Light Art. New forms in the ART Education // Skopje, Macedonia // 31 May

LIGHT TALKS IN HAMAM - SKLAD 2019 Conference 31/5/2019

11am – 4pm. VENUE: Daut Pasha’s Hamam

11am

Welcome by FilipAvramcev, Director SKLAD
SKLAD 2019, Aleksandra Stratimirovic, Artistic directorand Curator
Bettina Pelz, Curator, Writer and Researcher (Germany)

Lecture: “The Experiential Turn: Light In Fine Arts”

AymenGharbi, Curator and Culture Producer (Tunis)

Lecture: “Contemporary Art - Cultural Heritage – Democratic Culture”

Paul Friedlander, LightSculptor and Scientific Artist (UK)

Lecture: “A view in the creative process of Paul Friedlander”

1pm Coffee & baklava

1:30pm –ca 4pm

8x8– PresentationsArtist presentations

(List of presentations coming soon…)

Q&A

4pm Lunch/catering

Bettina Pelz, (Germany). Curator, Writer and Researcher

Lecture: The Experiential Turn: Light In Fine Arts

Over the last 100 years, the reflected use of light in fine arts altered the canon of fine arts. Referring to the properties of light and the way it coins the visual experience pathed the way for the exit from the image, the canvas and the screen. Shifts in artistic concepts furthered the idea of new qualities of esthetic experiences. Contemporary displays are ephemeral project spaces, art and transdisciplinary festivals and a diversity of exhibition projects, rather in public space than in art institutions and museums. Over the last 25 years, the experiential turn reached large audiences and light art projects in public space turned out to be innovative sociocultural events _ which are of interest for the art and cultural sphere as much as for social work and city marketing. The lecture will sketch the key artistic aspects and historic-cultural settings, and it will reflect on the present academic and institutional responses.

BIO

The curatorial work of Bettina Pelz is dedicated to art-in-context projects. Her transdisciplinary projects are hosted at art institutions and in public space, in postindustrial environments and cultural heritage environments. She has been the founding curators of several sustainable art projects in Europe and Africa. Internationally she has been involved in projects in Australia, Croatia, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Mali, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South-Africa, Switzerland and Tunisia.

Since 2000, the focus of her curatorial research and practice is on light in fine arts. From 2015 to 2017, she was visiting professor at the University of Fine Arts Saarbrucken and founded the academic network “Light In Fine Arts (LIFA) in tandem with Prof. Daniel Hausig. In 2015, she founded the transdisciplinary format LICHTCAMPUS at the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg, in tandem with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Roland Greule. In 2019, she founded “www-light.net”, an international, transdisciplinary network and research project with focus on women working with physical light.

bettinapelz.de

AymenGharbi(Tunis)Architect and Curator

Lecture: Contemporary Art - Cultural Heritage – Democratic Culture

The International Light Art Project in Tunis has been developed in and for the Medina of Tunis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979. With a broad diversity of international artists, we develop site- and context-specific art works that respond to a found site or context or that react to the urban tissue in its present form. We are excited by the way artistic research reflects and intervenes with what is our daily environment. The art interventions function like a window to the past as much as they allow us to reflect on the present and look into the future. The presence of international and diverse approaches allows us to mobilize large collectives of young creatives to produce, to mediate and to discuss what we can see and the way we see it. INTERFERENCE is one of the largest engagements of civil society for contemporary art in public space after the Arab Spring. Its poly-perspective is one of the expressions of the democratic culture we are looking for.

BIO

From 2013 to 2015, AymenGharbi worked as an architect at the National Institution of Heritage on cartographing and on conservation of the Medina of Tunis. In 2015, he founded the DOOLESHA project, a collective of urban activists to research and map the interplay of historic settings, ongoing urban developments and the sociocultural tissue of the contemporary Medina. He headed projects like DOORA-FEL-HOUMA what is a sociocultural project to engage young locals in research and mediation of the present changes in the Medina. Presently, he is working on DOOR-WAHDEK, a webzine linking scientific and artistic research, critical review and intellectual debate in an online platform, an app and a series of roundtables in the Medina.

In 2016 and 2018, jointly with Bettina Pelz, he directed the International Light Art Project INTERFERENCE in the Medina of Tunis staging a dialogue of contemporary art and cultural heritage. In 2017 and 2019, jointly with Bettina Pelz, he directs the International Media Art Biennial SEE DJERBA in Houmt Souk.tn. In 2019, together, they founded the CANDELA MEDIA ART LAB to foster production, display and review of light and media art on the African continent.

aymengharbi.net

Paul Friedlander (UK). LightSculptor and Scientific Artist

Lecture: A view in the creative process of Paul Friedlander

”As a small child the first thing on the TV news I truly understood was the launch of sputnik. We saw no flames or fiery launch, just an announcement and the sound of the eerie beep broadcast by the satellite and picked up by Jodrell Bank radio telescope. I was a child of the space age, I became fascinated by space, a dreamer of big dreams, I spent my time building spaceships, I imagined setting off alone to explore the universe. I was lucky, my mother, Yolande, was an artist and my father, F G Friedlander, a mathematician at Cambridge University, they encouraged me to pursue my interests and it was while I was at Sussex University studying physics, I discovered my true calling. It was a visit to a great exhibition of kinetic art at the Hayward Gallery in London that inspired me to switch direction…”

BIO

Paul Friedlanderis raised in Cambridge on a diet ofrelativity, cosmology and contemporary art. Hestudiedphysics at the Sussex University. It was a visit to a greatexhibitionofkinetic art at the Hayward Gallery in London thatinspiredhimto switch direction. Aftercompletinghisphysicsdegreehewent on totakeanother in Fine Art at Exeter College of Art. Aftergraduating for a second timetherewas a lull as hecameto terms with the realisation the art worldwas not yet receptive to the ideaofscientific artists. Hetook a long detourintostagelighting and stage design. Hismain area ofinterestwas avant-garde music and thisproved a greattraining and source of inspiration for muchofhis later workwhere the emphasis has oftenbeen on the creationoflargescale and ephemeral site specific installations.

Paul Friedlander’samazingkineticsculptureshavebeenfascinatingaudience all around the world, withexhibitions on fourcontinents, in morethentwentycountries. He has beenawardedprestigiousprizes for hisartwork in Japan and USA.

http://www.paulfriedlander.com/

Aleksandra Stratimirovic (Serbia/Sweden). Artistic Director and Curator SKLAD 2019

Lecture: SKLAD 2019

Aleksandra Stratimirovic is a visual artist with a special interest in light. She graduated in Applied Arts and Design at the University of Arts in Belgrade and completed her studies in specialised lighting design at Konstfack, the University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design and KTH – Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Aleksandra is award winning and internationally active in the world of art and light, with professional experience of more than 20 years in this field. Her particular vocation is site-specific art installations, often characterised by delicate use of light. Number of her permanent site-specific artworks are integrated in various public places and institutions in Sweden and abroad, such as hospitals, schools, train stations and residential areas. In recent years her artworks have been included in exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Konstnärshuset in Stockholm, Jardin du Palais Royal in Paris, and various art events in London, Amsterdam, Ljubljana, Belgrade, Tokyo, Osaka, Verona and Singapore.

Beside her artistic career Aleksandra is actively engaged in an number of light related organisations, being the founding member of the Transnational Lighting Detectives, founder and artistic director of the Belgrade of Light in Belgrade, Serbia, co-founder of the Lighting Guerrilla festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia and a board member of Swedish Lighting Designers Society.

Aleksandra Stratimirovic studio is based in Stockholm, Sweden.

www.strati.se