The Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA) invites artists to submit ideas for the “Survival K(n)it 7” International Contemporary Arts Festival which will take place in September 2015! The Festival of 2015 will be developed as a series of exhibitions and events, which will be organized by several international and local art institutions.
The name of the festival “Survival k(n)it 7” this year will appear as a kind of knitting, which maps not only the collaboration network of art organizations, but also invites to find the hidden potential in the repetition of ordinary, everyday things, that can provoke the gene of resistance, and cause breakdown of contingencies followed by surprising chain of coincidences that often interweaves both the private and the public sphere.
Archipelago of exhibitions and events produced by several international and local institutions of art and culture will invite to think about the role of the small initiatives in the framework of the local and global art system, to reflect about their methods of surviving and the necessity to collaborate, to network and develop common strategies while looking for new and innovative solutions.
The collaboration between the artists, culture managers and the local initiatives, social groups, activists and other professionals who promote cultural interaction with the larger public and other fields of activities as well as show ability for quick responses to the changes in modern society, will be in main focus.
Thematical framework of the exhibition built by LCCA will be marked by the mapping of “small things” and contemplating about common activities of everyday life, thus trying to find the causality between seemingly unimportant ordinary activities and big narratives or global conflicts.
In reference to “butterfly effect” we can notice a chain of those small things and coincidences that has changed not only our daily routine but also the fate of peoples, states and continents. We suggest to look at daily fabric and “choreography” of the little things, that can have impact on the global processes, and think about our individual responsibility and cooperation with each other.
French philosopher Michel de Serto when analyzing daily routines calls it “the art of doing” and states that such mundane activities as walking, reading, housekeeping and cooking imply in themselves powerful potential of resistance towards different repressive systems of modern society. In this regard he points out substantial difference between strategy and tactics. Namely, strategies, that envolve long term plans and objectives, are often used by power structures such as state or municipal institutions that attempt to structure the world according to some hierarchical system of laws and rules. Tactics, which normally solves some current situation, usually is used by the individual who employs the hidden defensive potential of the mantra of repeated routinal activities both in physical and psychological sense.
Knitting in this context obtains symbolic meaning. The process in which several threads are being interlaced can be linked to various DIY practices that deal with creative use of second hand materials, recycling, as well as building new social networks and involvement of different groups of society.
Within the framework of exhibition we will try to follow several threads of the „little things”, we will record and revive the choreography of the daily activities, we will look behind the curtains of their history and research their impact on social and political processes, we will also seek to identify some strategies and tactics for the future.
