Category Archives: Diary

Postcards from the 8th Festival de Performance de Cali

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Last Saturday the 8th Festival de Performance de Cali has officially closed: memorable performances in the public spaces of Cali, the first public outcomes of the “Travelling School of Knowledge and Social Practice”, and the hectic performance marathon on the last days where the unofficial, spontaneous, performances were almost more than the ones on the program. These some of the highlights, together with the incredible series of lectures around the Cali artistic scene of the 60s and 70s, and two exhibitions that extended the format of the festival to other audiences and spaces.

We’ll be giving you a full report on the festival and its performances after the San Francisco event, where the spirit of the Cali Festival will be re-enacted in the Bay area, thanks to a collaboration with Kadist Art Foundation and the SFMOMA.
In the meanwhile please enjoy this selection of images from the five days of Festival, where to get a glimpse of the atmosphere that Helena Producciones offered the people of Cali last week.

 

The selected artists for the 8th Festival de Performance de Cali

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7th Festival: El Camión, 2008

7th Festival: El Camión, 2008

After an intense jury session that kept Helena Producciones - recipient of the first visible award – and the festival adjunct curators Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander, busy in choosing among some 300 applications received from all over the world, the Colombian collective has released the final list, featuring the 23 projects that made it to the 8th Festival de Performance de Cali. The open call attracted proposals from the whole of South America, and triggered the participation of artists from Europe and the United States, confirming the international interest that the Festival has obtained over its 15 years of existence. After a break of four years, a new edition is being put together, thanks to the production award received from visible, that acknowledges the value of such a collective and multifaceted project that the Festival is.

5th Festival: Santiago Sierra, 1 Lona Suspendida de la Fachada de un Edificio, 2002

5th Festival: Santiago Sierra, 1 Lona Suspendida de la Fachada de un Edificio, 2002

The Festival, that will take place from the 20th to the 24th of November, will support the production of the selected performances, as well as activating a series of other projects, that include commissioned performances, solo and group exhibitions, workshops, panel discussions, concerts, a travelling school and much more. A new press release revealing the program of the festival in more detail, will be soon released, announcing all the other names of the participants and the contents of the other activities.

7th Festival: Phil Collins, El Mundo No Escuchara, 2008

7th Festival: Phil Collins, El Mundo No Escuchara, 2008

During the several editions of the festival, many artists have had the chance to produce incredible performative pieces, that later circulated in biennials and other prestigious art venues. Artists such as Phil Collins, Santiago Sierra or Federico Guzmán, to name a few, have made their appearance on the list of participating artists in the past, and we’re now happy to announce the initial list that will compose the program of the 8th Festival de Performance de Cali:

  1. Ana María Rosero, Arley Candamil – Anyna, and Jiacomo Turrack, La Danza del Vicio Horror y Éxtasis. Colombia
  2. Andres Matute Echeverri and Liliana Vélez Jaramillo, Matrimonio. Colombia
  3. Arnulfo Medina Carreño, Manualidades Éticas. Colombia
  4. Claudia Claremi and Christian Fernández Mirón, Contra fortuna no vale arte. Spain
  5. Colectivo Sonido/Vision (Francisco Javier Lozada Méndez, Jorge Hernán Rosero Marín, Eduardo Garcés),Convulxion en las Calles. Colombia
  6. Colectivo Zunga (Karla Moreno, Ana Maria Villate, Lorena Morris, Maria Natalia Avila), A lo hecho pecho. Colombia
  7. Elkin Calderon and Johanna Marín, Un ratico “Kiss Me Motel / Performance Room”, Colombia.
  8. Ericka Florez, El Blanco Móvil. Colombia
  9. Esther Planas, Escuela de Calor. Spain/England
  10. Joaquin Luzoro, Clásico Vallecaucano. Chile/Germany
  11. Alvaro Herrera, Como un Rayo #3. Colombia
  12. Société Réaliste (Ferenc Gróf, Jean-Baptiste Naudy), Universal Anthem. France
  13. Antropotronica (Juan Melo, Jorge Barrero de Precarius Tecnologicus, Marcel Narvaez de Casamata), Kundur. Colombia
  14. Juanpablo Ordoñez V., Déjà Vu. Ecuador
  15. Julian Mateo Gomez Diaz, Politesis impresa. Colombia
  16. Miguel Kuan Bahamón, Los Chirris Chirrean. Colombia
  17. Julio N. Giraldo Diaz, Flirt Manifiesto. Colombia
  18. Luis Mondragón, Oasis (Untitled Event). Colombia
  19. Luisa Ungar, Alberto Baraya and Jonathan Hernández, Visita el Zoológico con visita guiada y selección musical aviaria. Colombia/Mexico
  20. María O. Schneider Canedo, Accionar Bolivia. Una mirada al performance boliviano. Bolivia
  21. Glenda Torrado Rodríguez and Matilde Helena Guerrero Gutiérrez de Piñeres, Coqueta. Colombia
  22. Renan Araujo, Técnicas de Desaparecimiento. Brazil
  23. Reinel Aicardo Arango Muñoz, Sin-sentido. Colombia
3rd Festival: Giovanni Vargas, Puntos de Contacto, 1999

3rd Festival: Giovanni Vargas, Puntos de Contacto, 1999

Save the date and keep on checking our blog and facebook page to receive previews of the new exciting festival de performance de Cali by Helena Producciones.

Open Call – 8 Festival de Performance de Cali

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As promised, we are publishing hereby the english version of the open call for the 8 Festival de Performance de Cali 2012 by Helena Producciones. We warmly invite you to submit a proposal for a performance or artistic intervention in the context of the festival in Cali. Please feel free to spread the call through your networks. For any further information do not hesitate to send your inquires to the collective.

The artists collective Helena Producciones (Ana María Millán, Claudia Patricia Sarria-Macías, Wilson Díaz, Gustavo Racines and Andrés Sandoval Alba) are glad to announce the 8 Festival de Performance de Cali, Colombia, taking place from the 20th to the 24th of November, 2012.
The festival is the recipient of the first visible award, an international production award devoted to art work in the social sphere, initiated and supported by Cittadellarte – Pistoletto Foundation and Fondazione Zegna. This edition will have the curatorial input of Matteo Lucchetti and Judith Wielander, curators of the visible project. Participation, exchange and empowerment of rural and urban communities are founding characteristics of the projects run by Helena Producciones through the years. The different activities of the group propose sustainable models for which knowledge and creativity are used as critical and radical tools of intervention.

The 8 Festival de Performance is looking for actions with a responsible transformative potential in relation to civic society, that can propose a dialogue with art systems, institutional dynamics, and complex connections between power systems and grassroots society. The 8th festival will consider the Colombian social, political, economic, ethnic and cultural contexts, to converge them to the commonplace that the festival represents. Putting it in relation to the city and to Colombian society in general: dysfunctionality, corruption, crime, injustice, lack of opportunities, disconnection, limitations and poverty versus political art, ethical gestures, social activism, civil initiatives, dialogue and networking, interventions, publications, music and actions.

Through various academic positions the 8 Festival will bring to the present time, cultural experiences from the sixties and the seventies in Cali, when some self organized models allowed a connection between theatre, performance, film and collective action. During this edition, the Festival will create a link with another project created by the collective: the Escuela Móvil de Saberes y Práctica Social (Travelling School of Knowledge and Social Practice). For one of its chapters the Escuela will represents the educational component of the Festival, having Helena working with different civic organizations and cultural associations of the city. Helena Producciones is part of Triangle Network.

OPEN CALL 

The 8 Festival de Performance de Cali opens a call to visual artists, actors, dancers, collectives, community projects and other cultural subjects interested in contemporary arts, performance, actions, happenings, situations and other mediums, to propose a project for Cali, in its public space, for a day of performance, or for an exhibition space.

Each project should come with a description (max 2 pages), motivation (max 2 pages), visual material (5 to 12 images and/or video max 10 min) and a cv (each page of the project must carry the name of the proposer).

The deadline to receive the projects is the 20th of July 2012.

The selected projects will be made public on the 3rd of August on the web site of Helena Producciones

The selected artist will receive a small fee and budget for the production of the work.

The projects should be sent via email to 8festivaldeperformancecali@helenaproducciones.org

All activities held during the Festival are free to the public.

To know more about Helena Producciones and about the Festival de Performance de Cali please visit the official website.

 

“8 Festival de Performance de Cali”. Helena Producciones launches the open call.

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Cali. On the local parade for the 1st of May celebrations, Helena Producciones “took to the streets” and publicly announced the 8 Festival de Performance de Cali, demonstrating next to the workers. The open call for national and international proposals to this edition has officially been launched, and so the winning project of the 2012 visible award has started its work towards the Festival. Soon we will publish the English version of the open call to visible network followers.

The independent collective Helena Producciones, is composed by Ana María Millán, Claudia Patricia Sarria-Macías, Wilson Díaz, Gustavo Racines and Andrés Sandoval Alba. The 8 Festival de Performance de Cali, Colombia, will take place between November 20 and 24, 2012. Save the date!


To get to know more about the project visit the dedicated page on the visible website.

Visible in Ethiopia. A presentation at the Addis Ababa University

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Over the last few weeks Judith Wielander, co-curator of visible, was invited to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by The Skunder Boghossian College of Performing and Visual Arts of the Addis Ababa University - which comprises of the School of Music, the School of Theater Arts and the School of Fine Arts and Design, to present the visible project.  Established in 1957, the School of Fine Arts and Design, until the socialist revolution of 1974, was one of the leading institutes of African Modernism, along with the University of Khartoum in Sudan and the Makerere University in Uganda. The School has produced many internationally acclaimed Ethiopian artists, like Skunder Boghossian who had played an important role in the anti colonial and independence struggles of the African Continent through the visual arts.

Let me share some notes about the contemporary Addis Ababa. It’s the capital of modern Ethiopia, and the heart of the African Union, hence scene of many international conferences. The city accommodates several international institutions including hundreds of Non Governmental Organizations working in the area of social development. The city therefore represents the various cultures of Africa and serves as a bridge between the continent, the Arab world and the West. During the 1950s and 1960s Addis Ababa was politically significant for African activism and had attained great notoriety as a distinct hallmark of Pan-Africanism. The movement of African decolonization had its locus in Addis Ababa, the home for the Organization of African Unity. Addis today, a rapidly changing city with the fastest growing economy in Africa, represents a vibrant hub of contemporary cultural intersection.

Besides the project presentation in the first week of April, followed by many students and cultural producers, Judith Wielander had the occasion to exchange and discuss with many cultural organisations as well as artists and collectives that are giving an important contribution to the growing of a vibrant local contemporary art scene, hence positioning Addis in the map of contemporary artistic research. Here following, is a brief outline on two of the most prominent art organizations that engage their practice in the social sphere.

pictures from http://netsaartvillage.com/AboutUs.html Netsa Art Village, located in the scenic Ferensay Park, is an artist run and community based platform, established in 2008 by 11 graduates from the Addis Ababa University School of Fine Arts and Design: Henok Getachew, Miheret Kebede. Mulugeta Kassa, Dawit Adenew, Daniel Alemayehu, Demessie Gurumu, Sisay Wolde Geiorgis, Tamerat Gezahegn, Solomon Tsegaye, Tesfahun Kibru, Gossa Gebre Sillasie, Robel Temesgen, Hirut Gizaw, Helen Zeru, Leyikun Nahusenay, Frezer Ademasu, Akilu Temesgen, Maedot Getahun, Salima Punjani.
Since 2009 Nesta regularly organises a one-month Art Festival at Netsa Art Village that includes exhibitions, concerts, debates and poetry evenings in collaboration with different organisations and cultural institutions in Addis. Further more the artists are organizing, over the whole year, workshops with public schools in the neighborhood in order to implement their educational program with creative practices.
The Townhouse Gallery, Kuona Trust 
Triangle Arts, and the 
Insaka Art Trust Zambia were Netsa recent partners in the organization of several capacity building workshops contributing to the reinforcement of this singular artist run Ethiopian initiative.

The Asni Gallery is an independent gallery, founded mid ’90 by curator, gallerist and writer Konjit Seyoum. The Gallery organizes monthly exhibition projects focusing on the vibrant local emerging art scene. The exhibitions are regularly accompanied by debates, screenings and workshops triggering a stimulant discourse on the Ethiopian contemporary art practice and their relation to the international context.
During my stay, two young Ethiopian artsist, Aida Muluneh and  Mulugeta Kassa, presented their recent art works. Asni Gallery hosts, for short periods, international artists through a residency program and engages in educational and community based art projects that address and involve the nearby neighborhoods.

Following the positive feedback that the visible project got at the Addis Ababa University, there will be a further involvement of Judith Wielander in the ongoing Master in Theatre and Development, in order to establish a more regular exchange between visible and the College of Performing and Visual Arts.
We’re also happy to announce that later this May visible will also be presented in South Africa, with an event at the Center for Historical Reenactments of Johannesburg, organized by the co-curator of visible, Matteo Lucchetti, in collaboration with Gabi Ncobo, curatorial advisor for the 2012 visible award and director of the Center.

Helena Producciones wins the 2011 visible award

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Helena Producciones, the Colombian collective based in Cali, is the recipient of the 2011 visible award. Ana María Millán was present tonight at the Serpentine Gallery, to accept the award on behalf of the Helena Producciones.
The group, composed by Wilson Díaz, Claudia Patricia Sarria-Macías, Ana María Millán, Andres Sandoval Alba and Gustavo Racines, have just received a production award, amounting to 25000 euros, for their project on the 8th edition of the Festival Performance de Cali.Since 1998 the artist collective Helena Producciones operated as a critical alternative of participation and research in its local context. This context was built from points of views that, despite the artistic history of the city, restricted their own structures generating a deep isolation between the community, the local context and the development of contemporary art.
The Festival has proposed strategies to promote the work of many artists and it has become a heterogeneous stage that is constantly transforming according to the economic and socio-political needs and expectations of its environment. It has also expanded in order to give visibility and to empower a broader arena of socio-cultural practices and community initiatives through mechanisms of active and continuous participation. What is proposed for each festival is directly linked to the surrounding context, the possibilities of exploration of new actors and the integration of local, national and international realities. This creates a dynamic process of dialogue.
With this award the Colombian collective will be able to give birth to the 8th edition of this long-lived project.

Tomorrow a gallery from the night, with pictures from the different moments of the ceremony will be posted.

To read more about the 2011 visible award winner project go here.