Collective Misunderstandings Symposium Part 1
Collective Misunderstandings: a two-part symposium on Utopia
Part 1: Saturday 17th January 2014
This two-part symposium accompanies Collective Misunderstandings, an exhibition at Mission Gallery by Copenhagen-based collective ATB and its is aim to critically examine the history of utopian thinking as a method of open process. The utopian topics chosen by the invited speakers and contributions from ATB will provide entry points for discussion around the various ways art, society, industry and nature intersect in daily life.
The events will bring together colleagues and friends of the group for a unique and open process of investigation, poetic discourse, historical narrative and a process of collective dreaming and discussion, with key guest speakers as guides. With Thomas More’s text Utopia as a reference we will explore contemporary journeys towards utopia including Ernst Bloch, the Rastafarian process of ‘groudning’, the communes and history of alternative living in California and beyond, and utopian childhoods from a historical and feminist perspective.
Symposium Part 1, Saturday January 17th, Mission Gallery
Speakers/ Contributors: Anna Davin, Howard Slater, ATB
Framed by a ‘grounding’ session by Howard Slater and ATB.
10.00am coffee and registration / 10.30 start / an hour for lunch / 4.00pm finish [with breaks]
This is followed by the opening of the Collective Misunderstandings show and a celebration of Art’s Birthday, 6-8pm.
A lunchtime vegan/vegetarian soup will be provided [small donation suggested].
Link to eventbrite information:
** This event is now fully booked but there is a possibility for returned tickets closer to the time of the event, please check back or email [email protected] to be placed on the waiting list. Many thanks. Tickets still remain for Part 2 hosted on the following Saturday with Iain Boal and ATB https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/collective-misunderstandings-symposium-part-2-tickets-15091691656 **
Anna Davin is a founding member of the History Workshop Journal collective and over the decades has been researching and teaching women's history and the history of children. Her book Growing Up Poor: Home, School and Street in London 1870-1914 came out in1996. http://archiveshub.ac.uk/features/08061303.html
Howard Slater is a writer, researcher and co-founder of MayDay Rooms. His book Anomie/Bonhomie was published by Mute Books in 2011. His texts and poetry have been supported and published by: 10th Floor, Alien Underground, Audiolab Arteleku, Autonomedia, Autotoxicity, Break/Flow, Copenhagen Free University, Datacide, Difficult Fun, Fatuous Times, Five Leaves Left, Here & Now, Infopool, Infotainment, Mute, Night Class, Noise Gate, Obsessive Eye, Palantir, Papakura Post Office, Penniless Press, Rebel Ink, Resonance Magazine (LMC), School of Walls & Space, Smile, TechNET, Variant, Working Press. He was the editor of Break/Flow.
ATB is a multidisciplinary collective with members from Germany, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania, Chile and Wales. They share common interests in collectivity, urban space, performance, the politics of art and its emancipatory potential.
Collective Misunderstandings marks the eighth year of Art’s Birthday, Wales’ contributions to international, annual celebrations of Art’s Birthday on 17th January each year.
A collaboration between Art's Birthday Wales, Forever Academy, ATB and Mission Gallery.
The Collective Misunderstandings exhibition runs from 17th Jaunuary - 8th February 2015 at Mission Gallery.
Supported by Arts Council Wales, the Danish Arts Foundation, The Idella Foundation, and the Ministry Of Culture Of The Republic Of Lithuania.
A ‘grounding’ is an open ended terms used by Rastafarians to describe impromptu and unscheduled meetings. It is a space of reflection, an informal space for discussion (‘reasoning’), for an exchange of ideas in a non-competitive, a non-didactic environment. A ‘grounding’, then, could be seen as an ‘educational’ form without an institution as such, a moveable form for learning with an ethos of inter-subjective exploration. It is also a rich term that I feel can be adapted to set an atmosphere. Rather than such terms as ‘meeting’, the poetic element of ‘grounding’ suggests that a participant brings their whole self rather than a professional set of behaviours. It could be suggested that it has an affinity with terms such as ‘being grounded’ – we can come closer to one another if we leave behind what’s been called ‘the presentational level of the self’ and subsist together as equal seekers.
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