Now planned for its second year at the Barents Spektakel, the Visual Art Seminar is a self-reflecting meeting place that invites artists, curators and art students to share short presentations and create relevant, playful and untraditional exchanges. The seminar encourages unconventional dialogue and aims to move past PowerPoint lectures with endless explanations and seemingly predictable outcomes. Presentations may be a personal and theme related statement, analytical and self analytical thoughts, a shameless reflection on own practices and experiences, a boundless dream or a promising humoresque.
Cultural Pollution – Polluted Culture;
the (in)dependence of visual art on consciousness and responsibility.
Culture does not implement the exclusivity of clean and nice surroundings. Post-industrial environments and abandoned areas are increasingly gaining interest of curators and artists. But do we have the right to intrude into locations and pollute them with culture? Can visual art find its destination at places which have never been made for culture or do we displace culture by rethinking post-industrial spaces? Working as an artist or cultural worker in Arctic cities often means to work in an industrial environment which might not be seen as a “healthy” basis for cultural expression. How do we deal with this in the High North? Many industrial cities offer a high standard and a large spectrum of cultural offerings, experiments and facilities thanks to the fact that oil and gas companies support cultural events. It might be coincidence that the chair of the Tate’s board of trustees is the ex-CEO of British Petroleum but even companies like Norilsk Nikel, one of the biggest air polluters in the High North, run their own funds focusing amongst others on the support of culture – the French oil company Total is one of Barents Spektakels supporters. Culture needs money and money comes from business. How can we find the right balance between industry and culture?