Artist Run Multiverse Summit
9 to 10 November 2018
We are the artists, and the artists are many things.
The Artist Run Multiverse Summit brought together artists and artist run spaces and projects from the UK and Europe to think, talk, eat and sleep together and consider what artist run space is today, what artist run space might have once been, but no longer is, and what it might be in the future.
Eastside Projects invited five spaces, platforms or projects – Kunsthal Gent, Pallas Projects, Rabbits Road Press, Transmission Gallery and The White Pube – to frame this collective, public discussion. The two-day Summit was intended as a starting point for conversation, addressing the environments and ecologies we operate within, the function of artist-run space and the role of artists in the making of culture, community, infrastructure and policy that is responsive to all our needs.
Tickets for the two days were available on a pay what you can basis.
Total Summit costs, excluding staffing (contributors fees, travel, accommodation, refreshments) are estimated at £4,187. At full capacity, this is equivalent to £52.34 for each attendee.
Suggested minimum donations:
– Individuals: £10
– Low income project: £20
– Medium scale project: £35
– Large, regularly funded project: £52.34
SCHEDULE
FRIDAY 9 NOVEMBER
10.30 Doors open, tea and coffee
11.00 Welcome
11.15 INTERRUPTION
11.40 Questions to the Multiverse #1/2
12.30 Who’s in the room?
Rapid fire five minute presentations from spaces/ platforms/ projects in the room (sign up in advance)
13.00 Lunch
14.00 INTERRUPTION
14.25 Questions to the Multiverse #3/4/5
15.35 Break
16.00 Questions to the Multiverse – Group Discussions
17.00 Evolution as call and response: Thoughts from the Multiverse
18.00 Close – continue the conversation over food and drinks in Digbeth.
SATURDAY 10 NOVEMBER
11.00 Doors open, tea and coffee
11.30 Welcome back
11.40 INTERRUPTION
12.00 Who’s in the room
Rapid fire five-minute presentations from spaces/ platforms/ projects in the room (sign up in advance)
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Questions from the Multiverse
Attendees are invited to propose a discussion point, action or declaration for collective discussion during the afternoon session.
14.10 INTERRUPTION
14.25 Questions from the Multiverse – Group Discussions
15.25 Break
15.40 There is no neutral stance: Actions from the Multiverse.
What can/should/will we individually, and/or collectively take forward.
16.40 Declarations
17.00 Close
GALLERY CAMP
Friday 9 November
20.30 Doors open
22.00 Doors close
With a nod to Rosalie Schweiker and Maria Guggenbichler’s ‘Sleep with a Curator’ project we welcomed guests to sleep in the gallery and drift away to bed time stories from different artists.
LIVE STREAM:
CONTRIBUTORS:
Kunsthal Gent (Ghent)
Kunsthal Gent will be a new exhibition and meeting place for visual artists in Ghent, initiated by NUCLEO and Smoke & Dust (019) the Provinciaal Cultuurcentrum Caermersklooster will be transformed into a new site for artistic and architectural interventions that will gradually change the monumental structure of the building, leading to the official (re)opening in January 2019. The Kunstal programme will be informed by an ongoing investigation into reflexive display, installation, and archival methods, that question responsibilities in rethinking exhibition models and institutional formats the framework for the building can be seen as a continuous rehearsal.
Pallas Projects (Dublin)
Pallas Projects/Studios (founded 1996) is a not-for-profit artist-run organisation dedicated to the facilitation of artistic production and discourse, via the provision of affordable artists studios in Dublin’s city centre, and curated projects. Pallas Projects is an umbrella label for a variety of spaces, exchanges, off-site projects, exhibitions, talks, resource programmes, research and publications conceived of and put into practice over a 20-year period. Their research project and publication ‘Artist-Run Europe’ (Onomatopee, Eindhoven, 2016), included contributions from AA Bronson, Transmission Gallery, Gavin Wade, Céline Kopp & Alun Williams, and featured essays, case studies, and an index of over 500 European artist-run spaces. www.artist-run.eu
Rabbits Road Press (London)
Rabbits Road Press is a community Risograph print studio and publishing press run by OOMK. The small-scale publishing press provides printing and book binding services for artists and community groups in Newham and beyond. A responsive programme of workshops and events explore a contemporary model for community publishing, bringing together artists, designers, writers and local people. The project builds on Rabbits Road Institute’s initiative to establish an accessible and diverse community art space to support the development of new skills, knowledge sharing and social exchange for people living in Newham.
Transmission Gallery (Glasgow)
Transmission (b.1983) is an artist-run organisation that supports and is supported by its membership and surrounding communities in Glasgow and beyond. Operating in multiple capacities, Transmission works with artists in the production of exhibitions, events, exchanges, residencies and publications. It also shares various resources with its membership in order to facilitate activities outside of its own programming. As the longest standing artist-run space in Glasgow, it houses an archive of materials connected to the activities of the gallery and its membership, whilst remaining active a present-day social hub.
The White Pube (Liverpool, London, online)
The White Pube is the collaborative identity of Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad under which they write criticism and (sometimes) curate. They are based at thewhitepube.com and also on Instagram and Twitter as @thewhitepube. The White Pube publish a new text every Sunday, mostly exhibition reviews but sometimes baby essays or podcasts. Their writing began as reaction to other texts that were often boring/overly academic/white nonsense////and male. Each review is a personal reaction, and a record of an encounter with an aesthetic experience.
