Scaffolding Scaffolding
HKU MA Fine Art Graduation
Scaffolding Scaffolding, the graduation exhibition of the 2020−2022 MA Fine Art class of HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, is organized under the curatorial guidance of Rachael Rakes at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht.
Using scaffolding as a framework, the exhibition considers ways of upholding fragments of the precarious present. Depending on its context, scaffolding can be a sign of gentrification or one of preservation; it can indicate corruption, the locus of financial and political power, or care and rebuilding. Can we scaffold the scaffold, to support the things already put in place? To support something that is at risk of falling down, or aiming to be built, restored, or allowed to be left limbo? How do we inhabit the idea of support itself?
Scaffolding Scaffolding features works by the graduates of the 2020−2022 MA Fine Art class of HKU University of the Arts Utrecht: Francisco Baquerizo Racines, Katayoon Barzegar, Stefan Cammeraat, Yuliia Elyas, Lin Chun Yao, Lo Yuen Ming, Giorgia Lo Faso, Harriet Rose Morley, and Kristel Rigaud.
Exhibition times:
8–19 June 2022 (Wed-Sun 13.00−19.00)
Opening:
8 June (17.00−21.00)
Location:
BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
Events and Performances:
10 June 2022 (16.00–16.30)
Last Last Chance
Walking performance, Lin Chun Yao, 30 min, 2022
Starts at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
Sign up: https://reurl.cc/n1qMz2
10 June 2022 (18.00–18.30)
Sound2Sentence
Interactive performance, Kristel Rigaud, approx. 12 min, 2022
Sign up: https://reurl.cc/rD3VxN
18 June 2022 (16.00–16.30)
Last Last Chance
Walking performance, Lin Chun Yao, 30 min, 2022
Starts at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
Sign up: https://reurl.cc/n1qMz2
18 June 2022 (17.00–19.00)
The Essential Labor for Survival
Panel discussion
Sign up here
Organized and moderated by Yuliia Elyas, with Misho Antadze (filmmaker, Amsterdam), Tetyana Filevska (Creative Director of Ukrainian Institute, Kyiv) Maria Hlavajova (Artistic and General Director, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht), Robbie Schweiger (Researcher Collections, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam)
The Essential Labor for Survival invites representatives from Dutch art institutions and Europe-based cultural workers to engage in a discussion about how Ukrainian identities are presented, represented, and archived. This exchange comes about amid the ongoing war in and occupation of Ukraine by Russia, and the new-found pressure on Ukrainian cultural workers to produce meaning, or to explain what is happening at home. In recent months, some artists have chosen to suspend their practice and take up arms to fight the occupants, or to do volunteer work to help those who are internally or externally displaced. With all this going on, it is important to point out that this state of emergency is not something new, but part of an ongoing trajectory of imperialism and coloniality in Ukraine as well as other former Russian colonies. The Essential Labor for Survival looks at how Dutch institutions have contributed to perpetuating certain cultural myths or ideologies, and considers whose artistic voices have been selected or prioritized in the past decades. This panel critically engages with existing narratives about Eastern Europe by art institutions of Northern Europe, and asks how these narratives might be complicit in the circumstances that lead to this moment. Along with discussing strategic steps for cultural institutions to apprehend the coloniality of the war in Ukraine, space is also given to think about the role of the radical imagination in times of life-threatening emergency.
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