Project 35 volume I
35 videos
35 artists
35 curators
25 October–1 December 2012
Opening: Wednesday 24 October, 6:30–9pm
Raw Material Company
Centre pour l’art, le savoir et la société
Center for art, knowledge and society
4074 bis Sicap Amitié 2
BP 22710 Dakar, Senegal
Hours: Tuesday–Saturday 10–7pm
T +221 33 864 0248
Raw Material Company and Independent Curators International (ICI) bring to Dakar an international collection of 35 video works of an eclectic group of emerging and established artists from across the globe.
Project 35 is an evolving exhibition of video works selected by 35 international curators and designed in a flexible presentation format, reflecting the diversity and unique nature of the many international art spaces ICI partners with. For Project 35, 35 curators have been invited to select one artist’s video that they think is important for contemporary art audiences around the world. The result heralds the new decade, and showcases an international compilation of works that reveal the global reach that video has achieved as a contemporary art medium today.
The works are presented in 4 chapters, each containing 8 to 9 videos. In the first chapter of Project 35, 9 emerging and established curators who collectively have worked in countries as disparate as Colombia, Egypt, Japan, Lithuania, Nigeria, South Africa and Vietnam truly represent the international range of the project. The collective desire for communication—for sharing perspectives—is evident through the subjects dealt with by each artist. These range from reinterpretations of philosophical propositions to uprisings and protests in South Africa, propaganda news broadcasts in China, and emerging youth culture in Ho Chi Minh City. The works also reveal the diversity of approaches artists are now taking to the medium, using various animation techniques, as well as borrowing from the language of cinema, performance, and YouTube to produce work that weave between documentary and fiction.
During the exhibition, Dakar-based video artists will discuss the art of video-making on 6–7 November in a peer-review workshop looking at various subjects including choice of subject, shooting, editing, narrative versus non-narrative, animation and exhibition formats. The workshop aims at inspiring debate on video art as well as functioning as a catalyst to expand the scope of use of the medium by local artists. The workshop is led by Koyo Kouoh, artistic director of Raw Material Company.
Participating artists to Project 35 volume I include Vyacheslav Akhunov (Uzbekistan), Meris Angioletti (Italy), Alexander Apóstol (Venezuela/Spain), Vartan Avakian (Lebenon), Azorro Group (Poland), Sammy Baloji (DR Congo), Yason Banal (Phillipines), Guy Ben-Ner (Israel), Andrea Büttner (Germany/United Kingdom), Robert Cauble (United States), Chen Chieh-jen (Taiwan), Chto delat/What is to be done? (Russia), Manon de Boer (The Netherlands/Belgium), Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys (Belgium), Angelica Detanico & Rafael Lain (Brazil), Kota Ezawa (Germany/United States), Tamar Guimarães (Brazil/Denmark), Dan Halter (Zimbabwe/South Africa), Ranbir Kaleka (India), Beryl Korot (United States), Nestor Kruger (Canada), Anja Medved (Slovenia), Tracey Moffatt (Australia), Tuan Andrew Nguyen & Phù Nam Tuc (Vietnam), Ho Tzu Nyen (Singapore), Wanda Raimundi- Ortiz (United States), Daniela Paes Leao (Portugal/The Netherlands), Elodie Pong (Switzerland), Tracey Rose (South Africa), Edwin Sanchez (Colombia), Michael Stevenson (New Zealand/Germany), Stephen Sutcliffe (United Kingdom), Yukihiro Taguchi (Japan), Ulla Von Brandenburg (Germany/France), and Zhou Xiaohu (China)
Contributing curators to Project 35 volume I include Mai Abu ElDahab (Egypt/Belgium), Magali Arriola (Mexico), Ruth Auerbach (Venezuela), Lars Bang Larsen (Denmark), Zoe Butt (Australia/Vietnam), Yane Calovski (Macedonia), Amy Cheng (Taiwan), Lee Weng Choy (Singapore), Ana Paula Cohen (Brazil), Joselina Cruz (Philippines), Sergio Edelsztein (Israel), Charles Esche (UK/Netherlands), Lauri Firstenberg (United States), Alexie Glass-Kantor (Australia), Julieta Gonzalez (Venezuela), Anthony Huberman (Switzerland/United States), Mami Kataoka (Japan), Constance Lewallen (United States), Lu Jie (China), Raimundas Malasauskas (Lithuania/France), Francesco Manacorda (Italy), Chus Martinez (Spain), Viktor Misiano (Russia), David Moos (Canada), Deeksha Nath (India), Simon Njami (Cameroon/France), Hans Ulrich Obrist (Switzerland/ United Kingdom), Jack Persekian (Palestine), José Roca (Colombia), Bisi Silva (Nigeria), Franklin Sirmans (United States), Kathryn Smith (South Africa), Susan Sollins (United States), Mirjam Varadinis (Switzerland), and WHW (Croatia).
The Dakar chapter of Project 35 volume I is a collaboration between Independent Curators International (ICI) and Raw Material Company, and is supported by Arts Collaboratory.
Project 35 is a traveling exhibition produced by Independent Curators International (ICI), New York. The exhibition is made possible in part by grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Cowles Charitable Trust, Foundation for Contemporary Art, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation; the ICI Board of Trustees; and donors to ICI’s Access Fund.
About Raw Material Company
Raw Material Company is a not-for-profit center for art, knowledge and society. It is an art initiative unfolding within the realms of exhibition-making, creative residencies, knowledge sharing, and archiving of theory and criticism. It works to foster appreciation and growth of artistic and intellectual creativity in Africa. The underlying rationale of its program is a firm belief in visual arts as a potent tool capable of shifting perspectives, and to ignite engagement for art practice as a viable path for social and political transformation. The program is transdisciplinary with a focus on photography and video, and is equally informed by urbanity, literature, film, architecture, politics, fashion, cuisine, and diasporas.
