The A.C.T. DEMOC[K]RACY project in Rennes

A.C.T. DEMOC[K]RACY

Rennes – Eindhoven – Cluj – Belgrade
September 2012–August 2014

A.C.T. DEMOC[K]RACY in Rennes: 
September 2012–March 2013

www.act-democracy.eu

The A.C.T. DEMOC[K]RACY project
The Art Cooperation Transmission Democ[k]racy project brings together seven institutional players, more than forty artists and around thirty researchers. Combining residencies, seminars and exhibitions, A.C.T. DEMOC[K]RACY will move on from Rennes, France to Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Cluj in Romania, and finally Belgrade in Serbia, from September 2012 to August 2014.

Because the withdrawal into separatist identities that occur in many European countries are alarming symptoms of a crisis of democracy within Europe, the partners of A.C.T. DEMOC[K]RACY choose to promote art as a critical space in the fundamental debate on the future of democracy. This is both to recognize the importance of creative freedom, while questioning the training procedures and registration of artists works in the social space.

The A.C.T. DEMOC[K]RACY project is passionately in favour of movement, interchange and openness as the first conditions for the free circulation of ideas and works.

The A.C.T. project partners:
La Criée centre for contemporary art, Rennes – France 
Altart Foundation, Cluj-Napoca – Romania 
Cultural Centre of Belgrade – Serbia 
Onomatopee, Eindhoven – The Netherlands 
European Higher School of Art of Brittany – France 
University of Arts and Design, Cluj – Romania 
Fabrica de Pensule, Cluj-Napoca – Romania

www.act-democracy.eu
With the support of the Culture programme of the European Union.

A.C.T. DEMOC[K]RACY in Rennes: September 2012–March 2013
Residencies: November 2012
Two students and two teachers from the University of Arts and Design of Cluj were in residency at the European Higher School of Art of Brittany, Rennes.

Exhibition: Two Lines of Life (or why a rabbit likes weeds) 
At La Criée centre for contemporary art
January 18–March 10, 2013
Artists: Radoš Antonijević, Damir Avdić, Boogie, Uroš Đurić, Vlatka Horvat, IRWIN, Aleksandar Jestrović Jamesdin, Aleksandar Maćašev and Stephen Gee, Vladimir Nikolić, Zoran Todorović, Raša Todosijević
Curators: Mia David and Zorana Djaković Minniti from the Cultural Center of Belgrade, Serbia.

The exhibition features 11 artists and art groups and it is the joint work of two curators from Belgrade, which could be described as a process:

“Dealing with the relationship between the personal and the political, we explored through a simple questionnaire* what democracy meant to people around us. We invited artists from Serbia, as well as several artists from the region of the former Yugoslavia, being of the opinion that it is precisely these great differences, both in terms of artistic expression and in terms of political views, which actually constitute the meaning of democracy to us.”

*
Name
Year of Birth
Place of Birth
Where do you live?
Family Status
Profession 
What do you do for work?
5 personal events that affected your life the most!
5 political events that affected your life the most!
What’s democracy for you?

Seminar: February 21, 2013
At the European Higher School of Art of Brittany
“Education and training in their contributions to democratic creativity”
Speakers: Dominique Abensour, Radoš Antonijević, Paul de Bruyne, Nadine Loiseau, Thierry Micouin, Karine Montarou, Nagy Havadi Istvan, Damien Simon and Joëlle Zask

Experimenting a critical research pole on Art and Democracy, A.C.T. offers, from January 2012 until June 2014, three seminars and one symposium around four issues: education, freedom, urbanism and poetics.

Through these themes, the conditions for intellectual and artistic emancipation within democracies will be explored. When artistic practices offer the conditions for intellectual emancipation, they form the place and the moment for the implementation of a democratic practice.

In Rennes, the seminar on the 21st of February will gather around two roundtables artists, teachers, professionals, and researchers around the question of artistic education and training in their contributions to democratic creativity.