Sequences VII 2015: Alfredo Cramerotti appointed Artistic Director
IAC Newsletter November 2014
03.11.2014
Sequences VII 2015
Alfredo Cramerotti Artistic Director
Alfredo Cramerotti has been appointed as the next artistic director of Sequences Real Time Art Festival that takes place for the seventh time in Reykjavik, Iceland, April 10-19, 2015.
Sequences is an independent biennial, established in Reykjavik in 2006. The aim of the ten day festival is to produce and present progressive visual art with special focus on time-based media, such as performance, sonic works, video and public interventions. An offspring of the dynamic art scene that thrives in Reykjavik, Sequences is the first art festival in Iceland to focus on visual arts alone. New artistic directors are hired to reshape each edition of Sequences according to their vision, making it unique and different every time.
Following a successful Sequences VI in 2013, under the artistic leadership of Markús Thór Andrésson, it was decided to cultivate the power of the festival and further its development by seeking abroad for the next artistic director. Alfredo Cramerotti is a writer and curator working across TV, radio, publishing, media festivals and exhibition making. He directs MOSTYN, Wales’ leading contemporary art institute and co-directs the roaming curatorial agencies AGM Culture and CPS Chamber of Public Secrets. Amongst other major exhibitions, he co-curated the Maldives Pavilion and the Wales Pavilion at the 55th Venice Art Biennale, Italy, in 2013, and Manifesta 8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Region of Murcia, Spain, in 2010. The curatorial and organisational team of Sequences VII is made up of Cramerotti, Edda K. Sigurjónsdóttir, curatorial consultant and project manager and Edda Halldórsdóttir, managing director.
When asked about his interest in curating a visual arts festival in Iceland, Cramerotti said that:
“Reykjavik has one of the most active and cutting-edge scenes in contemporary culture. Just notice the presence of Icelandic artists and programmes on a global scale in visual arts, music, digital imaging, theatre, dance, etc. To be able to go through the creative process of discussing themes, inventing formats, commissioning new work, and organising exhibitions, performances, conversations and more in the Iceland art scene is a great opportunity.”.
Sequences VII will include approximately 25 artistic positions, from the established to the emergent, from around 10 different countries. The complete list of invited artists, partnerships and the festival theme will be announced soon. Exhibitions, performances and events will take place in various official venues and public spaces across Reykjavik. Alongside the main program, an Off-Venue program – introduced for the first time in the previous edition of Sequences, during which works from Matthew Barney and many more were exhibited – will be presented. Registrations for the Off-Venue program will be welcomed and advertised later.
Sequences is an artist initiated festival and has grown from the grass-root art scene in Iceland. It aims to be a progressive international visual arts event of significance, a valuable platform for artists to develop their practice, further their careers and facilitate increased participation and visibility in the international art scene. About the development of Sequences, Cramerotti said that:
“Sequences has done great things in the past six editions. Sequences VII will have an impact internationally and at the same time a strong local purpose, combining a range of cross-disciplinary works, curatorial approaches and multiple venues in Reykjavik. I am utterly enjoying the process, and looking forward to seeing the results myself. “
The organising bodies and responsible for Sequences are the Icelandic Art Center, The Living Art Museum and Kling&Bang Gallery.
For further information:
Edda Halldórsdóttir +354 848 8351
Edda Kristín Sigurjónsdóttir +354 897 4062
Talk at Open Studio VIR Viafarini-in-residence, MIlan: Alfredo Cramerotti, Stefano Cagol, Isaac Contreras [Italian / English]
VIR Open Studio
Stefano Cagol, Isaac Contreras
opening Monday September 30, starting at 6.30 pm
VIR Viafarini-in-residence, via Carlo Farini 35, Milano
viafarini@viafarini.org | +39 0266804473
Stefano Cagol presenta opere video e installative realizzate durante la residenza in continuità con la ricerca sviluppata per la sua partecipazione alla 55. Biennale di Venezia 2013, Padiglione Maldive. Viene anche presentato il libretto THE ICE MONOLITH Platform con 34 interviste realizzate dall’artista.
Alle ore 20 Alfredo Cramerotti (direttore del MOSTYN, Galles) racconterà l’esperienza del Padiglione Maldive, del quale è co-curatore come parte del collettivo CPS – Chamber of Public Secrets. Cramerotti è anche co-curatore del Padiglione Galles alla 55. Biennale di Venezia 2013.
Bouvet Island è una delle isole più remote del pianeta (si tratta di un’isola norvegese situata però agli antipodi, nell’area antartica) costituita di rocce vulcaniche coperte per il 93% da bianchi ghiacci permanenti, ‘incontaminata’, è al tempo stesso stata protagonista di uno degli esperimenti nucleari più misteriosi, il caso ‘Vela’, un’esplosione avvenuta nelle sue acque e mai rivendicata da alcuna nazione. L’installazione ne prende il titolo e la ‘forma’ metaforica.
Isaac Contreras ha investigato le modalità di circolazione degli oggetti smarriti quotidianamente nelle città, collaborando con gli uffici oggetti smarriti e rispondendo ad annunci privati in città. Il progetto, dal titolo O.O.O è una ricerca sulle raccolte accidentali di oggetti, frutto dell’errore e della dimenticanza. Questi accumuli di oggetti rappresentano detriti del nostro tempo, sedimentazioni del caos e costruzioni entropiche della quotidianità nelle metropoli. L’artista presenta una serie di sculture realizzate con materiali trovati e sculture in gesso basate sulla somma del volume degli oggetti smarriti e recuperati in città.
“I see my work as an evolving system of forms in which instability, precariousness and emptiness exist not only as given conditions but as triggers for the work to happen. This involves learning to negotiate with the empty, rendering the void, looking for matter in empty places and using available materials and unstable situations as mechanisms to open space for the uncertain, the overlooked and the fragile. I’m interested in open systems that in-form the work and allow it to exist in shifting configurations during the exhibition. This way of proceeding, responding to a system that is not dependent on me, allows me to develop a practice in which negotiation plays a central role.”
Durante l’Open Studio si potrà visitare lo studio condiviso da: Enrico Boccioletti, Roberto Fassone, Toni Fiorentino, Pasquale Gadaleta, Luca Resta, Sebastiano Sofia, Federico Tosi, Carloalberto Treccani.
Contingent Movements Symposium – Maldives Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale
Saturday 28 & Sunday 29 September 2013
Maldives Pavilion & Library of Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts – ASAC, Venice
The Contingent Movements Symposium forms part of the public program of the Maldives Pavilion, and provides critical input for the Contingent Movements Archive, a curatorial research project conducted over the period of the 55th Venice Biennale by Hanna Husberg and Laura McLean, and developed with Kalliopi Tsipni-Kolaza
http://www.contingentmovementsarchive.com
Contingent Movements Symposium locations
Maldives Pavillion at Gervasuti Foundation,
Fondamenta Sant’Anna (the continuation of Via Garibaldi),
Castello 995, Venice
Library of Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts (ASAC)
access from Calle del Paludo Sant’ Antonio (behind Giardini area),
Castello, Venice
The disappearance of the Maldives beneath the sea is a speculative hypothesis, though a likely and compelling one. The Earth’s average temperature appears set to rise beyond levels considered to have knowable outcomes, and today there is an emphasis on mitigation and adaptation, rather than prevention, in national and international law and policy relating to climate change.
But is dissolution, rather than disappearance, perhaps a more appropriate term to describe the changing state of the Maldives? Already the coral islands are being eroded by rising tides, which take beaches and palm trees with them, while salt water permeates the soil. In a material sense, the islands will not disappear, but they will retreat from human use as the archipelago dissolves into the Indian Ocean.
The former president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, established a ‘sovereign wealth fund’ to purchase land abroad in anticipation of the displacement of his constituents, proposing Australia, India, and Sri Lanka as territories for relocation. A nation faces a constitutional crisis if all land is lost, and no sovereign territory can be established on foreign soil. The maintenance of territory is one of the key constituting elements of statehood, and should land not be maintained, the state of the Maldives could be legally dissolved.
The prospect of statelessness in this case is a real one. Under current international law there is no such thing as a ‘climate refugee’. Refugee status, and therefore the protection of human rights by host nations, is not currently afforded to individuals displaced by ‘natural’ forces. The acceptance of individuals displaced from low-lying islands into other nations as refugees is thus at present problematic.
Speculating on the contingent circumstances Maldivians may face as a permanently displaced population, and exploring these within a global context, the Contingent Movements Symposium addresses the potential humanitarian and cultural consequences of this situation. Contributors from a range of disciplines have been brought together to think through the effects of national and international law on human movements, and consider how mobile technology and the Internet might assist in preserving the culture of Maldives, while helping dispersed communities adapt and connect.
In financial terms, the role of speculators is to absorb excess risk that other participants do not want, and to provide liquidity in the market place. The Contingent Movements Symposium aims to provide liquidity in the market of ideas surrounding an unprecedented scenario with a not-yet-fixed outcome. Hosted in the archives of the Venice Biennale, on another island affected by floods and inundated by tourism, it seeks to open a dialogue on the future of the Maldives, and the complexity of global responsibility in the face of the world’s changing climate.
Symposium contributions by Alfredo Cramerotti (CPS Curator, Maldives Pavilion), Mariyam Shiuna (researcher), T.J. Demos (writer and theorist), Ravi Agarwal (artist and curator), Klaus Schafler (artist, Maldives Pavilion), Maren Richter (Associate Curator, Maldives Pavilion), Rosa Barba (artist and Film maker), Marianne Franklin (writer and researcher), Nabil Ahmed (artist and curator), Davor Vidas (writer and researcher), Suvendrini Perera (researcher), Irit Rogoff (writer and theorist), Stefano Boato (urbanist and political activist), Luca Zaggia (scientist), Dorian Batycka (writer and curator), Mike Watson (curator and theorist).
Part of the public program of the Maldives Pavilion, the Contingent Movements Symposium and Archive are curated by Hanna Husberg and Laura McLean, and developed with Kalliopi Tsipni-Kolaza.
The Maldives Pavilion is curated by Chamber of Public Secrets, a critical production unit of art and culture. Alfredo Cramerotti and Maren Richter, both curators of the Maldives Pavilion, are moderating discussions at the Contingent Movements Symposium.
Also in association with the Maldives Pavilion, Richter and artist Klaus Schafler and will take symposium participants on a boat trip to the lagoons of Venice, where they will discuss with Venetian urbanist and activist Stefano Boato and scientist Luca Zaggia the recent effects of the rising sea level in the region. Curator and writer Dorian Batycka and curator and theorist Mike Watson, currently in residence at the Gervasuti Foundation, will introduce the project Joan of Art: Towards a Free Education and present a course on art, politics and ecology to be delivered in November.
The Symposium has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. It is also supported by Frame Visual Art Finland, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, and Svenska Kulturfonden, Finland. It is partnered with Maldives Research.
Le Maldive a Venezia. Cronaca di un debutto – interview [Italian]
Espoarte.com
Intervista a CAMILLA BOEMIO e ALFREDO CRAMEROTTI
5 Luglio 2013
di Francesca Di Giorgio
Biennale Updates: cronache dall’effimero per la prima volta del Padiglione Maldive in Laguna
Artribune.com [Italian only]
30 May 2013
by Francesco Sala
Alle otto del mattino non c’è nessuno lungo Riva di Ca’ di Dio. Pochi temerari in tenuta da jogging, i ragazzini che si trascinano a scuola, un paio di turisti. E poi un blocco di ghiaccio. Sbarca dal Canale dell’Arsenale, trascinato a forza di muletto; prende a sciogliersi, inesorabile, una goccia alla volta. È il monolite con cui Stefano Cagol significa la sua partecipazione alla Biennale di Venezia, ospite di quel Padiglione Maldive che ha trovato casa –alla sua prima volta in Laguna –in uno stabile semi-abbandonato in viale Garibaldi. Verrà il giorno in cui le Maldive non si saranno più, sommerse un centimetro alla volta dall’innalzamento del livello degli oceani; la raccolta messa insieme dal collettivo CPS – Chambers of Public Secrets indugia sul titanico precariato di una terra in crisi di identità, storica piattaforma tra Oriente e Occidente che esorcizza nell’arte la sua eutanasia.
Aggressività post-espressionista per The Disappearance di Wael Darwesh, che colpisce sulla tela con antica disperazione; gli fa da controcanto l’installazione di Patrizio Travagli, tetris di superfici specchianti che illudono e alludono in una straniante frammentazione dello spazio visivo. Inevitabili i riferimenti allo tsunami, che ha portato il suo carico di brutalità anche alle Maldive: sul tema arriva l’installazione di Thierry Geoffroy, mentre a ragionare su una ricostruzione più o meno possibile sono Christoph Draeger ed Heidrun Holzfeind.
Alfredo Cramerotti: curating across disciplines
Alfredo Cramerotti, Director of Mostyn, Wales, and next co-curator of the Wales in Venice Pavilion 2013 will give a talk about his curatorial work across different disciplines, and will revisit his endeavour of art & media curating for Manifesta 8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art which took place in the region of Murcia, Spain, in 2010.
2pm, Tuesday 16 October 2012
H6, Rathmell Building,
Caerleon Campus
Newport
NP18 3QT
Alfredo Cramerotti is a writer, curator and artist based in the UK. His cultural practice explores the relationship between reality and representation across a variety of media and collaborations such as TV, radio, publishing, internet, media festivals, photography, writing and exhibition curating. Cramerotti is Director of Mostyn, the leading publicly funded contemporary art gallery in Wales, and was co-curator of Manifesta 8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art (2009-2010) and Senior Curator, QUAD Derby (2008-2011). He co-directs AGM Culture, roaming curatorial agency; CPS Chamber of Public Secrets, media and art production unit and is Visiting Lecturer in various European universities among others NTU Nottingham Trent University, University of Westminster and DAI Dutch Arts Institute. Cramerotti is also Editor of the Critical Photography book series by Intellect Books, and his own recent publications include Aesthetic Journalism: How to inform without informing (2009) and Unmapping the City: Perspectives of Flatness (2010).
Alfredo Cramerotti: The Future of MOSTYN
Alfredo Cramerotti, Director of Mostyn, Wales, will give a talk about his future vision for the gallery.
5pm, 14 March 2012
H6, Rathmell Building,
Caerleon Campus
Newport
NP18 3QT
Alfredo Cramerotti is a writer, curator and artist based in the UK. His cultural practice explores the relationship between reality and representation across a variety of media and collaborations such as TV, radio, publishing, internet, media festivals, photography, writing and exhibition curating. Cramerotti is Director of Mostyn, the largest publicly funded contemporary art gallery in Wales, and was co-curator of Manifesta 8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art (2009-2010) and Senior Curator, QUAD Derby (2008-2011). He co-directs AGM Culture, roaming curatorial agency; CPS Chamber of Public Secrets, media and art production unit and is Visiting Lecturer in various European universities among others NTU Nottingham Trent University, University of Westminster and DAI Dutch Arts Institute. Cramerotti is also Editor of the Critical Photography book series by Intellect Books, and his own recent publications include Aesthetic Journalism: How to inform without informing (2009) and Unmapping the City: Perspectives of Flatness (2010).
Links
http://www.alcramer.net
http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/books/view-Series,id=19/
http://www.mostyn.org
Curatorview [Alfredo Cramerotti] 
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