Autumn 2014 programme
Delfina Foundation
29/31 Catherine Place
London SW1E 6DY
Delfina Foundation is pleased to announce its autumn programme and introduce a new thematic focus for its residency and public programme exploring the notion of autonomy.
Following its major expansion in January 2014, Delfina Foundation has been considering the role of artists and arts institutions in developing strategies to address wide-ranging issues. Recurring thematic programmes—The Politics of Food and The Public Domain— have drawn on the concept of the commons to reflect on the past and collectively imagine the future through artistic action and public participation. Acts and aspirations of claiming autonomy have been central, and at times contradictory, to such approaches.
This autumn, Delfina Foundation will further examine what autonomy means today by unravelling historic moments of liberation and the aftermath of cultural movements and colonialism. Screenings, seminars, meals and lecture-performances will explore the often uneasy relationship between the notion of autonomy and the critical issues that form part of Delfina Foundation’s thematic programmes.
Public programme
Delfina Foundation has invited The Otolith Group and Associação Cultural Videobrasil to present separate programmes over the autumn period that relate to the notion of autonomy.
The Otolith Group
13 October–8 November, Monday–Saturday, 11–18h
Private view: Monday, 13 October, 16–19h
In the Year of the Quiet Sun (2013) is an essay film that takes its name from the decrease in solar surface temperature that occurs every 11 years. From November 1964 to November 1965, the nation states of the world issued postage stamps to commemorate the first scientific expedition to study the sun. As the stamps turned their face towards the sky, they overlooked the unstable land of Africa’s newly independent states.
To complement In the Year of the Quiet Sun, The Otolith Collective—the name adopted by The Otolith Group for its public programming—has curated films and videos that dramatise the contingency of anti-colonial struggles through forms of travelogue and children’s drawing and modes of clandestinity and translation. With works by Rene Vautier, Yann le Masson & Olga Poliakoff, Harun Farocki, and Benjamin Tiven.
The Otolith Group are in conversation with curator Grant Watson on 27 October at 19h.
Videobrasil
12 November–19 December, Monday–Saturday, 11–18h
In collaboration with Associação Cultural Videobrasil, Delfina Foundation presents a selection of works curated by João Laia, member of the curatorial team of the forthcoming 19th edition of the Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil. The display will deal with identity politics in relation to gender, sexuality and desire with films and videos selected from PLATFORM:VB, a new research tool that aims to provide in-depth contextualisation of the works exhibited through Videobrasil’s festival and other activities.
Residency programme
In partnership with Tate, Delfina Foundation hosts The Brooks International Fellows: Kamini Sawhney, Ayesha Matthan and Aastha Chauhan.
In partnership with Goldsmiths College, Iniva and the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, Delfina Foundation launches the fourth year of its joint Research Fellowship programme with Prajna Desai and Malak Helmy.
Events and activities that evolve from the residency programme will be announced in November on www.delfinafoundation.com.
Supporters & partners
Delfina Foundation would like to thank Associação Cultural Videobrasil, Tate, Rory and Elizabeth Brooks, the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, Goldsmiths College’s Department of Visual Cultures and Ph.D. Program in Curatorial/Knowledge, the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva), and Delfina Foundation’s “family” of individual supporters.
The film In the Year of the Quiet Sun was co-commissioned with Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin and Casco-Office for Art, Design and Theory in partnership with Artsonje Center.
