Apologies for X-posting.

CONTACT: 20 Years of Pixelache Symposium / Looking Forwards <-> Looking
Backwards
Saturday 3. December 2022.

#Pixelache2022 #pixelache20 #Contact20YearsPixelache
#LookingForwardsLookingBackwards

Kiasma Theatre (Museum of Contemporary Arts),
& after-party at Magito Studio, Suvilahti Cultural Complex,
Helsinki, Finland

CONTACT is a transdisciplinary symposium that weaves socio-cultural
issues facing our eras, such as heritage, gender, pre & post-pandemia,
sharing and exploitation in culture, oppression, isolation, and care.
The event maps out these different aspects in 4 thematics – Archival
practices, memory & data; Diversity, post-national & transcultural
collaborations; Intersectional Feminism & practices; D.I.Y.-D.I.W.O.
Community & associations – which combine and overlap within precarious
life conditions, alternative resisting strategies, between reclaiming
the present and imagination of the tomorrow we will face.

How does art, design, research and activism, in general cultural work -
reflect and respond to contemporary crises? Can a cultural association
hold space for activist and political practices?

Contact is a fundamental life condition such as spiritual, physical,
cultural exchange and sharing, social struggling, diverse solidarity,
and hospitality for coexistence.

Contact is a metaphor for closeness, for staying in touch, for encounter
and exchange.

Contact is, as well, a method proposed to reveal silenced issues
encountering racism, classism, nationalism, authoritarianism, and
patriarchy. Through meditating and dialogue with diverse alternative
practices. Contact and gathering, as a way to pool together structural
and symbolic oppression. As a way to organize communal survival,
struggle and cohabitation and the dominant political construction of
social roles.


The one-day Symposium event opens up a public sphere for sharing and
discussing critical dialogues through mediating different communities
and alternative artistic practices. It will consist of a series of
presentations, audiovisual performances, film screenings & an open-mic
closing session including Pixelache members and audience. The symposium
is co-curated by Soko Hwang, Irina Mutt, Andrew Gryf Paterson (all
Pixelache association members).

Following the Symposium at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, the
audience is invited to Magito studio in the Suvilahti Cultural Complex
for food and after-party, including live audiovisual VJ collaborative
performance, DJ mashup mix and live folk music. Note the evening
programme is led by 'Looking Forwards <-> Looking Backwards' &
'Gathering of Elders 2002' organising-duo Antti Ahonen and invited
collaborator Jenna Jauhiainen; with the after-party event produced by
additional Pixelache members Arlene Tucker and Mathilde Palenius. There
will be more info about after-party in subsequent announcements.

Pixelache hosts this symposium to celebrate and reflect on 20 years of
existence as a cultural association that has been constantly evolving in
the context of local and global issues, and related communities of
practice. Over 20 years the festival has developed from digital
subcultures such as VJing & experimental interaction, to engaging
participatory platforms, and in recent years, an ‘ache’ to re-engage
with non-digital interfaces and systems. The association has also
developed into a postnational and transcultural community of artists,
cultural producers, thinkers and activists.

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Schedule

Full day programme: Symposium (@Kiasma) 10:00-17:30
After-party (@Magito) 18:00-00:00

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Participants

Juha Huuskonen (Helsinki), Minna Henriksson (Helsinki), Željko Blaće
(Pixelache Wikimedian in residence, Zagreb, HR), Giovanna Esposito
Yussif (Helsinki), Ubuntu Film Club (Helsinki), Paula Pin (BioTRANSLab,
Galicia, nomadic, ES), Marc Dusseiller (Hackteria Global Network,
Zürich, CH), Eeva Berglund (Aalto University, Espoo-Helsinki), plus 2
others to-be-confirmed.

After-party performers to be announced in near future.

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Full participant contribution & schedule details coming within 2-3 weeks.

Registration link for Symposium & Party events in next announcement.

Questions or expressions of desire for online stream: contact20years
[at] pixelache.ac

--
Andrew Gryf Paterson
artist-organiser, independent researcher
http://agryfp.info
+358 50402 3828 | social: @agryfp