Projects are prophecies, prophecies are projects is a series of four podcast episodes. We’ll hear Stine Deja, Cécile B. Evans, Luca Lo Pinto and Jeanne Graff talk about the future through their own practices. The goal is to understand how different artists and curators approach imagination and creation. Talks are in English and are moderated by Natalija Paunić.
The project presents four conversations revolving around the subject of reality and its creation. It reflects on different realities that could exist in the future, our potential to have an impact on it, the virtual and the real, the magical and the scientific (or pseudo-scientific). The idea is to open up the subject of the prophetic potential of art, culture, writing, films and everything we do as creators. The series explores the position of seeing contemporary art and culture not only as a reflection on the state of the world and its reception, but also as something that is able to predict the future. Of course, how literally we take this statement is up for interpretation.
The series is made in response to the FUTURE ECOLOGIES programme. It has been supported and organised by the British Council. The podcast can be seen as an independent piece, but it also refines the context of the upcoming exhibition called Conflicts, set to take place in April 2021 at Eugster || Belgrade and Drugstore. The podcasts will be available online via projectsprophecies.com and on podcast-friendly platforms (TBA).
Podcast will be available online on website projectsprophecies.com and also on YouTube, Soundcloud and Spotify.
Guest speakers
Cécile B. Evans, artist (based in the UK) - living and working in London. Evans’ work examines the value of emotion and its rebellion as it comes into contact with ideological, physical, and technological structures. Recent selected solo exhibitions include ones at Serpentine Galleries in London, Tate Liverpool, mumok and Emanuel Layr in Vienna. Evans’ work has been included in many group exhibitions and biennales, and their films have been screened at festivals such as the New York Film Festival and Rotterdam International.
Jeanne Graff, writer and curator (based in Switzerland) - a writer and curator born in Lausanne, Switzerland, living in New York. She is a columnist for May Revue (Paris), works in a vineyard, and teaches at HEAD art school in Geneva. In 2014, Graff founded 186f Kepler, an art space without walls. She has organized numerous international exhibitions, and performs with her band Solar Lice. Her novel, Vzszhhzz, was published in 2018 by Semiotext(e)/Native Agents.
Luca Lo Pinto, artistic director of MACRO museum in Rome (Italy) - Luca Lo Pinto is the artistic director of MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome. From 2014 till 2019 he worked as curator of Kunsthalle Wien. He is co-founder of the magazine and publishing house NERO. At Kunsthalle Wien he organized solo and group exhibitions. There are also much curatorial project to be written about. He has written for many catalogues and international magazines. He edited the book “Documenta 1955-2012. The endless story of two lovers” and artist books by Olaf Nicolai, Luigi Ontani, Emilio Prini, Alexandre Singh, Mario Garcia Torres and Mario Diacono. In 2014 he published a time capsule publication titled 2014.
Stine Deja, artist (based in the UK) - explores the real and virtual worlds through various media, including 3D animation, immersive installation, moving image, and digital surrogates. In Deja’s simulated spaces, uncanny avatars hinge between what’s strange and familiar, seducing us with not quite-real products informed equally by the artist’s simultaneous fascination and revulsion with our hyper-commercialized contemporary culture.
Moderator
Natalija Paunić is a curator and art mediator based in Belgrade, Serbia. She is interested in exploitation, waste, luxury and contemporary culture. She has, so far, collaborated in various ways with British Council (Western Balkans) and much more. Her texts were published on platforms such as Mousse Magazine (IT), CURA. Magazine (IT), Pamela Anderson Foundation, Art Viewer, AQNB, East Topics, Footnotes on Art, Tzvetnik, and featured in other forms in Artribune in Italian, FAD Magazine, DesignScene, etc. She is the founder of Vozdovacka galerija (Vozdovac gallery), a non-space gallery that operates as a curatorial platform locally, in Belgrade.
