U-Create Seminar on Art and Value

Paavo Järvensivu, D.Sc. (Econ.) studied organisational culture and corporate strategy, writing his doctoral thesis around these studies. His research has more specifically focused on the relationships between the economy and culture.

He has developed collaborative forms of engagement between art and science in the Mustarinda Association, and has also written a book which merges economics, ecological and cultural research, titled Rajattomasti rahaa niukkuudessa [Endless Money in Scarcity]. In the BIOS research unit, he has dealt particularly with the practices and developmental paths of public and private economy.

Art and Value today

In the present, we are facing many disasters that require so many solutions, too many for any one artistic project to grapple with. Visual art’s economies as well as its fraught debates around the relation between art and politics have made the retreat of some from present conditions all the easier. Art that communicates through the lens of money and value may find ways to be in solidarity with the fight against fascism, racism, patriarchy, and capitalism while perhaps offering new modes of thought and practice for these struggles. My talk will ask questions about how we can develop these discussions on the subject of value through connecting them with topics that, in many cases, fall outside of its purview. I will look at some of my past projects and discuss them as works that attempted to address the world around me. Hopefully this will open up a conversation about the images and situations artists and curator’s want to show and see when they talk about value.

Melanie Gilligan (born Toronto, 1979) works in a way that reconceives television drama and its links to various forms of non-fictional moving images as a discussion of contemporary political conditions. She completed a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in London and was a Fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program from 2004-2005. She is a PhD candidate at the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm. Gilligan frequently contributes to publications including Texte zur Kunst and Springerin and sees critical writing as an essential part of her artistic practice. For her large-scale video works, the artist-filmmaker develops her academic investigation of sociopolitical issues, especially of systemic relationships between labor, economy and politics, as well as the individual’s role within this network of relationships. Mostly produced as serialized dramas using fictional future worlds, her works explore the shifting experience of everyday life in today’s economies by analyzing logical structures of contemporary capitalism.

Primer: Diversification of Impact

Diakron (represented by David Hilmer Rex and Aslak Aamot Kjaerulff) will present the development of their ongoing project Primer. Primer is a platform for artistic and organizational development housed in the headquarters of global water technology company Aquaporin. The talk will focus on Diakron’s strategic and curatorial development of a relational organizational form in the context of Aquaporin. It will highlight the analytical work of discovering and describing forms of impact that can be achieved through such work.

Bios

Diakron is a platform and studio for transdisciplinary research and practice based in Copenhagen. Diakron establishes collaborations across disciplinary backgrounds and institutional frameworks. The backgrounds of its own members are diverse and are composed of experiences from artistic practices, curatorial practices, social sciences and graphic design.

David Hilmer Rex is an artist based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is a co-founder of Diakron, a platform and studio for transdisciplinary research and practice. He holds an MFA from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Visual Art. He is currently a PhD candidate at The Institute of Art, Writing and Research, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and School of Communication and Culture, Art History, Aarhus University. The PhD concerns the development of Primer, a platform for artistic and organizational development, located in the headquarter of the global water technology company Aquaporin in Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark.

Aslak Aamot Kjaerulff holds a PhD degree in mobilities research and action research from Roskilde University. He is a co-founder of Diakron and Primer. The core trajectory of his practice is to trace how concepts and ideas travel across cultures and disciplines. This involves exploratory methodological designs, where problem formulations, research processes, artistic productions are invented collaboratively in various constellations. The outcomes have been exhibitions, government reports, artworks, transdisciplinary communities of practice, radio documentaries, and fictional as well as academic texts.

Mari Männistö, M.Sc., director at Helsinki Contemporary since 2015. Her background is in media industry and business development, especially in book publishing. She enjoys connecting people, ideas and businesses in genuine spirit and gets inspired by combining contentual, creative and financial goals.

Helsinki Contemporary focuses on long-term collaborations with some 30 emerging and more established Nordic artists who take a physical, in-depth approach to their work. The gallery accentuates curatorial commitment and prioritizes visual art of current interest that conducts a dialogue with both the surrounding society and the space in which it is presented.