Symposium "TO HAVE / TO OWN"

23rd-25th September 2011, Vaasa City Hall, Vaasa, Finland

Platform is pleased to invite you to a three-day symposium around the ideas of "TO HAVE / TO OWN".

The assumption is that the words "to have / to own" activate discussion and generate questions about cultural heritage, aesthetics and ethics, material and immaterial resources, networking, communication and sustainability.

The symposium allows for discussion on these issues, and each day will evolve around a topic that takes the acts of having and owning in different directions; dealing with democracy and activism in contemporary art; artist identity - where localness meets a global context; and finally, dealing with different forms of art collectives and the engagement of the community in contemporary art projects.

TO HAVE / TO OWN sets the frame for Platform's anniversary activities, as a way of summing up since its start in 2000. The symposium coincides with the launch of the book "Don't look back", partly documenting past Platform activities and partly presenting new projects. A selection of recent projects by artists-in-residence at Platform will also be presented. The year's activities will culminate in an exhibition at Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art in December 2011.

Programme:

Friday September 23rd

15-15.30 Ulrika Ferm (FIN/DE), artist, curator, Berlin; Introduction
15.30-16.15 Rolf Büchi (CH/GB), writer, London; Modern Direct Democracy. 
16.15-17 Shelly Silver (USA), artist, New York; Response - Responsibility.
30 min break
17.30-18.15 Jaana Kokko (FIN), artist, Helsinki, The Anarch.
18.15-19 Kennedy Browne (IE), collaborative practice of Gareth Kennedy and Sarah Browne, Ireland; How Capital Moves.
19.15-20 Per Huttner (SE), artist; Can art change the world?
20- "Vaasa in Luck"- closing ceremony at the Platform studio

Saturday September 24th
 
11-11.45 Mika Hannula (FIN/DE), writer and curator, Berlin; Modernity Retired - Outline of a Project. 
11.45-12.30 Nina Czegledy (HU), artist, curator and writer; Paradigm Shifts in Contemporary Media Art Practice.
90 mins for lunch
14-14.45 Esther Pilkington (GB), artist and curator, Wales; "Vaasa in Luck".
14.45-15.30 Helga Steppan (SE), artist; "Lost and Found", presentation of site-specific project.

Sunday September 25th 
 
11-11.45 Stine Hebert (DK), acting director, BAC, Visby; Institutionalization of the Self-Organised. 
11.45-12.30 Maureen Connor (USA), artist, New York; How to be an Artist in Residence for the US Government - a project of the
Institute for Wishful Thinking.
30 min break
13-13.45 Sophie Hope, practitioner, London; Censorship, compromise and cancellation? The culture of commissioning socially
engaged art in the UK.
13.45-14.30 Minna Heikinaho (FIN), artist, Helsinki. Experiences in the urban space - the incompleteness of community art.