The Symposium Archive Public ΙΙ examines the role archive art practices play in the production of public sphere and “agonistic” interventions in social spaces. The symposium looks into the potential of archival practices to produce new articulations of speech and act among persons, social groups, institutions, practices, subjects, physical and virtual spaces, rather than their potential to establish a collection framework in public space.

Archive Public advanced two ideas: the archive as in-law articulatory practice, and performative archiving as dynamic public process operating in the present. Invited speakers will present in different forms (lectures, artworks, performances, talks, etc) case studies, projects, proposals and ideas in order to create a network of archive interventions. Within the framework of the 4th Thessaloniki Biennial, which aims to address issues concerning: a particular locality, the struggle against economic upheavals as well as crises of national identity, the symposium will conclude with a round table discussion questioning:

_What strategies of instituting, participation and articulation can be organized by archival practice in order to intervene in the production of knowledge, history, identity in social spaces?

_How can one understand today the connection between art, archives and activism?

_How can archiving actions offer a new context, in the current condition, to dispersed localities, subjectivities and collectives entering into areas of conflict and struggle, revealing and reconfiguring (cultural) policies and their discontents?

Organisation:

State Museum of Contemporary Art

Keynote speakers - Curators:

Panos Kouros (Assosiate Professor, Architecture Dep. Upatras)

Elpida Karaba (Doctor, Architecture Dep. Upatras)

Archive Public is an ongoing research and curatorial project. The first part took place in Patras, Greece, organized by the Visual Arts Laboratory at the Department of Architecture, University of Patras and supported by the C. Carathéodory research program (2009-11).

http://biennale4.thessalonikibiennale.gr/content/symposium-%CE%B1rchive-...