The second edition of …Sessions meetings draws attention to the possibilities that active engagement by artists’ organisations in shaping local cultural politics can bring. As the gap between policy-making state institutions and actors, artists and artists’ unions in the direct field of art in Lithuania is wide, the urgent needs of cultural operators are often disregarded. Target Session invited representatives of two organisations, Vilde Salhus Røed, the head of the association for visual artists in Hordaland County, and Johanne Nordby Wernø, the director of Unge Kunstneres Samfund (UKS, the Young Artists’ Society), to share their experiences (both successes and failures) in the struggle for the political and economic rights of artists, and to discuss forms of involvement in cultural policy-making processes.
The presentations given by Vilde Salhus Røed and Johanne Nordby Wernø will focus on relevant questions analysing artistic practices in relation to political activism: How can artists and artists’ organisations actually influence political processes? What is the importance of artists’ solidarity and engagement in union work? How can artists’ organisations become mediators between artists and politicians? What forms of actions achieve the best results, and when do they fail?
The presentations will be followed by questions and discussions. The discussion will be moderated by Vaida Stepanovaitė.
Vilde Salhus Røed (b. 1981, Bergen) lives and works in Bergen, Norway. In 2009, she helped to initiate a new studio collective in Bergen, and has been involved in organising projects and events like seminars, reading circles, open studios, publications and residencies within the self-organised art field in Bergen. Since 2014, she has been the head of Bildende Kunstneres Forening Hordaland (BKFH), the association for visual artists in Hordaland County, safeguarding visual artists’ professional, economic, creative and social interests in Hordaland. She received an MFA from Bergen Academy of Art and Design in 2008, and works as a visual artist, exhibiting in Norway and internationally.
Johanne Nordby Wernø (b. 1980, Oslo) is the director of the Norwegian association Unge Kunstneres Samfund (UKS, the Young Artists’ Society), for which she has curated solo and group presentations in Oslo, Stavanger and New York. She was an active writer and critic prior to becoming director. Her work has appeared in Artforum, ArtReview, Even Magazine, and The Exhibitionist, as well as in Norwegian magazines and newspapers. She has a BA in Aesthetic Studies from the University of Oslo (2006), and an MFA in Critical Writing and Curatorial Practice from Konstfack Unversity College of Arts, Craft and Design in Stockholm (2009).
The event will take place in the project space Editorial, at 3 Latako St, Vilnius. The talk will be held in English.
….Sessions is an open forum for discussions, talks and speculation that calls for active engagement versus disempowered critique with today’s most pressing issues, such as living under a regime of the real subsumption of capitalism, anthropocene and neoliberal cultural policy. …Sessions invites thinkers, writers, artists, curators and other practitioners to share their visions of other possible scenarios for working within and with the current conditions.
Supporters: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Nordic Culture Point’s Mobility Programme
