Dialogue - On the Politics of Voice
The publication discusses the voice in relation to narration and performativity as well as means of “witnessing” in project-based contemporary art that engages with a social system, a geographical location or an oppositional movement. The essays consider the meaning of dialogue in the visual field from different perspectives. Why is narrative privileged by artists who act as “witnesses” to the formative social and political traumas or events of their time? And how do they use the symptomatic archive of statements, utterances and perishable materialities, shaped by the voice?
Dialogue – On the Politics of Voice is based on the workshop Dialogic Imagination that took place at Iaspis in 2010 as part of the public program conceived for artists and curators based in Sweden. The workshop was realised by Mary Kelly during her residency at Iaspis in close collaboration with artists Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Jane Jin Kaisen and Dont Rhine (Ultra-red) and Cecilia Widenheim (director of Iaspis 2008–10).
The publication contains an introduction by Mary Kelly and a transcript of a conversation between Mary Kelly, Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Jane Jin Kaisen and Dont Rhine that took place in Mary Kelly’s studio at Iaspis in conjunction with the workshop Dialogic Imagination. The publication also contains a text by Cecilia Widenheim, and the essay “From Inhibition to Love” by Ruth Noack examining the dialogical in Mary Kelly’s projects restaging events of the 1970s women’s movement.
“I have always wondered if there is a necessary relation between dialogic procedures and project-based work. The Iaspis workshop provided the opportunity to explore this question in a public forum.”
—Mary Kelly
Editors: Cecilia Widenheim and Mary Kelly
Graphic design and production: Stefania Malmsten
Published by Iaspis
Distribution: Axl Books
Iaspis is the Swedish Visual Arts Fund’s international programme commissioned to support international exchange for practitioners in the areas of visual art, design, craft and architecture. Iaspis’ activities aim to enable practitioners based in Sweden to develop artistically and improve their working conditions by establishing international contacts between artists and institutions, professionals such as curators and critics and others active in the field.
