In/Visible Cities – London

13th November -19th December 2015

During June 2015 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning participated in In/Visible Cities Multimedia Festival in Gorizia, Italy and Nova Gorica, Slovenia which are located either side of the Italian/Slovenian border. The festival offered performances, workshops, meetings, installations, and multimedia exhibitions investigating the cities, their tangible spaces as well as their history and potential for future development. Artists from Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Netherlands and UK presented work which, in this first inaugural year, took as its theme ‘The City and World War 1’ in addition to exploring themes of migration and ‘the border’ within a contemporary context.

In/Visible Cities – London exhibits a selection of work by Dubmorphology, Keith Piper and Eva Sajovic commissioned by 198 for the festival alongside the work of guest artists Ines Von Bonhorst, Yuri Pirondi and Fatima Bianchi.

Age of Plenty by Eva Sajovic explored attitudes towards unemployment and the use of public space in the two cities. Through photographic and sound installation, workshops and discussion she provided a platform for public expression and attempted to identify sustainable solutions. Evolving out of ideas and material generated in Gorizia, Eva Sajovic in collaboration with Corinne Silva has created a new installation One Thousand Flowers From A Test Tube.

The artists will be staging Eating the Bones performance at the closing party from 7pm, on the 18th December 2015.

Documentation of Dis/Placed by Dubmorpholgy (Gary Stewart & Trevor Mathison), a site specific audio visual performance installation exploring ‘outsiderness,’ solitude and exclusion using the visceral urban images of photographer Aniruddha Das, which took place in Bombi Tunnel, Gorizia, will be presented along with a new video installation from Keith Piper entitled Borderlands (The Border is in Transition), a work specifically conceived and produced in response to the urban landscape of Gorizia and its boundary points, both marked and unmarked with Nova Gorica.

Time Machine by Ines von Bonhorst and Yuri Pirondi is a projection which makes comparisons between times of war and peace along the Italian and Slovenian border, juxtaposed with archival footage from the two world wars. During two events Alexandra Baybutt performed as an ambiguous figure representing the cyclical nature of constructing, destroying and rebuilding cities.

The video project ‘Memory and Desire’ by Fatima Bianchi uses material from the historical archives of the families who lived in the Italian territory. Archival images of daily life are placed in a new narrative context through the music of Bachi da Pietra.

In/Visible Cities also provided volunteering opportunities for young creatives from partner countries. Leading on from this 198 CAL is hosting a series of workshops led by Gary Stewart (Dubmorphology) which will enable young creatives at 198 to produce new audio/visual installations to be performed at Drift Festival, Nijmegen, NL, hosted by partner organisation OddStream.