Notes#010

Signs of Revolt Bricklane 91 - Shop 14 / truman Brewery - London

Brian Holmes write on the catalogue that "all of the activists-artists in this exhibition, and probably most of the visitors as weel, took part somehow in the inspiring and dramatic events created by the movement of movements - events that started well before Seatle, for example at the Carnival against Capital in the city of London on June 18th 1999, or at any one of the surprising and often hilarious Reclaim the Streets parties... some of us will meet again and again beneath the teargas and water canons ... only to learn that the leader of our supposedly democratic countries cared nothing for the votes that were cast in the streets." meaning that new forms of protest have to be experimented?

View of the exhibition

Holmes also wrote about the role of art as offering a "foretaste of a better life" but also an incompleteness, which means "an invitation to participate ... the art of the protest movements mingles dream and reality, beauty and terror, and expresses a symbolic violence of a necessary break with society as it is, while never forgetting that the real violence continues."



Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army /CIRCA

"the decade to come will see the most passionate struggle of them all: the one that finally takes apart the neoliberal system, to invent a future that no one claims to own and that no one trades away for profit, a future that everybody can live with." and I would argue that this struggle has to be fought on everyday life and maybe it is through this scope that the 3 years art project of Sarah Cole in a primary school takes its most radical democractic patine

NEST LIFE

Notes#009

Serena Korda

The Library of Secrets

The Library of Secrets is a mobile library conceived from the love of keeping and finding things amongst the pages of books. The Library of Secrets invites you to leave your thoughts, wisdoms and secrets amongst the pages of one or more of the 400 books in its collection. Peruse the shelves for your favourite 19th or 20th century classic or maybe just rummage through the books to find other peoples secrets.

Between 2007-2008 The Library took up residence in different venues across Whitstable as part of Whitstable Biennale 2008. For a whole year the The Library of Secrets hosted a series of events including the Book Club Debate, which met every 6 weeks. The Book Club focused on discussing books that inspired the films Peter Cushing starred in, including; Dracula, Lolita, The Hound of the Baskerville’s, Frankenstein, Nineteen Eighty Four and The End of the Affair. These classics are often imbedded in our knowledge through their film adaptation rather than the original novel. The Book Club Debates were chaired by myself and a host of visiting experts, lively debate was followed by a screening of the film each book inspired. The Book Club Debate was documented through a series of book reviews written by myself and members of the Book Club.

The Library of Secrets also became a mini publishing house producing a series of artist’s books that chart the development of the library and its relationship with its members. The books and multiples that have been produced include, ‘The Book Club Debate Whitstable’, ‘The Writing Challenge’ and ‘Things Found Inside Books’.

I attended the Real Wold Seminar at the Whitechapel, and this was how I got to know Serena's work. A work that according to Serena's own words seeks to intervene in everyday life, to disrupt everyday. One of the things that interest her the most is story telling, other people's stories, things you don't find in books, but in this piece the audience does find those bits and pieces of people's life inside books, for she invited the audience to leave secrets in between the pages of the many books on tour. Working with people is the other big interest in her work, to ask for collaboration on the very creative process, as for example in the answers lies at the end of the line for the Tube, local crossword puzzle fanatics were invited to help her create puzzles to be distributed across the Jubilee line.

Notes#008

ANDRÉ ALVES

A sort of portable story telling device. this structure exemplifies in perfection the kind of aesthetics I am interested in my own work, a sort of DIY and bricoleur tactic, grabbing whatever is lying around and still with attractive materialization.

André is currently studying Fine Art at the University of Cincinnati -US
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