02 May 2017

Harbour for Cultures - the 8th CEI Venice FORUM and the OPEN CALL

HARBOUR FOR CULTURES
8th CEI VENICE FORUM FOR CONTEMPORARY ART CURATORS
CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST 2017
Venice, UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe (Palazzo Zorzi, Castello 4930)
Friday, May 12, 2017 [14.00 – 19.00]

The CEI Venice Forum for Contemporary Art Curators from Central Eastern Europe is a biennial event dealing with contemporary art promotion and the exchange of curatorial practices which coincides with the opening of the Biennale Arte. The initiative was started by Trieste Contemporanea in 2001 and is conceived and run by this non-profit organisation under the auspices of the Central European Initiative (CEI) that counts the Venice Forum among its CEI Feature Event since 2003. The Forum also benefits from a number of co-operations and collaboration of European institutions, organisations and local governments.

The 2017 Venice meeting is being held under the patronage of Mr Tibor Navracsics, Member of the European Commission.
It is also being held under the patronage of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo), the Italian National Commission for UNESCO, the Central European Initiative, the Regione del Veneto, the Trieste Town Council, the Trieste Port Authority, the Ca' Foscari University of Venice and the University of Trieste. It is organised by the Trieste Contemporanea Committee in collaboration with transparadiso Vienna and BM Contemporary Art Center Istanbul, and is supported by the CEI, the Autonomous Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Council and the BEBA Foundation of Venice. The Venice Forum also benefits from the possibility of using the premises of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe, located in Venice.

TOPIC: 'Harbour for Cultures' (H/C) draws inspiration from the real case history of how to convert and reuse the area of the 'Porto Vecchio' (old port) of Trieste and ideally looks for an accessible model of a shared society; the Forum's research and discussion will be based on both the historical functions of port activities carried out for economic interest (exchanges of goods, insurance issues and commercial profit) and the idea of 'suspension' inherent in the imaginary of a port (of arriving, temporarily belonging and then leaving).
The Venice Forum discussion initiates a longer term and process oriented project, focused on the social and cultural dimensions of these issues, in view of shaping an image of a 'new port' where people freely exchange their own cultures, while assuring their core values, so that new profit (benefits of art and culture) is earned by the masses.

SPEAKERS: Invited contributors and participants will include Azra Akšamija (artist and architectural historian, Sarajevo), Franco Bernabè (president, National Commission for UNESCO, Rome), Iara Boubnova (ICA, Sofia), Maja Ćirić (independent curator, Belgrade), Vanna Coslovich (Trieste Port Authority, Trieste), Călin Dan (general director National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest), Shamina de Gonzaga (executive director World Council of Peoples for the United Nations, USA), Sandro Droschl (director Künstlerhaus, Graz), Barbara Fabro (senior officer, CEI), Branko Franceschi (director GALUM Gallery of Fine Arts, Split), Barbara Holub (transparadiso, Vienna), Lilia Kudelia (co-curator of the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale), Beral Madra (BM Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul), Ilona Németh (Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava), Ana Peraica (independent curator, Split), Elisabetta Porro (architect, Trieste), Paul Rajakovics (transparadiso, Vienna), Maren Richter (Valletta European Capital of Culture 2018, Malta), Basak Şenova (independent curator, Istanbul), Hainalka Somogyi (independent curator, Budapest), Miranda Veljačić (platforma 981, Split), Janka Vukmir (Institute for Contemporary Art, Zagreb), Mick Wilson (head of Valand Academy, University of Gothenburg).

There is no fee for participation but you have to register online [www.triestecontemporanea.it/form/CEI_form/form_e-mail_8thCEI.html]
The working language will be English.

HARBOUR FOR CULTURES
OPEN CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
submission deadline: September 10, 2017

On the occasion of the Venice meeting and in view of preparing the Second Forum Session in Trieste (Oct.-Nov., 2017) and next steps of the two-year H/C project, Trieste Contemporanea launches an open call and invites art curators, artists, experts from other disciplines and free-thinkers to imagine an Harbour for Cultures and submit their own answers to the six questions below.
The most genuinely innovative and provocative thinking collected by this call will be the starting point of a collection of H/C issues and will be featured in a PUBLICATION/outcome of the whole project.

1. What would make you feel 'arriving home' at an H/C?
2. What kind of 'goods' would you bring to an H/C?
3. Which kind of 'profit' would be useful for you in order to be part of / to contribute to the H/C?
4. How could you 'ensure' your culture, while also enriching it at an H/C?
5. How could your risk-taking enhance an H/C?
6. How could you produce 'social capital' within the framework of an H/C?
> other (your ideas and comments on the topic, crucial or imaginative)

Please send your text (per question: max 500 words) that includes 5 key terms, your contact information, a brief biography (50 words) to info@triestecontemporanea.it by the deadline of September 10, 2017.