(SO) Much More to Share
We are pleased to announce the symposium "MUCH MORE TO SHARE" focused on Community Work in Arts and Activism. This event aims to bring together a diverse group of practitioners to exchange experiences, inspire each other, support resilience building, network for future projects, and enjoy some pleasant time together.
Purpose:
The symposium originated from the need to share insights and experiences behind the scenes of our work with colleagues, rather than solely through direct interaction with communities or on stage.
Schedule:
September 13th: Evening Get Together
September 14th: Internal Exchange Sessions
September 15th: Public Event with Presentations and Talks (open to the audience)
This symposium will feature a flexible and open format, expecting participation from approximately 12 international practitioners.
The program will be conducted in English.
Join us to connect, share, and grow together in our common pursuits of art and activism.
Short Biographies
Carine Aroyan /artist, manager of cultural projects
Institute for Contemporary Art Yerevan/
For 15 years, Carine has managed projects and events in animation and documentary filmmaking, visual arts, cultural branding, and community development.
From 2014 to 2018, she co-founded an alternative public space and a workshop festival.
In 2017-2021 Carine worked on cultural branding and community development projects, including the branding of ten Armenian museums, entrepreneurial programs for artists and artisans of Gyumri, and a rural tourism development project in the Debed Canyon area (Lori Province). The same year, she co-founded InStepanavan initiative focused on revitalizing the small northern town Stepanavan through education and creativity. Since 2022 Carine joined ICA Yerevan as project manager and currently leads a community development project in Vardablur village in the North of Armenia.
https://ica.am/
http://carinearoyan.com/
https://www.instagram.com/icayerevan/
Stella Cristofolini is a cultural scientist, art practitioner & activist of spatial appropriation based in Berlin. Being a project nomad herself, she admires people who do longterm groundwork at the same spot. Stella collaborates with people & initiatives in urban & rural Germany, Europe and abroad, trying to bring in ideas as well as experiences & gained knowledge in order to develop lively communal activities.
Gianna Gardeweg is a community developer and human rights activist. She studied architecture and specialised in participatory urban planning, initially in theory as part of the Urban Culture, Society and Space Master's programme. Convinced that we need to create new visions and make them tangible in order to spread them, a particular focus is on self-build projects and other formats in which the most diverse people can meet at eye level. As part of the coordination team of the social movement Europe Must Act (www.europemustact.org), she campaigned for a more humane and fairer EU asylum and migration policy and deepened her knowledge in this area last year as part of the Global Campus of Human Rights' Human Rights and Democratisation Master's programme. She is part kitev artists collective and afounding member of village e.V.and initiator of EASA:Together network for examining private sponsorship opportunities for people seeking asylum in EU.
Hiroko Tsuchimoto is a Japanese-born, Stockholm-based visual artist who facilitates participatory practices on stage, in the public realm, and in in-between spaces. Her practices are accumulations of personal attention to and interpretations of traces and repetitions in everyday life. She addresses the construction of otherness and resists imperial motivations and the inherent dichotomous perspectives inherited from Western culture. Situating herself in the in-between, the state of becoming, she incorporates dialogues, drawing, walking, and gardening in her practices and expands upon them with collaborators, both human and more-than-human. Tsuchimoto holds a BA from Musashino Art University in Tokyo, an MFA from Konstfack in Stockholm, and an MA from St. Lucas School of Arts Antwerp in Belgium.
Lina Kusaite is an illustrator, eco-art educator and coach, living and working in Belgium. Her main source of creative activities is Naturesecosystems within human relations. Lina works on creating different methodologies, workshops and artworks in order to inform people about the social life of plants and undeniable need for humans to connect with wilderness.
Laura Marques will share her insights on work with young Afghan peace and human rights activists resettled in Portugal and taking their first steps by working for permaculture. Laura Marques holds a degree of social work from the University of Coimbra and a MA from London Metropolitan University. She accompanies people in their various transitions as a manager of human development in different social and geographical contexts. She collaborates as an eco-social worker in the Terra de Abrigo project that welcomes refugees, peace, and human rights activists, in Terra Sintropica Association in Mertola, Portugal.
https://terrasintropica.com/Natalia Matsenko is an independent curator, art critic, and lecturer. Born in Cherkasy, Ukraine. Graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts, with a Master's degree in Theory and History of Art. Focuses on the topics of landscape and environment transformations, human and non-human communities and networks, new media, and cultural heritage preservation. Among recent curatorial projects: SEE:UA connecting landscapes (2024, Seestadt, Vienna); Discursive program for the Landscapes of an Ongoing Past (2024, Zeche Zollverein, Essen with Urbane Künste Ruhr); Home Beyond the Dawn, Museum of Arts of the University Guadalajara, Mexico (2023-2024, commissioned by EEAS within Artistic Expressions from Contemporary Europe, EU Guest of Honour at FIL Guadalajara); OUR YEARS, OUR WORDS, OURLOSSES,OURSEARCHES,OURUS,JamFactory Art Center, Lviv, Ukraine (co-curator); Records of Resistance (2023, Oberhausen / Düsseldorf, Germany (in collaboration with Biruchiy and k i t e v);
Yuri Yefanov is an artist and filmmaker from Ukraine. Born in Zaporizhzhia, he grew up in Crimea and graduated from the Kyiv University of Culture and Arts and guest studied at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. His work is an exploration of the digital dimensions of the otherworldly through the use of computer-generated imagery and game simulations. His practice examines the interactions between everyday life and politics through the creation of his systems or mythologies. Yefanov's projects have been shown at numerous film festivals and art venues in Europe and North America, including the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage, Cinema Dynamo at Genève Centre d’art contemporain, PinchukArtCenre, and others.
Stefanie Oberhoff (tbc) shares with us her diverse experiences and insights of working with different communities worldwide: from striking students in Budapest to Aboriginal women in the Australian Amazon and demonstrations in Pakistan – her puppet activists intervene in a remarkable way – they adopt to changing context and adjust themselves to various communities. Stefanie Oberhoff is a stage designer, puppeteer, and director. Since 2005 she has been organizing international cultural projects at the interface of visual arts, puppet theatre, animation and social intervention in Europe, Asia, and Africa. She has taught at State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart/Germany, State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart, Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences and the Beaconhouse National University Lahore/Pakistan.