands new ways to interpret and manage situations of crisis.

 

Working Process
OuUnPo's methodology addresses the need for alternative forms of education and production; accommodating multiplicity and embracing invention. The strategy offers new solutions rather than updating old models and existing formulas. Central to this is an awareness of the need for personal inspiration, an endeavour to find ways to enrich our daily lives, and through that process also enrich the lives of others. In other words, this strategy reconnects art and research to the every day experience of our lives - it builds a bridge between theory and practice.

In each working session OuUnPo collaborates with a number of local institutions. These are usually in a situation of competition in their everyday practice, but by bringing in a variety of outside players who collaborate with local institutions, OnUnPo collapses the local with global. The strategy allows the partners of the project to get a deeper understanding of how the local and global interacts and how the art world is dealing with the current changes. OuUnPo has therefore teamed up with GAM/ZKM in order to get a deeper critical and academic and understanding of the working methods developed by the group and their potential to be used by other institutions.

With this in mind, OuUnPo will carry out a 5-day session in Lebanon in December 2012; a 10-day session in Japan in May 2013; a 5-day session in Sweden in September 2013 and 10-day session in  Brazil in March 2014. The four sessions aim to reflect on the above questions. European participants will come from different backgrounds within art, in addition to architecture, neuroscience, design and other fields. One of the important aspects of the project lies in mixing genres, languages, allowing participants from Europe to meet peers from the different cities and vice versa.

Another strategy is the mixing of production (mainly exhibition and performance) with academic presentation, research and reflection. The OuUnPo group will therefore carry out performances, interactive events, research and public presentations in collaboration with local partners and the local public. These events will work in response to existing contemporary art exhibitions, architectural sites and social situations. OuUnPo does so with the aim of creating links between the visitors' everyday life experiences and the works of art and architecture at hand, together stimulating the formulation of new outlooks on reality and our future.

Outcomes
The four sessions in Japan, Lebanon, Sweden and Brazil in collaboration with the GAM Project at the ZKM in Karlsruhe will lead to the creation of a catalogue that documents the research process. The publication will offer deep insights into how globalisation affects the artistic process and local realities, offering invaluable insights into contemporary art’s potential on a global scale to develop visionary thinking, new understanding across borders, and new solutions to existing problems.

The dialogue between the pan European network of OuUnPo and local communities of artists, curators and researchers form the backbone of this research, by collapsing the boundaries between local and global. The OuUnPo members have both developed a unique working method and acquired important knowledge that will be nourished and dispersed through the meetings.

A series of seminars in academic setting in Sweden and Germany will be carried out during the research period that will allow a broad dispersion of the research results in broad European context.

The first OuUnPo publication to be unveiled in December 2012

In conjunction with the OuUnPo session in Beirut, Vision Forum will launch the first OuUnPo publication that documents the session in Porto in April 2012. The book is edited by Claudia Squitieri and Samon Takahashi, designed by Åbäke and published by Dent-de-Leone.

Per Hüttner about OuUnPo on Global Art and the Museum.

Vision Forum is proud to announce that Per Hüttner has been selected to be the guest author of the month in August for the Global Art and the Museum's website. He writes a text about OuUnPo and globalisation. Please read more here.

OuUnPo[RTO]

«RECREATIVE TEMPORARY ORBIT» April 3-6, 2012

«As ideias são prodigiosas - elas e a maneira como se associam. Num momento, descobrimos que atravessamos o mundo, e que transpomos o infinito entre dois pensamento.» Fernando Pessoa

This OuUnPo session is conceived by Claudia Squitieri and Samon Takahashi with the help of Maud Malon and Lisa Cepeda.

For this new OuUnPo session no topic has been defined. But we might keep in mind vague notions such as: path, ceremony, decadence, heteronomy, ... We decided to leave more time to the group itself and focus will be made on OuUnPo members interventions. Of course this also includes nice meals and partying.

The program is shaped as an imaginary book and each chapter is freely referring to a quote of Fernando Pessoa. The content of each chapter is kept secret until the first day’s Prologue. You are asked to bring a bathing costume and a total black outfit.

The content of each chapter is kept secret until the first day’s Prologue. Events marked as «Audience warmly welcome» are open to an audience and are free unless notified Events marked as «OuUnPo private work session» are exclusive OuUnPo members working sessions Events marked as «OuUnPo private work session°» are exclusive OuUnPo members and OuUnPo[RTO] participants sessions.

Program for OuUnPo[RTO] participants. The program was not revealed to the OuUnPo members or the public until the beginning of each event. Only the location and time of the events were made public.

Photographic documentation can be found here and here.

DAY 1 - April 3

OuUnPo private work session
02.00 pm - PROLOGUE - CULTURGEST

«Aquilo a que chamamos matéria é o sonho de uma inteligência infinita.»

> Culturgest Porto Galeria Edifício Caixa Geral de Depósitos , Avenida dos Aliados 104
- Introduction to the four days session of OuUnPo[RTO] by Claudia Squitieri and Samon Takahashi OuUnPo private work session

03.30 pm - CHAPTER. I - STOP
«A sorte de um povo depende do estado da sua gramática. Não há grande nação sem prioridade de linguagem.»

> STOP Rua do Heroísmo 333
- «Tropeçar sem caír ao chão» A sound work by Gustavo Costa
- followed by a recording of OuUnPo members improvising on the Srosh Collective instruments. Srosh are Henrique Fernandes, Gustavo Costa, João Mascarenhas and João Pais Filipe.



Audience warmly welcome
07.45-09.30 pm - CHAPTER.II - GAIA

«Todos nós temos momentos futuristas, como quando, por exemplo, tropeçamos numa pedra»

> meeting at 07.45 pm, bus stop Batalha, Largo primero de deciembro - «Batalha» - Performance by Loreto Martinez Troncoso.

OuUnPo private work session
10.00 pm - OuUnPo DINNER
«O pensamento ainda é a melhor maneira de fugir ao pensamento»


DAY 2 - April 4

OuUnPo private work session
11.30 am - CHAPTER.III - CASA DA MUSICA
«A beleza é grega. Mas a consciência de que ela é grega é moderna.»

> meeting in front of Trindade metro station at 11.00 am
- «Um grande além mago e mudo»
A talk by Marco Pasi around his current research on esoteric Pessoa

- «Azulejos...» by Diana Fanha Santos



OuUnPo private work session
05.00 pm- CHAPTER.IV - FUNDAÇAO
«Se um cão começasse a pensar como nós, esse cão seria mais perfeito do que os outros cães e, no entanto, seria muito provavelmente morto por eles, pois achariam que era louco.»

> meeting at 04.30pm Cafeteria Locarno, Rua Guedes Azevedo 135
- «Abacateiro»

Encounter with artists and curators Cristina Regadas, Jose Pereira Almeida and Miguel Flor.



Audience warmly welcome
09.00 pm - CHAPTER.V - MAUS HABITOS
«De sonhar ninguém se cansa, porque sonhar e esquecer, e esquecer não pesa e é um sono sem sonhos em que estamos despertos.»

> meeting at 08.45 in front of Culturgest
- «Redox#04» Video work (2010)
by OuUnPo member Daniela Paes Leao followed by a group discussion.

- «Rearticulating differences: cultural cannibalism and contemporary art?»
A talk by Sara Giannini around her current thesis

- «Douro, Faina Fluvial» (1931) by Manoel de Oliveira (Screening with Fado accompaniment by Sandra Correia)



DAY 3 - April 5

Audience warmly welcome (regular entrance fee applies)
12.00 am - CHAPTER.VI - SERRALVES
«A loucura, longe de ser uma armadilha, é a condição normal humana. Não ter consciência dela , e ela não ser grande, é ser homem normal. Não ter consciência dela e ela ser grande, é ser louco. Ter consciência dela e ela ser pequena é ser desiludido. Ter consciência dela e ela ser grande é ser génio»
> meeting for OuUnPo members at Cafe Luso Praça de Carlos Alberto 90 > Museo Serralves, Rua de Serralves 977

- Group Visit of the Serralves gardens
01.00 pm - Casa Serralves (the pink house)
- «Artistic styles are imprinted on the spectators’ brains» Performance by OuUnPo member Elena Nemkova.
03.00 pm - inside Museo Serralves - «Local Solace» - A tribute performance to Raymond Roussel’s musical invention by OuUnPo members Claudia Squitieri and Samon Takahashi involving all OuUnPo members. Music by Joao Pais Filipe


Audience warmly welcome
04.00 pm - CHAPTER.VII - MATERIA PRIMA
«Não há normas. Todos os homens são excepções a uma regra que não existe»
> Materia Prima, Rua da Picaria 84
- «A Perspective on Artificial Aesthetics and Generative Media»
A talk by Miguel Carvalhais
- «Beyond museology»
A discussion with Susana Medina and Celia Machado


OuUnPo private work session°
10.30 pm - CHAPTER.VIII - 559
«A beleza de um corpo nu só a sentem as raças vestidas. O pudor vale sobretudo para a sensibilidade como o obstáculo para a energia.»




DAY 4 - April 6

Audience warmly welcome (bathing costume recommended)
12.30 am - CHAPTER.IX - MIRAMAR
«O mar é a religião da Natureza»
> Miramar - Chapel Senhor da Pedra Meeting for departure at 11h30, Praça da Liberdade, in front of the statue of King Pedro IV, M° Aliados
- «Her Sad Pardone»
Perfomance by OuUnPo members Per Hüttner and Fatos Ustek


Audience warmly welcome
06.00 pm-07.30 pm - CHAPTER.X - INC.
«A beleza é grega. Mas a consciência de que ela é grega é moderna.»
> Inc. Livros e edições de autor, Rua da Boa Nova 168
- Preview of the in-progress OuUnPo book at Inc. -
>«Réduire l’asymétrie du champ de bataille»
Performance by Raffaella della Olga


Audience warmly welcome (black outfit requested)
08.00 pm - EPILOGUE - PLAÇA MARQUÊS PLOMBAL & CASA VIVA
«Torturamos os nossos irmãos homens com o ódio, o rancor, a maldade e depois dizemos «o mundo é mau.»
> Plaça Marquês de Plombal
- «Funerals of the PMC»
followed by:
- «Ultima Confissão do Primeiro Secretario da Camara Municipal»
Performance by Marita Lumi
> Casa Viva, Praça Marquês de Pombal, 167 - Funeral Concert at Casa Viva (09.00 pm) with João Filipe, Samon Takahashi, Henrique Fernandes

No sleep 'til 日本

"The more industrialized and technological areas of human agglomeration become, the more indispensable it is to find an antidote to survive in the anthill. The hectic pace of urban life, albeit immortalized in the poetry of Baudelaire, would not prosper if it dispensed with the “playful” dimension. When the space of the game also begins to demand rights of citizenship and social well-being, the obstacles hindering the execution of projects are of a different nature. The possibility of carrying out a work plan in the public sphere lies beyond the competence of art. For this reason, we must analyze the figure of the architect who guides the utopia of art to the common spaces without denying them the full force of their reality."

LISETTE LAGNADO - Shifts in the Dérive: Experiences, Journeys, Morphologies 


Background
OuUnPo is a research group made up of artists, curators and researchers who together look at the boundaries of performance by appropriating and stretching the language of workshops, seminars and meetings. The group travels to different cities and investigates a given problem. The members of the group change at each meeting. We interact extensively with local institutions and creators at every location. We have previously collaborated with Tate Britain, in London; MACRO in Rome; Serralves in Porto and Deste Foundation in Athens to mention some of the most well known. We are usually 10-15 creators who travel to each meeting. Meetings have been held in Athens, Belgrade, Amsterdam-Nijmegen, Paris, Skopje, Stockholm-Norrköping, Porto and London.

Field of Research
OuUnPo will examine if they can a facilitate a more meaningful understanding of a series of existing contemporary art exhibition by interacting with groups of visitors. The OuUnPo group will also examine whether visits to other sites in the urban space together with the audiences. We do so with the aim of creating links between the visitors' everyday life experiences and the works of art on display.

Work methods
OuUnPo is preparing a meeting in Japan in spring 2013. Since the group’s modus operandi is mobility, we will focus on temporary and mobile architecture in the urban spaces in the visited Japanes cities. The group will look for traces of human action that highlight and affect architecture without necessarily being part of it. We are particularly interested in the playfulness of artistic invention in Japanese culture and its ability to come up with dynamic solutions to difficult problems.

The project is going to operate on two interconnected levels:



1. The group is going to carry out investigations in the urban landscape of the visited cities. We take the starting point in the Japanese cityscape and carry out performances, sound-interventions and smaller installational activities. These will be private, public or sometimes for a smaller invited group.



2. OuUnPo will also make interventions in existing exhibitions and collections. We offer to museums to activate the temporary exhibitions and permanent collections with creative guided tours, walks, performances, sound-interventions, readings and lectures. These can also take place at a given place in the city in order to in order to highlight a given aspect of the exhibition or collection. In other words, we become a kind of fleeting architecture –that highlight and affect the exhibition without necessarily being part of it.


The London-based design group Åbäke and Marcus Pettersson who have already carried investigation into temporary architecture in Tokyo are specially invited for the event. We are also looking forward to collaborate with inspiring people and groups like Momus, Neko Lobby and Creative Hub 131 to mention a few. Negotiations with more collaborative partners are under way. So keep your eyes peeled for further updates.

Ouunpo goes اَلْجُمْهُورِيَّة اَللُّبْنَانِيَّة

In late 2012 Ouunpo will hold a meeting in Beirut, Lebanon. OuUnPo is an international exercise in democracy and self-organisation. It has no rules, no hierarchy, no permanent members or written program. These are negotiated and renegotiated by the members for each session. It is a research network made up of artists, curators and scientists who meets at regular intervals to interact and to investigate a given problem. It often does so in places of crises (Athens, Porto) or where historical conflicts (Belgrade/Skopje) marks the political and human landscape. This strategy is devised to instigate and retain a meaningful discussion about democratic processes.

In the wake of the last years’ events, the network feels that it needs to move beyond its European birthplace and to investigate what can be learned from events of the Arab Spring and how these can be reintegrated into Nordic democratic and artistic processes. OuUnPo has therefore taken the first steps to develop its ties with artists, curators, scientists and institutions in Lebanon. These will be develop during the year and activities will lead up to a week-long work session in Beirut in December 2012. We will use the urban landscape as a starting point and investigate the traces of past and present political and activist history in the city and how these are integrated into everyday life.

Following the outbreak of the so-called Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, the whole Middle East area has been invested in a renewed propulsion towards democracy and collective participation. In a time when European representative democracy has been facing the turbulence caused by a global financial power, it is important that cultural agents from all European countries start to actively contribute to investigate and renovate the notion of democracy. Lying on the shore of the Mediterranean, Beirut is a city whose past and recent history is intertwined with international geopolitical interests. Due to her strategical position in the heart of the Mediterranean, Beirut has always been an attractive pole for ancient empires and populations, as the unearthed layers of Phoenician, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader and Ottoman remains testimony. The city offers a complex and multi-layered urban tissue that acts as a proxy for the exercise of collective memory. Today's Beirut is in fact also the result of the wounds caused by decades of war and destruction since the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) and the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. In the present days, Beirut still plays a central role in the ongoing redefinition of "democratic regime". Its geographical and cultural vicinity to Syria pushed us to directly question the position of the artist -or more in general the cultural agent- within a certain political horizon. As a transnational, non- hierarchical European network of artists, curators, scientists and scholars we will cope with the uncomfortable question of taking responsibility and assuming a position towards the development of a cultural policy between the formal European Union and the Middle-East area. The OuUnPo project will be an occasion to confront international artists and academics with the city of Beirut, its past and present, its institutions, museums, architecture and communities, in order to foster dialogue on the local history of cultural encounters.

The project is going to operate on two interconnected levels:

1. OuUnPo will make interventions in museums their exhibitions and collections. The goal is to activate the temporary exhibitions and permanent collections with creative guided tours, walks, performances, sound-interventions, readings and lectures. These can also take place at a given place in the city in order to emphasize a give aspect of the exhibition or collection. The latter is carried out to create a link between the everyday lives of the citizens and the displayed artwork –to highlight and affect the exhibition without necessarily being part of it.

2. The group is going to carry out investigations in the urban landscape of Beirut. We take the starting point in the Lebanese cityscape and carry out performances, sound-interventions and smaller installational activities. These will be private, public or sometimes for a smaller invited group.

Publication Launch:

The International workshop will offer an occasion to officially launch the first OuUnPo publication at the Batroun Projects. The long-lasting activities of OuUnPo have been collected and edited in a book designed by Åbäke in London and published by Dent-de-Leone. The book documents in an artistic manner the development of the specific OuUnPo working methods with focus on how they have been implemented to stimulate new outlooks on democracy, self-empowerment and new ways of collaborating transnationally. The book is characterized by a trans-disciplinary approach dealing with issues of contemporary culture, with particular attention to new concepts between visual art, performance, cultural identity, sociology and critical studies.

The events will be organised by Fatos Üstek and Sara Giannini in collaboration with Rayya Badran and Ghalya Saadawi. Confermed partners in Beirut are Batroun Projects and Ashkal Alwan.

For the the meeting in Beirut, OuUnPo will join forces with the international research project "GAM – Global Art and the Museum". GAM is a research program initiated by Hans Belting and Peter Weibel at the ZKM – Centre for Art and Media Karslruhe in 2006. Its aim is to spark a debate on how the globalization process changes the art scene and to undertake a critical review of the development 20 years after its onset. In light of the undiscussed and year-long expertise in the field of global contemporary art, and especially in relation to art institutions, the GAM research team led by Andrea Buddensieg and Hans Belting will be acting as advisory board concerning the issues of inter-cultural dialogue and exchange in the visual arts. Following the week-long events in Beirut, the GAM project will invite some of the participants for a public event in February 2013. During the conference, both OuUnPo members and temporary guests will share their experiences and activities in Beirut with the GAM team and the general public. The presentations will serve as a moment for speculation and confront on the Beirut meeting, but most important as a source for a more general debate on the notions of democracy and art in nowdays Europe.

About the Project and its partners

OuUnPo is a research group composed of artists, curators and researchers who together look at the boundaries of performance by appropriating and stretching the language of workshops, seminars and meetings. Ouunpo has met regularly in different European locations since 2009. OuUnPo is an international exercise in democracy and self-organisation. It has no rules, no hierarchy, no permanent members or written program. These are negotiated and renegotiated by the members for each session.



OuUnPo has worked with cultural institutions like Tate Britain in London; MACRO, Rome; Serralves and Casa de Musica in Porto; ZKM in Karlsruhe; Mori Art Museum and Spiral in Tokyo; Bankart 1929 in Yokohama; MAM and Pinacoteca in Sao Paulo and Deste Foundation in Athens. We have collaborated with academic Institutions like Karolinska institutet and Kungliga Konsthögskolan in Stockholm; Donders Institute in Nijmegen; HfG in Karlsruhe, Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) and Musashino Art University in Tokyo and received Financial support from European Cultural Foundation and Mondriaan Stichting in Amsterdam; Kulturbryggan, SLL and Statens Kulturråd in Stockholm; the Goethe institut in Sao Paulo; The Swedish Institute in Stockholm and Paris; the embassies and consulates of France in Tokyo and Yokohama; The Swedish embassies and consulates in Tokyo and Brasilia.

The nomadic profile of the project is an asset that stimulates new ways of creating, sharing, and dispersing knowledge in new venues. The members come from all over the wider European region and change at each session, as every event is structured upon the specific location, address a contextual problematic and involves local artists or practitioners in different fields. For this purpose we interact extensively with local institutions, such as art spaces, cultural initiatives, universities and concert halls in order to create a creative context that collapses the global with the local - in order to make it as meaningful as possible both for the hosts and the guests.



Sessions have been held in Sao Paulo, Gibellina, Tokyo/Yokohama, Beirut, Porto, Athens, Belgrade, Amsterdam/Nijmegen, Rome (I), Paris, Skopje, Rome (II), London and Stockholm.

 OuUnPO does not limit its interventions in Europe's traditional financial and cultural centres but rather travels across the so-called peripheries and contributes to establish a cross-border debate on local issues and problematics by mirroring them in the global. It often does so in places of crises (Athens, Porto) or where historical conflicts (Belgrade, Skopje) mark the political and human landscape. This strategy is devised to instigate and retain a meaningful discussion about democratic processes and new trans-European frameworks and narratives for art and culture.



The characteristic of OuUnPo is to invent original and playful situations that call local artists, cultural agents and the general public to participate and collaborate by bringing their own knowledge and creativity for the production of new artworks, research and the spreading of alternative forms of knowledge. Being an external organism that penetrates the city's body through its veins and with particular attention to vital organs like spots of collective gatherings or symbolic and historical architectures, OuUnPo seeks first of all a vivid interaction with the inhabitants of the cities it travels to and to provoke a different outlook on the city’s history and patrimony. Proposing a series of interventions in cultural institutions such as museums, music venues, archaeological sites, universities and public space, OuUnPo will contribute to activating new perspectives on those spaces. By subtle and ephemeral performances and actions by the group's members and by invited local guests, OuUnPo will start a dialogue with local cultural agents on new forms of cultural management which address OuUnPo's basic principles of direct democracy and self-organization horizontality. Being a transnational and cross-generational network mainly active in the art field, OuUnPo lives of and on relations and therefore functions as a connectivity engine. For each session, OuUnPo involves the local artists community for the creation of collective events. By doing so OuUnPo's web will expand at every session and thus facilitate communication, solidarity and exchange by artists of different generations and from different regions of the world.

Generosity

In “The Digger Dug” Ben Kinmont asks himself “if it was possible to help others through an art practice and how a move outside of the institution might benefit or complicate that effort.” All artists ask themselves that question. (However, not everyone comes up with a project as exciting as Kinmont did based on the question.) He proceeded to ask a professional social worker what she thought. The answer was discomforting. At least, if you are an artist who wants to contribute to your community.

I was thinking about this project when I was walking through the park today and I slipped. As I was getting up, I looked up and a young couple smiled at me and asked if I was OK. I assured them that everything was fine. I was moved by their concern, but more than anything I felt strangely inspired by their warm smiles. I asked myself: if I paid a group of performers to go around in public places and smile genuinely at as many people as possible, would that help? Would that do something that could persuade Kinmont’s social worker to think more positively about the social potential of art? Was her negativity connected to her narrow idea of what art is could be?

Thanks for such a great weekend!

By Stephen Whitmarsh

Dear you,

I almost recovered from the weekend. The body is now just tired and my mind has burned off some kinetic energy, settling into a comfortable haze of memories.

Every participation to an OuUnPo meeting has been an exciting and opening experience for me. This one was had a little bit extra of course, giving me a lot to do and new energies to manage: A 'Don Stephen' still in its infant stage, A 'Scientist' still without the (Emperors) robes, and 'The Artist' still just a concept. Thanks to you all, it remained an exploration and discovery and not a standoff. For me that is priceless.

Snejanka's performance got me fully by surprise. A surprise of an encounter with something I recognized: An awareness of the stage, of the mental theater and the single-pointed focus towards holding that space. A fresh encounter every time it is entered. To see it embodied in such a fragile situation was indeed a courageous act. I felt it circumscribed an intuitive purpose of Ouunpo - the generation of a place/space/relationship of trust where something unknown can happen.

The anatomy museum and brain dissecting was amazing thanks to Dr. Amanda Kiliaan. Her patience and your enthusiasm permitted the chance of going beyond a simple lecture and create something new. She, or for that matter her predecessor in all the years before, like you, never had an encounter like this before.

Sometimes you can only show an intermediate result, not the end, not the beginning and not the process. The fMRI experiments were the result of a concrete collaboration between Samon and Miriam. While it was an example of combining science and art it even more so shows the ability of sharing the investigation where we are at the same time both experts and novices. More will come where that came from.

Happily surprised by your interest Paul Gaalman was able to talk openly about his doubts concerning the praxis of neuroscience while at the same time displaying techniques and knowledge that inspire awe and amazement.

In the MEG room I could show off my toys in true nerdyness, while inverting the whole experimental setting: The object of study was the group, observed by Alessandra in the measurement chair, recording and directing the meeting. Her brainwaves were your stimuli, her eye your focus, her button presses stimuli for you to interpret. For the social meeting there was no mediator, no initiator except the group itself. Here the group was taken fully out of the art context and given nothing to work with but streams of energy and information circulating through the room like through a body-without-organs.

Throughout the day as well as the days before, Miriam moved around like a shaman taking care of 20 people at the same time. I don't know how she did it but we owe our hemodynamic state to her sweet attention.

Back in Amsterdam we ended the hard day's work with my crucifixion. I can only reflect on my own perspective, which sadly could not include yours. But at least I have the pictures.

Many new people were introduced to the group throughout the weekend and during the preparation. For now I want to sincerely thank Arnisa and Antonia for taking on the mixed honor of hosting two evenings of Ouunpo while at the same time feeling like an outnumbered audience of two. I hope it heralded the opening of their studio as a wonderful place of many more intimate conversations, exhibitions, exhibitionisms and parties.

Thanks so much Jacobo for taking care of the esthetic aspect of the evening and transforming it into something beautifully grotesque.

And there my memory starts to fade...

I want to thank Per for making it happen and maintaining my confidence throughout the preparations with his kind words of encouragement. For all the work, insights, conversations, dedication and offering his brain to science I owe an awful lot to Samon. I am left with this enormous big lump in my chest of gratitude, respect and love for Alessandra and all she did. Applause!

Mostly thank you for being there and sharing your time and space!

Applause again!

More info about the event at Rongwrong events here and more images here.