Periferic 7

Periferic 7 – Focussing Iasi
International Biennial for Contemporary Art
Iasi, Romania
May 12-30th, 2006


The seventh edition of Periferic Biennial is a project which focusses on different aspects of socio-political and cultural context of Iasi and Romania. The project will result in a series of exhibitions, opening in Iasi on May 12, 2006.

Detailed information on Periferic and Iasi can be found at www.periferic.org

Periferic 7 focusses :
- on the position of Iasi in a globalized context where social, political and economical phenomena are influencing the cultural practices, productions and representations
- on the recent art history and the current art scene in Romania
- on the exploration of the children condition, emphasizing on the problem of 'child abandonment' in an extended sense.

Periferic 7 is structured on 3 independent sections curated by:
Marius Babias & Angelika Nollert, Florence Derieux and Attila Tordai-S.

Periferic 7 will be accompanied by 3 publications, one for each section.

Periferic 7: Focussing Iasi / Social Processes
Curators:
Marius Babias (writer and curator, Berlin) and Angelika Nollert (curator, Siemens Arts Program, Munich)
Cooperating partners:
Vector Association Iasi and Siemens Arts Program

"Social Processes" started in October 2005 with a series of conferencies,presentations and workshops and will end with an exhibition in the formerTurkish Bath. The invited artists will inquire into the social, cultural,and socio-political facets of Iasi: a cultural gateway between Romania,Ukraine, Moldova, and Transnistria. The artists will concentrate on projectswith a specific reference to Iasi. In May 2006 the final presentation of theart projects will be mounted in the Turkish Baths, a historical building inthe heart of Iasi. In addition, "Social Processes" will be accompanied byVector Art Data Bank, showing a collection of artist's materials and artinitiatives from Romania and bordering countries (Serbia, Ukraine, Moldova,Bulgaria) that has been assembled by Matei Bejenaru and Catalin Gheorghe.
A sourcebook with the artists' contributions will be published and distributed by Revolver.

Artists:
Luchezar Boyadjiev (Bulgaria)
Boris Buden (Austria)
Nicoleta Esinencu (Moldova)
Andrea Faciu (Germany)
H.arta (Romania)
Christine and Irene Hohenbüchler (Austria)
Laura Horelli (Finland)
John Miller (USA)
Dan Perjovschi (Romania)
Lia Perjovschi (Romania)
Hito Steyerl (Germany)

Supported by:
FRAME Helsinki,
IFA Stuttgart
Kontakt. The Arts and Civil Society Program of Erste Bank Group in Central Europe
Barnard College of Columbia University New York


Periferic 7: Focusing Iasi / Strategies of Learning
Curator:
Florence Derieux (curator, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne)

Strategies of Learning is a pragmatic response to a certain context and a proposal to simultaneously generate, collect, import and export information on Romania’s contemporary art history and art scene. This project develops itself and starts from the peculiar and complex context offered by Periferic 7 – International Biennial for Contemporary Art. Which types of relations can we indeed initiate with others, their art and history as well as their specific realities, within the frame of a biennial? Art being the sole denominator, a common basis of knowledge and understanding must first and foremost pre-exist in order to communicate. If the emergence of history, with its attendant devices (exhibition and book), is art’s new site, Strategies of Learning propose to use the biennial’s obsolete and compromised curatorial format as a flexible tool to research and create common artistic references and attempt to draw a recent history of art in Romania. The aim is to participate in a collective (re)constitution, rather than a (re)construction of this history.

Artists:
Sandy Amerio (France)
Bik Van der Pol (The Netherlands)
Valentin Carron (Switzerland)
Latifa Echakhch (Morocco/France)
Jens Haaning (Denmark)
Pierre Joseph (France)
Mattias Olofsson (Sweden)
Sean Snyder (USA/Germany)
Andrei Ujica & Harun Farocki (Romania/Germany ; Germany)

Supported by:
Ambassade de France a Bucarest
Centre Culturel Français de Iasi
Dutch Embassy in Bucharest

Periferic 7: Focusing Iasi / Why Children?

Curator:
Attila Tordai-S. (curator of Protokoll Studio, editor of Idea arts + societymagazine, Cluj)
Supported by:
Allianz Kulturstiftung, Akademie Schloss Solitude Stuttgart
In the rush to change after 1989, to become a "grown up" member of modernEurope, to transform into a working, economically viable democracy, Romaniansociety has not been alerted to the cost that this metamorphosis may beextracting from its children. Even attentive parents and teachers find it verydifficult to stand up to the onslaught of this new Romanian society which is sodriven by market forces, without any thought to the social cost and consequences of this aggressive marketing. Change in Romanian society is inevitable and necessary but how can this happen in such a way as children would not become infant consumers to whomever can best grab their attention?
The project is aiming to discuss the issue of child abandonment in an extendedsense, to reflect on the practice of placing children "under the power ofanother administration".
Artists:
Big Hope (Miklos Erhardt, Dominic Hislop, Elske Rosenfeld) (Hungary/Scotland/Germany)
Mircea Cantor & Gabriela Vanga (France/Romania)
Ioana Nemes (Romania)
Elke Marhöfer (Germany)
Ciprian Muresan (Romania)
Katya Sander (Denmark)
Nedko Solakov (Bulgaria)

About Periferic
The Periferic project was initiated in 1997 in Iasi, Romania, as a performance festival. Since 2001, it has been transformed into a contemporary art biennial with the intention to develop a local art scene and to encourage the exchange of ideas and people from different political and cultural contexts.

About Iasi
Iasi is a city of 400.000 inhabitants,being one of the country’s largest university cities with more than 60.000 students. Once the capital of Moldova, Iasi is located near the border with Republic of Moldova (a former soviet republic). Following Romania’s entry into the EU in 2007, it will become one of the eastern outposts of the Union.

Periferic 7 Biennial is supported by:
European Cultural Foundation Amsterdam
Romanian Ministry of Culture Bucharest
French-German Cultural Fund

Organizer:
Vector Association in Iasi

Partners:
Municipality of Iasi
Centre Culturel Français de Iasi
Goethe Zentrum Iasi

Sponsored by:
BRD-Groupe Societe Generale
Polirom Publishing House

Media Partners:
Suplimentul de cultura, TVR Iasi (and others will be confirmed)

Periferic team:
Matei Bejenaru – director
Dan Acostioaei – assistant director
Iulia Tencariu, Livia Tencariu – office assistants
Catalin Gheorghe, Vlad Morariu – responsible for communication, PR and documentation
Dragos Alexandrescu – photo and video documentarist
Bogdan Teodorescu – production director

Contact:
Periferic Office:
Tel/fax: 0040 232 237486
Emails: info@periferic.org, bmatei@mail.dntis.ro, dacosti@gmail.com
www.periferic.org