Superstructure
SUPER structure is a SURVIVAL KIT subproject, an intervention that comments the festival itself and selected artworks. It could also be defined as a parasite project as it is developed on already existing idea or concept. Ivars Gravlejs will intervene in a form of an audio guide. He will make spontaneous short description and critique about works exhibited at the festival. Mickaël Marchand often constructs ephemeral installations with different obsolete objects he found in the streets, making them inseparable from the urban environment and the situation. For SURVIVAL KIT Mickaël will create an installation that will have a dialogue with the venue.
Excerpt from Skype conversation. Paris – Istanbul – Shöppingen.
Mickaël: First, we were talking about faxes. I said that we want to activate the fax system with one friend, also an artist who lives in the North of Berlin.
Maya: Right, I was telling about the huge Unité project that took place in early nineties and that I was working with it’s archive. I was amazed when I saw all these typewritten letters, faxes, huge amounts of diverse papers and my dream would be to organize an exhibition using only phone, fax, letters.
Mickaël: And the faxes overlapsed with Georgia. We understood that we shouldn’t go to Riga but to downshift to Georgia and send faxes to the festival. It was our long joke that we developed.
Maya: At the end it became realistic, we even started to plan the trip and were thinking that we could send the faxes from post offices as they normally should have a fax machine.
Ivars: We didn’t decide how should it be presented at the end, we were just thinking to send it with: hello, we are having a nice time here... Or to have one person in Riga who would I the faxes, stand in the exhibition and to communicate
Downshifting? Maya Miķelsone: There was this exhibition «Unité» in the I of 90’s curated by Yves Aupetitalot. It was a two year project organized in Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation (social housing in South of France) which was partly empty. The curator invited many artists, designers and eingpond for a residency in one of the flats to work and at the end to present something. Of course, there were no emails, no mobile phones at that time. It happened to me to make a research about the project and to see it’s archive which is an enormous amount of eingpondence between Yves Aupetitalot and the participants, faxes and various papers. My dream is to make an exhibition using only these tools of communication, without Internet (no Google!) and mobile phone, just home phone, fax and letters.
Ivars Grāvlejs: Last year I was in artist residency in Corsica, residency was titled “Do nothing”. For ten days I was playing “PlayStation” and only one afternoon for few hours went to take a look at marvellous Sari-Solenzara. What comes after downshifting? “Downshifting 2”, Downshifting 3” and then “Shutdowning 1”...
Mickaël Marchand: I consider downshifting as a diet for addicted-consumers (that I’m not). Therefore, the only way I can relate to it is not as a temporary state but as a way of life. I’m not looking for pleasure. I’m keeping or trying to keep eing happy with a few things. I’m not on Facebook because I prefer to really meet people. Until not so long ago I just had 2 blue jeans and 4 T-shirts.
Artists' Bios:
Maya Miķelsone is a Latvian curator based in Paris. She has studied Philosophy of Art at University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne followed by curatorial training program at École du Magasin. Lately she has been involved mainly in video projects.
Ivars Grāvlejs had studied photography at Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU). His latest exhibition «Riga» (in collaboration with eing artist Petra Petileta) was shown at Karlin Studios, Prague and at Riga Art Space.
Mickaël Marchand is a French artist based in Berlin where has completed his studies at Universität Der Kunste Berlin. Since then he had several exhibitions in Berlin and other European cities. His work was recently shown in «PPP» at Krome Gallery, Berlin.