Body/Site/Gender Seminar
On Thursday September 27 ANTI will organize a seminar Body/ Site/Gender with contributions from art historian Jennie Klein (Univerity of Ohio, USA) researcher Juha-Heikki Tihinen (University of Helsinki, FI) and artist Leena Rouhiainen (The Theatre Academy, FI). In addition festival artists, Rosie Dennis (AU), Simon Whitehead (UK) and Satu Palokangas (FI) will give artist’s statements.
10am-10.15am OPENING COMMENTS
10.15am-11.15am Juha-Heikki Tihinen: Is There Anybody Out There and in Which Space?*
In his presentation Juha-Heikki Tihinen (FI) will discuss the limits of the existence of the human ego, the role of the relationship to the surrounding space and how the ego is talked about. A view about a single, integrated identity, which would provide the “truth” about an individual can be seen as a cultural fixed idea. Tihinen will discuss this issue starting from the queer theory, psychoanalysis and the concepts of Michel Foucault. His main idea is to discuss how to talk about the ego and its relationship to the surrounding environment.
11.15am-12.45pm Jennie Klein: Sited Bodies at the ANTI Festival 2007
Site specific work developed out of the art world reaction against self-contained Modernist sculpture as a means of acknowledging the factors that are extraneous to the work of art, including environment, history, memory, and geography. Performance, which appeared in the art world at around the same time as site specific art (late sixties) was also concerned with reintroducing the extraneous into the hermeneutic environment of modern art through the agency of the artist’s body. Although site-specific art and performance have an intellectual and ontological genesis in common, there has been very little attempt to link them conceptually until recently.
In her talk, PhD Jennie Klein (US) proposes to examine the implications of site to the performing body and vice versa through an examination of the some of the work, past and present, at the ANTI Festival in order to make a case for the centrality of that body as a carrier, interpreter, and transformer of the meaning of the site.
Jennie Klein teaches art history at Ohio University in Athens. She is the editor of Letters from Linda M. Montano (Routledge, 2005) and a contributing editor for PAJ and Art Papers.
12.45pm-1.30pm BREAK
1.30pm-2pm Rosie Dennis: Artist statement
ANTI 2007 artist Rosie Dennis (AU) will talk about her work in relation to body, site and gender.
2pm-3pm Leena Rouhiainen: Lived Body, Space and Performativeness from the Phenomenological Perspective*
In her presentation, PhD Leena Rouhiainen (FI) discusses the bodily, experimental and poetic dimensions of space from both phenomenological perspective and from the perspective of her own artistic work. She has studied space in a performative process together with sound designer-musician Antti Nykyri and architect-scenographer Toni Kauppila for more than half a year and she has also written two articles on this subject: ‘Matka paikantuneen tilan äärelle’ (’A Journey to a Sited Space’) and ‘A Monotrilogy on a Performative Process’. These topics form a basis for her presentation in which she particularly focuses on issues about space and bodily awareness.
3pm-3.30pm BREAK
3.30pm-4pm Satu Palokangas: Permeable Boundaries - the artist’s intention
ANTI 2007 artist Satu Palokangas (FI) shares some thoughts on social choreography, dynamic interrelations and the concept of performance ecologies.
4pm-4.30pm Simon Whitehead: Artists statement
ANTI 2007 artist Simon Whitehead (UK) discusses about the body, in movement, in place.
4.30pm-5pm DISCUSSION AND CLOSING COMMENTS
*Lecture/discussion in Finnish
The programme may be altered
ANTI - Contemporary Art Festival organises Body/site/gender seminar in honour of Minna Canth’s Festival Year. The participation fee is 40€. For students, unemployed, and members of artists’ associations the fee is 20€.
Registration by September 15.
Registration information: Maija Eränen +358 50 305 2005 or info@antifestival.com.