Participants 2007

Participants 2005

City of Women

Presenter: Dunja Kukovec, City of women, Slovenia

Manifesto on Wheel: Art-Mobility Chiasma video selection

City of Women will present various aspects of mobility and its elements by video screenings of Slovenian she-artists. As work is one of the dominant human activities mobility will be shown through perspective of work – in terms of how mobility affects work and what kind of new contexts does it build. However, ‘work’ is not only a category of economy, it is above all a political and cultural category, and is so to be considered as one of the crucial notions in processes of defining identity (Tina Smrekar). Mobility can also depend on d.i.y. attitude and self-sustained positions, implementing gestures and attitudes of freedom and independency. (Polonca Lovšin). One of the questions is also how do we consider new spaces, how should we map certain area with the help of 'dig-in local issues' strategy (Vesna Bukovec, Lada Cerar, Metka Zupanič). And last but not least how can we relate artists' mobility and for example workers' mobility, and what kind of social, individual and precarious changes does it bring (Marija Mojca Pungerčar)?

Title of the video: Always Smile, 2005, 6 min
 Autor: Tina Smrekar
After studying design at the academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, Tina Smrekar started to work mainly with photography and video. She has finished a master study of the Photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig, Germany. Amongst others, she has taken part in the project escorted by Boris Mikhailov entitled In Search of Identity. She had one solo and several group exhibitions in Ljubljana, and she presented her work in Leipzig, Vienna etc.
She deals with the artist's survival strategies, her position in the art world, and the unavoidable precarity of the cultural work. In her projects she always works with local and temporal specifics, by pointing out issues that are else wise under represented.

Special Place In The City, 2004, 20 min.
Autors: Vesna Bukovec, Lada Cerar, Metka Zupanič
These three artists often work together. They have participated in many international exhibitions and several residencies. In their artistic practice they examine structures of inter-personal and media communication. They are is particularly interested in unfolding different aspects of personal experiences and identities of the participants in the process of communication and intercation. These groups become active within their work. They employ various media such as video, photography, text, publications and public interventions.

Collapsible Room, 2002, 3 min.
Portable Beach, 2000, 2.38 min.
Autor: Polonca Lovšin (born 1970)
She finished her studies in painting at Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, after finishing studies in architecture on the Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana. She had several solo and group exhibitions in Slovenia and around Europe. Sometimes she work together with video artist Tomaž Tomažin. She is active also as a curator. In one of her artistic projects, creates Polonca Lovšin with a series of inventive practical solutions –  high and low-tech fun, but always functional objects – deals mainly with the questions of self - organisation and self -sufficiency, as well as the use of alternative power sources. With her projects she deals with various aspects of everyday life, showing other perspectives on a specific subject. In some of her projects she converge her private life with her art projects.
Titles of the videos:

Brotherhood and Unity, 2005, 38 min,
Autor: Marija Mojca Pungerčar
She works in the areas of contemporary fine art (installation, video, performance), theatre costume design, and journalism. From 1982 to 1984 she was employed as a fashion designer at the Novoteks and Labod factories in Novo Mesto. In 1989 she graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, where in the period 1989-1991 she continued her specialist course in painting. In 2001, she received her MFA in new fine art genres from the San Francisco Art Institute in California, USA.

Dunja Kukovec, City of women, Slovenia
She is art historian working as a free lance curator and organizer. She advocates free flow of information, participatory attitude, equal opportunities and collaborative way of working. She was in charge for various cultural events and exhibitions, while her own projects are always addresing pertinent social and political issues. She mostly worked in Slovenia, some of her works and ideas were presented also abroad. Selected projects are exhibitions Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out, 12th International Festival of Computer Arts in Maribor, Get Together (2006) and Area Kolaborativa (2004), at Gallery Škuc Ljubljana, Coded Cultures at Freiraum (2004), Museumsquartier, Vienna, Share! Like a receipt! at Gallery P74 (2004), Ljubljana, Haip festival at Cyberpipe (2003), Ljubljana She worked at Venice Biennial – Individual Systems as assitant curator of Igor Zabel (2003), Ultraskin festival of New Media and Architecture in Ljubljana (2002), at Manifesta 3 as an intern (2000). In 2004 and 2005 she worked in Cankarjev dom – Cultural and Congress Centre, Ljubljana as a project manager of Ljubljana International Film Festival. Since June 2006 she is together with Katja Kobolt in charge for the programme of International Festival of Contemporary Arts - City of Women.
Contact: dunja@cityofwomen.org

City of Women,  Ljubljana, Slovenia

The Association City of Women (Ljubljana) aims to raise the visibility of high-quality innovative creations by women artists, theoreticians and activists from all over the world. The CoW’s primary objective is to produce and organise affirmative action projects in order to draw attention to the disproportionately low participation and representation of women in the field of arts/culture. CoW simultaneously provides a platform that focuses upon critical contemporary issues - also on other marginalized subjects. CoW’s largest endeavour is organisation of annual International Festival of Contemporary Arts – City of Women. We also produce artistic works, publications and international workshops on performing, visual, new media arts and music, on theory of contemporary arts and cultural policy throughout the year. In the last couple of years we’ve started an on-line project Coweb that aims at raising women’s creative use of technology and DIY (do it yourself) media.
The screenings will be introduced and presented by Dunja Kukovec, co-curator of City of Women 2007.

http://www.cityofwomen.org