ART COOPERATION TRANSMISSION

1 September 2012 > 31 August 2014

WHAT 
A.C.T. Democ[k]racy aims at promoting contemporary art in its ability to think, invent and represent the democratic changes of Europe in an era of globalization. It intends to be a joint laboratory and a factory for inventive and collaborative democratic building.

WHY 
Because the withdrawal into separatist identities that occurs in many European countries is an alarming symptom of a crisis of democracy within Europe, the partners of A.C.T. choose to promote Art as a critical space in the fundamental debate on the future of Democracy. This involves both recognising the importance of a freedom of creation, while questioning the training methods and the anchorage of artists’ works in the social space. This project is passionately in favour of movement, interchange and openness as the first conditions for the free circulation of ideas and works.

WHO/WHERE 
France, Rennes 
 La Criée centre d’art contemporain (coordinator) 
 École Européenne supérieure d’art de Bretagne (co-organisator) 
Pays-Bas, Eindhoven 
 Onomatopee (co-organisator) 
Roumanie, Cluj-Napoca 
 Fondation Altart (co-organisator) 
 University of Art and Design (co-organisator) 
 Fabrica de Pensule (associate partner) 
Serbie, Belgrade 
 Kulturni Centar Beograda (co-organisator)

LAB & FAB Seminaries - Research and critical space 
The A.C.T. project encourages discussion and debate in order to analyze how European democracies have come to establish a social organization based on exclusion and control, instead of forms of organization that encourage diversity and singularity – including its relationship to art. 
With the seminars, our goal is to test a research and criticism on art and democracy by bringing skills beyond the only artistic professionals. It consists of a multidisciplinary laboratory uniting, in addition to all project participants, about twenty multidisciplinary researchers concerned with issues related to democratic and artistic issues: anthropologists, architects, designers, teachers, philosophers, sociologists and urban planners. 
This laboratory works on 4 issues that affect arts and cultural emancipation in democracy: 
Education - Education and training in their contributions to democratic creativity 
Freedom - Limits and potential of creative freedom in Europe 
Urbanism - Daily practices of democracy in European cities 
Poetics - The role of art and poetry in the reinvention of the imaginary of democracy

Each issue is worked over the 3 one-day seminars held in Rennes,Eindhoven, Cluj and the final symposium "Art & Democracy" to be held in Belgrade over 2 days. Amongst other researchers and critics the seminaries will gather Paul de Bruyne, Joëlle Zask, Joop Hazenberg and Samuel Vriezen.

Exhibitions - Creation of democratic imaginary 
The A.C.T. project intends to demonstrate that real and sustainable innovation of a culture in motion is the opposite of stun devices proposed to us today. 
The exhibitions aim to experiment with a space to cultivate creativity, representations and democratic imaginary. They consist of a laboratory of creation about democratic imaginary which supports the production of works and exhibitions voluntarily offering diverse perspectives, even contradictory, on issues of democracy that occur in different European contexts. These works and exhibits cultivate otherness and solicit critical and crossed eyes on the political, aesthetic and societal issues. 
4 exhibitions are produced on the theme of “Art and Democracy”, bringing together more than 40 European artists who circulate and disseminate their works in the partner cities of Rennes, Eindhoven, Cluj, and Belgrade. 
Exhibitions are designed by curators asked to think European challenges as part of this issue Art and Democracy. Rather than offering replicas of the travelling exhibitions, the 4 exhibitions will be crossed between the partner cities, one partner inviting a European curator from another partner city. These interchanged curatorships are vital in order to offer a sufficiently rich and diverse panorama of European creativity. They also offer an opportunity to establish long-term cooperation between different artistic scenes. The exhibitions will amongst others feature Uroš Duric, Vladimir Nikolic, Raša Todosijevi and Nicoline van Harskamp.

Residencies - Creative and pedagogical projects 
The A.C.T. project intends to promote higher arts education as a necessary condition to have a democratic practice. 
Through this Residencies axis, we aim to invent and share new learning processes for art students and to establish creative partnerships between art schools and structures of production/distribution. The residencies consist of a laboratory of creative and educational projects. 
4 exchange residencies of students and teachers are organized between the cities of Rennes, Eindhoven, Cluj and Belgrade. 
These residencies are not mere traditional exchanges within schools. They rather invent learning projects. These residencies offer an opportunity to discover, design and share teaching and artistic projects.

Publication 
In order to build awareness and disseminate this dynamic of reflection and creation, we will produce a final A.C.T. Democ[k]racypublication that will be a multi-focus work on art and democracy. It will comprise: the proceedings of the seminars and symposium, visuals from the exhibitions accompanied by interviews with the curators and artists, documents (texts and visuals) relating to the students’ and teachers’ exchange residencies… 
Furthermore, through the different steps of the project, a newspaper and other specific publications will produced, related to the distinct projects that take place in the partner cities. 
An A.C.T. website and an open blog is fostered during the whole project, by the A.C.T. partners and guests (artists, researchers, students). Any person wishing to express oneself on the collaborative and participative A.C.T. web platform is warmly invited to do so, by means of a text, drawing, video, photography, song.

AGENDA 
France, Rennes 
Seminar, Education and Freedom: February 21st 2013 
Exhibition, Two Lines of Life: January 18th – March 10th 2013 Residency, the UAD at the EESAB-site de Rennes: November 19th – 30th 2012

The Netherlands, Eindhoven 
Seminar, Poetry and Freedom: May 23rd 2013 
Exhibition, Occupy UBB: May 25th – June 29th 2013 
Residency, the UAD and the EESAB-site de Rennes at Onomatopee: May 16th – 26th 2013

Romania, Cluj-Napoca 
Seminar, Urbanism and Freedom: Oct. 2013 
Exhibition, Get Up: Opening October 4th 2013 – November 2013 
Residency: October 4th – 13th 2013

Belgrade 
Symposium, Art and Democracy: March 6th – 7th 2014 
Exhibition: Opening March 7th 2014 
Residency: February - March 2014

Contact: 
Charlotte Van der Werf 
[email protected] 
Tel. +33 [0]2 23 62 25 07

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