Archivo Paralelo, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao 2004
Presented in Meanwhile in another place... curated by Leire Vergara at Sala Rekalde, Bilbao Bizkaia Spain (21 December 2004 - 20 February 2005) Archive design by Gorka Eizagirre.
Miren Arenzana, Itziar Bilbao-Urrutia, Yolanda de los Bueis, Naia del Castillo, Itxaso Díaz, Mikel Eskauriaza, Ismael Iglesias, Abigail Lazkoz, Erlea Maneros, Marina Mendieta, Isabel de Naverán.
Within the framework of the exhibition, Archivo Paralelo (Parallel Archive) develops a new project that corresponds to the logic of thinking about art production as an ongoing process. Installed as part of the exhibition Meanwhile, in another place..., Archivo Paralelo hosts contributions from different people involved in the exhibition. The invitation to contribute is given to the participating artists, the curator of the exhibition, the director and curator of the institution and the administrator of the institution.
Archivo Paralelo, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao 2004
by Sarah Pierce, Dublin 2004
Last August, Leire Vergara approached me about developing a parallel activity to an exhibition that she was curating at sala rekalde. She explained the premise of the exhibition, that it involved working with 11 artists who received the Becas y Ayundas between 2001-2002, and her interest in exploring this context though various platforms that would open the exhibition up, both discursively and constitutively, to multiple inputs.
The structure of the Becas y Ayundas provided a starting point to think about how artistic production circulates, how institutions imagine artistic production in relation to cultural investment, and how to locate artistic research within the temporal visibility of an exhibition. The Becas y Ayundas is a grant that supports artistic creation in the province of Vizcaya as part of the region's cultural management; 4-5 artists receive the award each year. At the moment, the Becas y Ayundas is a one-off grant that may be used to stay in Vizcaya, or to travel to another country. This offers a point of departure to think about how other scenes (in Madrid, New York, London, Los Angeles) feed-back into the image of a particular scene in Bilbao, or the Basque scene in general.
In late September, I visited Bilbao and Leire and I spent most of our time intensively developing various lines of inquiry that might shift the syntax of the exhibition. These meetings led us to more closely consider the exhibition as a participatory system and to creatively imagine a space within or through the exhibition that would introduce parallel or simultaneous potentialities beyond simply presenting the work of 11 artists. What Mikel Eskauiaza humorously referred to as a 'freak show' was the arbitrary assembly of artists who may or may not have anything in common other than the fact of receiving the Becas y Ayundas.
In allowing for a parallel space to form within the exhibition, we felt it was important to keep the parameters of giving as open as possible while acknowledging the inter-connectivity of the institution, the curator, the artists and the audience. Anyone wishing to contribute to the archive could drop off or send materials to sala rekalde. Sala rekalde's receptionist would double as archivist, taking in contributions, cataloguing them and adding them to the archive throughout the course f the exhibition. Over two months the archive would grow and its meaning would shift depending on an ever-evolving accumulation of individual contributions.
Without asking for specific items, and leaving the will to contribute up to an individual's desire to do so or not, how would what we were now calling the 'Parallel Archive' make use of relationships borne through exhibitions by creating a social space where the institution/the curator/the artist/the audience all inter-relate? How would we address the dynamics of power, inclusion and exclusion embedded in these relationships? Would the particularities of participation surrounding the archive re-inscribe or reinvent our relationships to each other?
The archive, as a diagram of power, presents for us the possibility of social and artistic intervention, to represent and identify relationships, players, and forces that are often veiled by exhibitions. As a participatory process, the archive represents two sides of artistic production: one physical, local, and communal, the other ambient, international, and dispersed. Both offer a range of representations and interpretations that perceive the complicated relationships that arise between artists, institutions and cities.
In the Parallel Archive are the machinations of exhibitions; each contribution represents an exchange, and while elements of this exchange are made visible, parts remain hidden. The archive is as limited by these contributions as it is expanded. This is not about claiming 'transparency' through public access to the private. It is about places where the public and private meet, where accumulation reproduces experiences of reflection, where action leads us to other relations, economies, interactions, geographies, etc., where actual relationships between institutions, curators, artists, and audiences portray real energies, where exhibitions are shared territories and our collective input and intensified participation determine the terrain.
(excerpt from Sarah Pierce, "Archivo Paralelo", in Meanwhile in another place..., ed. Leire Vergara, Sala Rekalde:Bilbao 2004.)
2004ko abenduaren 21etik 2005eko otsailaren 20ra rekalde erakustaretoan Bitartean, beste nonbaiten... erakusketan garatuko den proiektu batean parte hartzera gonbidatzen zaitut.
Erakusketa bat prozesu eta elkarreragin ezberdinek, elkarrizketa eta ikerketek osatzen dute. Erakusketa guztietan, bai sormen aldetik zein administraziotik, ofizial edo informalki, partaidetza maila anizdun pertsona ezberdinek parte hartzen dute. Artxibategi eran bildurik, zuzen edo zeharki Bizkaiko Foru Aldundiko Beka eta Laguntzen programan nolabaiteko harremana duten emari guztiak erakutsi nahi genituzke. Bertan erakusketako partaide diren artegileak zein aurretiaz beka horiek eskatu edo onartu dituztenak agertuko dira. Erakusketaren komisaria ere barne biltzen da, rekaldeko langileria eta Bilboko kultura eremuetan lan egiten duten guztiak zein erakusketak irauten duen bitartean aretoa bisitatzen duen ikuslegoa ere.
Artxibategiko emarirako nahikoa izango da erakusketa batean normalean ikusgarria ez den kultura egin behar bat ordezkatzen duen zerbait aukeratzea. Zure lana edo ekimenarekin zerikusia izan dezake edo ikerketa lanarekin harremanduta egon, noizbaiteko hitzaldia edo gogoeta une puntual batekin. Baliteke idatzi duzun aurrekontu bat izatea edo lan materialaren errezibo bat, emate epe batzuen egutegia, entzutea gustatzen zaizun CD bat, kide baten oharra, zure estudio edo lan mahaiko trasteak, krokis bat, karta bat, egunkariko artikulu bat, argazki bat, kontsulta liburuak..., hitz batean, zuk eman nahi diguzuna. Asmoa gu guztion lanaren ostean dagoen alde kasual, eguneroko eta ohikoen hori adieraztea da.
Zure ekarkina artxibategian zure izena eta beharrezko ikusten duzun ohar edo azalpenarekin batera erakutsiko da. Objektua itzultzeko zehaztasunik ezean, behin erakusketa amaituta ere emariak artxibategian geldituko dira Dublinen garatzen nabilen proiektu zabalago batean parte hartuz.
Zure partaidetza rekalde aretora postaz zein e-mailez bidali dezakezu (Recalde zumardia, 30, E-48009 Bilbo, Bizkaia, salarekalde@bizkaia.net) abenduak 20a baino lehenago. Erakusketa 21ean inauguratzen den arren, ekarpenak otsailaren 20an erakusketa itxi arte onartuko dira. Zuk zeuk ere ekarri dezakezu. Gonbidapen hau proiektuan parte hartzeko interesaturik egon daitezken guztiengana heldu arazi dezazuen eskertuko genuke. Honela artxibategi paralelo bat eratzea lortuko dugu.
Adeitasunez, Sarah Pierce