A Field of Where, What, When | Conference about place-(un)making and community-building

A Field of Where, What, When is a conference of international arts and cultural practitioners who work on themes of land, place-(un)making and community-building for social, political and ecological change.

The conference A Field brings Die Blaue Blume e.V. together with five international collectives and artists, to discuss how they work locally, the kinds of knowledges and pedagogies they draw on, the new uses of land and adaptations of existing architecture they propose, and the idea of the south as a shared horizon. The collectives and artists involved are: Die Blaue Blume e.V., Mirwan Andan and Iswanto Hartono (ruangrupa), Ernesto Oroza (Azimuts, Cycle Design & Research St Etienne), Jakob Wirth (Make Up e.V, Operation Himmelblick), Louise Hobson (SWAY) and Unnar Örn Audarson (South Iceland Biennale).

On Thursday 9 March, they will discuss more about the art they make, and why - join us at Zeppelin University and Die Blaue Blume e.V. to discuss questions of land re-use, urban design, socially engaged art and the politics of art with us!

Participants include:

Mirwan Andan and Iswanto Hartono (ruangrupa), Ernesto Oroza (Azimuts, Cycle Design & Research St Etienne), Jakob Wirth (Make Up e.V, Operation Himmelblick), Louise Hobson (SWAY) and Unnar Örn Audarson (South Iceland Biennale).

Presentations and public discussion at Zeppelin University, ROOM 2.03 (FAB), 13.30–16.00 (booking recommended)

Take part in the event online
For registration see below or right hand side.

Meet the artists and continue conversations at the Eckkneipe in Die Blaue Blume e.V., 19.00, Fallenbrunnen 12/1 88045 Friedrichshafen (next to the University) (no booking necessary)

Speaker bios

Die Blaue Blume e.V.

Die Blaue Blume e.V. tries to bring back sparkles in today’s world. It’s a place that invites to dream but also to make dreams come true, to try out new paths and to shape its surroundings and the city of Friedrichshafen. Blaue Blume e.V. is meant to be an open platform for different projects to connect people and create an environment for collective experimenting, learning and creating through several topics, such as art, culture and poetry, ecology, urban development and political education. First and foremost, Blaue Blume e.V. wants to embrace (self-)empowerment, emancipatory potentials and collective practices of all kinds.

Ernesto Oroza

Ernesto Oroza (Havana, 1968) channels the tradition of Radical Architecture into his own analytical employment of contemporary object typologies and productive forces. In lieu of functioning within the realm of manufacturing, he produces and distributes speculative models and research through various publication methods, exhibitions, collaborative practices, documentaries, and unorthodox forays into more conventional modes of architecture, interior and object design. Oroza’s work has been presented at the Groninger Museum, The Netherlands; The Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis; LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Spain; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City; Institut de Cultura La Virreina, Barcelona. He has participated twice in the Saint-Etienne International Design Biennial, Saint-Etienne, France. Oroza has been awarded fellowships by Guggenheim Foundation, HARPO Foundation, and received the Pernod Ricard Fellowship from the Villa Vassilieff, among others. He was Professor at Polytechnic Institute of Design, Havana, and is a recurrent Visiting Professor at Les Ateliers, Ecole Nationale Supérieur de Création Industrielle (ENSCI) in Paris. He has also lectured and developed workshops for various international institutions, most recently the BMW Guggenheim Lab in Berlin. Among his books are: Notes sur la maison moirée. Ou un urbanisme pour des villes qui se vident (Saint-Étienne, 2013), RIKIMBILI: Une étude sur la désobéissance technologique et quelques formes de réinvention (Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, France, 2009); NO WASTE (London Pentagram Design, 2003); Editing Havana: Stories of Popular Housing (Aristo Bogforlag, 2011); and (with Penelope de Bozzi) Objets Réinventé. La création populaire a Cuba (Ëditions Alternatives, 2002). He is co-editor of the Objects Aside series for [NAME] Publications. He has also published writings in e-flux Journal and Monu–A Magazine for Urbanism.

Iswanto Hartono

Iswanto Hartono is one of the few contemporary Indonesian artists with a background in architecture. Known as an artist with a conceptual base, Iswanto has been exhibiting his works since the late nineties, showing works with a strong social and political content. Iswanto’s works betray his interest in history/memory, globalization, and geopolitical powers, post-colonial, in race/identity. Most of his works deliberately steer away from explosive and responsive artistic expressions and presenting unpredictable idioms. Iswanto is particularly interested in parts of that country’s history that have consciously been forgotten. His previous projects revolved around colonisation and post-colonial debates and the battle of identity in contemporary Indonesia. Some of his latest exhibitions: Beyond Wonder: Perspective of Utopia, Tokyo Wonder Site, Nagoya (2018), DAK’ART 2018, during Dakar Biennale 2018 [Para-Site]; and his latest self-titled solo show, staged in Oudekerk, Amsterdam, during Europalia Indonesia (2017). From early 2019, with ruangrupa, he is part of the artistic team of documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany, 2022.

Jakob Wirth

Jakob Wirth (1991) is an artist, activist, and sociologist. He works in public space and chooses his artistic language processually and depending on context and theme. It ranges from performance art, video, social practice, and direct guerrilla interventions. His main interest is to intertwine the artistic field with politics and everyday realities by hijacking unknown systems and questioning the boundaries of norms. Since the beginning of his artistic-activist activities, he works a lot in and with collectives. He founded the cultural project and collective Die Blaue Blume e.V., the WIK collective and the Project Space Make-up and collaborated with collectives such as Stadt von Unten (Berlin), Kollektiv Raumstation (Weimar/Vienna) and Arterias Urbanas (Santa Cruz). He holds a master’s degree in Spatial Strategies (Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee), as well as in Public Art (Bauhaus University Weimar), and a Bachelor's degree in Sociology, Politics and Economics, with study, stays in Madrid (ES), Santa Cruz (BOL), Holbaeck (DNK) and Chicago (US).

Louise Hobson, Curator of SWAY
SWAY is a collaborative programme emerging from the intertidal edges of Barry, a town which experiences hyper-tidal waters, between an estuary and the sea, on the coast of South Wales. Working along this coastline, SWAY proposes collective conversations on attachments, entanglements, communing and collective-making, proposing a space where the poetics of watery-words can articulate the making of infinite watery-worlds. Across 2022 SWAY began to host artists and researchers in multidisciplinary dialogues at the shore, also co-curating Call the Waves at Chapter Gallery, Cardiff together with QANAT. SWAY is curated by Louise Hobson, who is also Deputy Director of Peak Cymru, a rural arts organisation based in the Welsh Black Mountains working with artists, young people and their communities.

Mirwan Andan

Mirwan Andan studied at the Islamic Boarding School for 6 years in Watampone and Makassar. From 1999–2004, he studied French Literature at the Universitas Hasanuddin, Makassar. In 2012, he graduated from Political Science in the Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta while working in ruangrupa as a researcher and developer since 2007. He took part in Jakarta Biennale 2015 as researcher and part of curatorial team of TRANSaction: Sonsbeek 2016 in Arnhem, NL. His writing and book editorial works include All for Jakarta – a note on the tenth anniversary of ruangrupa: Decompression #10, Expanding the Space and Public (Journal of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 2011); and 20Kuldesak: Networking, Rebelling, Manoeuvring, Moving (Kuldesak Network, 2018). He participated several forums to converse, among others: Independent Creative Art Spaces Leadership Training, Trans Europe Halles & ASEF (Paris, 2007); State of Independence: A Global Forum in Alternative Space, Roy And Edna Disney California Arts (Los Angeles, 2011); Youth Initiative and Civic Engagement Training, UNESCO (Jakarta, 2013); Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society Conference (Surabaya, 2015); Banga Meeting (Lubumbashi, Congo, 2016); Berlin Meeting, Responsibility of Religions for Peace, Federal Foreign Office of Germany and Ministry For Foreign Affairs of Finland (Berlin, 2018) and International Visitor Leadership Program (Washington D.C., Detroit, Pasadena, 2018); Curators’ Intensive Taipei 19 (Taipei, 2019); Booked - Hong Kong Art Book Fair at Tai Kwun Contemporary (HK, 2020), (FEINART-Symposium on Socially Engaged Art (Reykjavík, 2022). From 2016-2018, he worked as advisor for Director General of Culture, Ministry of Education and Culture, Republic of Indonesia. From early 2019, with ruangrupa, he is part of the artistic team of documenta fifteen in Kassel, Germany, 2022. He now lives in two cities, back and forth, Jakarta (for ruangrupa) and Makassar (for family and Riwanua, a project initiative he founded with his fellow researchers, new emerging artists, and cultural activists.

South Iceland Biennale
South Iceland Biennale (SIB) is a multidisciplinary art platform for sharpening our focus on humanity’s relationship to nature and the environment at a precarious time. Annual events are held in the south of Iceland, at the edge of the highlands where culture and nature collide. Space is created for creative dialogue with focus on care to society, the environment, and the uncertainty that now confronts humanity. From a home base at the historic farm Stóri-Klofi in the Landsveit district, it builds relationships with art museums, galleries, schools, and other cultural institutions in South Iceland. It brings together local knowledge and creative fields for the purpose of exploring new ways of meeting the challenges of the future: environmental issues, sustainability, land conservation, innovation, food security, energy use, tourism, globalism, global warming, rapid technological development, social change, racism, and political and economic inequality. SIB involves creating a platform involving the arts, design and architecture disciplines for multidisciplinary discussions on ways to meet the future.