press to exit project space is pleased to announce the collaboration with the Swiss curator Lillian Fellmann and the Berlin based duo, Martin Rosengaard and Sixten Kai Nielsen from the Wooloo Productions, in the framework of the Visiting Curatorial Initiative, a programme that aims to stimulate and support the research and implementation of new curatorial projects by emerging and established international and local curators.
The Sahara Project: West, where is that?" a research project initiated by Fellmann and co-produced and co-curated by Wooloo Productions and internationalcoffeeshop.org
Excerpt from the statement of the curators:
The Press to Exit curatorial residency marks the beginning of this research project on the idea of the West and the East (as if one could be without the other) that has no end set to it yet. We will travel to Skopje with a catalogue of questions that are based on literature we read, and comments we heard or saw, as well as our own personal distrust and comfort zones. […] From the very start of this ongoing search for something "more real" than all the high-brow essays can tell us about, we do not want to import something to the East as much as we don't want to be objectified/objectify ourselves as "Westerners". But how can we talk about East and West when we don't position ourselves clearly in these two corners? Can we learn from each other's culture and political histories, and still meet as individuals? Can we come to you as guests and still acknowledge that we fear the fact that we hand over our minds and bodies to you, to people we don't know, from a culture we don't know, and that at the same time we want to do it exactly because of this uncertainty? What is the undercurrent of this cultural exchange: exoticism, tourism, or the pure fantasy of cultural capital? Can we say all this with you still welcoming us? […] At Pres to Exit we hope to get a chance to make our first steps with this project, we want to learn about common desires and unshared dreams & dismay, and to find out what the idea of a contested geography means today and how it can be made productive for an activist, cultural network. […] The Sahara Project has no intention to construct a homogenous, overarching, contemporary narrative of a phenomenon that has long roots and is extremely diverse and fragile in its present social organization and human experience between the so-called West. In each new place we hope to find its mirror image anew and different and soon enough unnameable; we will collect material in discussions and through interviews. […]
Lillian Fellmann and Wooloo
Lillian Fellmann (*1973) is a curator and culture critic. A Fulbright Fellow 2003-6, her current position includes artistic director of the Kunsthalle Luzern, co-director of the project space White Space in Zurich, director/founder of the culture initiative internationalcoffeeshop.org, Society for Good Togetherness. She was a guest lecturer at the University for Arts Zurich at the Curating Department MAS 2007/8. From 2004-6 she was the Associate Editor of AC Institute, co-editor of AC:Collaborative and AC:Hospitality Suite in New York, and Program Associate at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School University. Fellmann holds a MA in Linguistics, Philosophy, and Film from the University of Zurich (2000), and an M.A. Critical and Curatorial Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles (2005). Her theoretical work and curatorial practice focus on art research and politics in late capitalist culture, transnational artistic exchange, and time. She regularly writes on these topics, academic presentations have been featured at the University of Minnesota, UC Los Angeles, the School for Art and Design and the University of Zurich, Motorenhalle Dresden and Bezalel University Tel Aviv. Her extensive international, critical research projects were held at the Fowler Museum for Cultural History in Los Angeles (2005), PiST gallery in Istanbul (2007) and in the Hotel Kyjev in Bratislava, Slovakia (2008).
Wooloo is an artists-run organization based in Berlin, Germany. The purpose of Wooloo is to foster new and relevant opportunities for emerging artists. Collaborating with curators and art institutions around the world, we work to develop projects and exhibitions dealing with significant contemporary issues. Wooloo is entirely self-funded through the Wooloo Project Fund and all resources from the Fund are used on creating further professional opportunities for our users. Wooloo is developed by Wooloo Productions - an experimental production company founded in 2002. Wooloo Productions works as space providers by creating and maintaining collaborative frameworks for human interaction.
The curatorial residency was additionally supported by the European Cultural Foundation Step Beyond fund.
Thanks to the Macedonian Centre for Photography, and the National Gallery of Macedonia.
press to exit project space focuses on instigating and producing collaborations with artists, curators and theorists from Macedonia and abroad. The program includes the Visiting Curatorial Initiative, New Projects Productions and the Lectures, Presentations and Exhibitions series. press to exit project space is supported by the Swiss Cultural Programme in the Western Balkans, and other institutions and foundations.
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