24 / 7_Trojan and the practical limits of the arts
(Click image to view large with English translation under the photo)
Recently art critic Hans den Hartog Jager published an essay (part one /part two) in NRC (a Dutch newspaper) with the headline ‘ Artists, the world isn’t listening’, where he explained that engaged art today is hardly playing any role in the social debate.
If you are interested in this theme, you might also like to read my practical experiences when I tried to realize 24/7_Trojan in the ‘public space’ of Nijmegen earlier this year. This project shows in my opinion quite well the practical limitations of art in order to reach outside its own category.
The role of the curator
First of all I was invited by curator and visual artist Stijn Van Dorpe to realize this project. He asked me to reflect on the theme subject and was inspired by a quote of Jacques Rancière: ‘The power of a way of thinking has above all to do with its ability to move’.
My final proposal 24/7_Trojan aimed to facilitate a visual referendum with cars on the large roundabout called ‘Het Keizer Karelplein’ in the city centre of Nijmegen. The art intervention aimed to reflect on this offered city infrastructure and proposed to use the current situation differently. The idea was not to transport ourselves from A to B within an everyday logic, but to use this infrastructure with another logic where the roundabout could be a possible destination. This way the project offered a visual tool to investigate the current situation, where mobility is now facilitated to stimulate the economic surrounding of the city 24/7 and where pedestrians can hardly reach the little park in the middle. A pedestrian crossing is missing. Within the concept of 24/7_Trojan the audience would be invited to visualize their commitment with the current situation deciding to use, or not use the roundabout for a fixed and limited period of time during a specific day. The presence or abcense of the audience with their cars would be offered as theatre from behind the city theatre Nijmegen, which was build to bring art to the citizens.
The realization of this project painfully exposed the impossibility for an artist to touch the visual order, and logic of our daily surrounding. I was unable to reach and convince all partners who had- and still have, interest in- and are in charge of, the current situation of the roundabout.
I think that when you propose a project like 24/7_Trojan and I experienced it with other projects, it makes a difference if the curator is an artist and works temporary as a curator for an organization. It is my experience that these curators are willing to think more free and take more risk, a role that others refuse to take, or simply cannot take because of their position within (often subsidized) institutions. I think that the artist Renzo Martens, who responded to the critique of the art critic den Hartog Jager on some curators, made this point very clear by stressing the importance that these curators had the guts in the first place to show his work, when nobody else at that time showed interest in his projects.
The role of the politicians
When I proposed 24/7_Trojan and asked for permission and support of the responsible alderman of culture, education and traffic of the municipality Nijmegen, his first reaction by email confirmed that my experiment was touching an interesting point. He added that the right experts would take a look at my idea, before he would answer officially to my request. A few weeks later an officer of the municipality called me with the message that it was forbidden for me to continue with this project on the roundabout and that they were definitely not willing to meet and discuss other possibilities in person. The town allows events on the roudabout (when these events add economically to the city) but this artproject did not fit in this category.
After this refusal I tried to find other ways to reflect on the given situation. A local non-profit organization responsible to organize the year of Charles the Great, who had close ties to the municipality of Nijmegen (but was financed with money from the European Union ) refused to announce a lecture I organized around the sculpture of Charles the Great, that is positioned in the middle of the roundabout. I was explained by email that my activities were forbidden to take place by the municipality of Nijmegen and therefore they would not support my activities.
I organized a discussion with local politicians at the closing of 24/7_Trojan. The alderman of culture (D66) who refused my proposal and meeting me in person, was replaced by a new alderman (SP), both refused to attend the discussion or to send replacement. Three oppositional parties attended the discussion (Groen Links, D66, VVD) all agreed after my presentation that the communication with the municipality seemed to have been very difficult. Groen links reacted on the position of the art institute in this process which I will explain later, VVD didn’t see the point for me to reflect on the roundabout area because it functions well, but he didn’t hesitate to point at my individual responsibilities when he heard about my visits to the little park with primary school children. These children live in Nijmegen but had never been in this little park before. Crossing this street was very dangerous according to the politician.
The role of the art institute
In the beginning we, curator and artist, had a meeting with the board members of the institute where we exchanged thoughts on the proposed project. Within a month I had a meeting with the board alone, where we discussed my intentions as a maker. I was open about the fact that my proposed idea could be realized with, or without help. Because a lot of my projects failed to be realized until then and now 24/7_Trojan was also able to realize itself (underground). We agreed to work together but for them it was important to walk the official path. As a cultural entrepreneur from outside Nijmegen it was important to connect with their network and also from a financial point of view this was the best partnership. We agreed that I would ask full cooperation of the municipality and if the outcome would be negative, we (the artist and the institute) would start an active debate on different levels about this project and its relation with the participation society as introduced by politicians. To discuss the freedom for individuals to react and interact with our daily surrounding. A member of the board gave feedback on the letter I wrote and improved my writings before it was send to the alderman.
I received my refusal by a phone call of an officer working for the municipality and later I received a letter by mail. I was surprised that nobody of the institute followed the path we discussed and agreed on before, to push a public debate and ask for attention to get a discussion out in public. I tried to contact the press myself, but nobody replied my emails or phone calls.
There was nothing else for me to do than to engage with the surrounding of the roundabout within my possibilities. Here the institute was willing to facilitate social elements to the intervention, by offering their network and collaboration with primary schools. When the press was invited to attend they came. There were three public events organized by me, two in the little park that offered insides on this specific location and aimed to attract public to reach the park in the middle. Unfortunately these meetings could not find large media attention. At one of these events I heard a board member of the institute mentioning to a guest that there had been another meeting where they discussed the possible responsibilities for the institution. A responsibility that would appear when the artist’s project really managed to block the roundabout with a traffic jam, when a lot of people would take part in 24/7_Trojan. At that time there just had been a protest and a lot of heated discussions around blocking the roundabout were published online. The organizer of that protest was fined afterwards by the municipality. This might have influenced their role and position. The change in approach by the institution was not communicated to me, the artist. Certain changes are of course essential to the outcome of this project. The fire was extinguished on purpose, the only thing left for me to do was to present my statement in the exhibition space and give a lecture explaining this process. A discussion was organized afterwards with local politicians where one of the political parties expressed their worries by the way the board of the institute dealt with this realization process. They told, in their turn, that the relation as institute with the municipality connected with subsidies, played no role of importance in their decision making. Main reason to step out of the agreed trajectory with the artist was the possible responsibility for financial or other damage caused by a traffic jam on the roundabout by 24/7_Trojan.
As I mentioned, a large text was printed and presented in the exhibition space. The text explained that I was unable as an artist to organize a visual referendum on the roundabout in Nijmegen and it is now up to you to organize it yourself. The reach of this message was small, not many people visited the show.
The role of the media
When the actual proposal was denied by the municipality of Nijmegen, press was unavailable to my personal messages as an individual artist. When the actual moment to start this discussion was over and my project was facilitated in a more social, less critical direction, the local press came on the invitation of the institute to interview me. My comments on the existing situation and lack of political support was not mentioned by the press. One of the headlines in a newspaper pointed at my individual role. What had to become a collaborative event, was presented as the action of one single artist:‘The artist wants us to look different at the current situation of Het Keizer Karelplein’.
The NRC was also informed (where Hans den Hartog Jager published his essay), but unfortunately this project was not interesting enough to reach another league of attention. The possibilities for different ways of thinking, to be able to move, are limited.
The role of experts
At an expert meeting, three experts reflected on this project and the roundabout. First Joost de Bloois gave a lecture. His message was that the public space is owned by the state. He explained that projects like these are doomed to fail, because it acts within a sphere that is controlled by ‘others’, so the artist will never be in charge of the outcome or able to realize a visual gesture that makes a difference here. A full text in Dutch is available online.
City planner Aglaee Degros explained that the public space is more and more owned by private partners, so large city planning as we witnessed in the past is not possible anymore. To achieve changes it is necessary to use small gestures to improve our living surroundings.
Mariska van den Berg wrote a book about bottom-up initiatives and their influence. She explained that collaborative projects can make the difference on a small scale, but have often difficulties to find support by local governments.
The role of the audience
After the refusal of my first proposal, the audience was briefly informed by the newspaper De brug from Nijmegen and later by De Gelderlander. They mentioned the three public events part of 24/7_Trojan, and never reported the refusal by- and the impossibility to communicate with- the municipality. In general you can say that as an artist I was not able to reach the right audience. The institution with a local network was also not able to seduce a large amount of people to participate. Together we failed to realize the aimed collaboration and its possibilities. We were unable to reach a position where the art could become part of a social debate about the appearance and parameters of public space. Or maybe 24/7_Trojan didn't fail by showing exactly this...
Link to the project:
http://www.edwinstolk.nl/247365.html
On December 21, during the closing of my next project, I will try to organize a discussion after three case studies (projects in public space) and look at their possibilities and role in the social debate.
Edwin Stolk