CONTENTS:

1. About this Monday
2. About Pedro Lasch
3. About 16Beaver
4. About BETWEEN US (16Beaver’s Proposal for 2006 Gwangju Biennial)
5. How You Can Participate


1. About this Monday

What:
Workshop/Presentation/Discussion About 16Beaver Past Projects, Collaborative Practice in General and BETWEEN US, a project about borders for Gwangju Biennial.

Who:
Pedro Lasch from 16Beaver Group (New York) and all who are interested in learning more about 16Beaver, discussing collaborative practice and thinking together about borders in the contemporary world context.

When:
5:00pm - 7: 00pm

Where: IAS F1
IAS(Insa Art Space), Arts Council Korea
90 Wonseo-dong, Jongno-gu
Seoul, Korea 110-280
www.insaartspace.or.kr, www.arko.or.kr

For this event Pedro Lasch of 16Beaver will begin with a 15 minute participatory screening and art action about collective social structures. He will then introduce some of 16Beaver’s past activities by referring to their website as well as printed materials that will be left at the IAS public archive, so people can look through them after his visit and see if and how they want to participate in later stages of our project in Korea. After this, he will present some ideas behind 16Beaver’s proposal for the Gwagnju Biennial and a set of future discussions around collective practice at Insa Art Space. Entitled BETWEEN US(see below for full info), this joint project is to take place this summer and will involve a workshop/seminar and a subsequent trip along the border between North and South Korea. This is the initial idea which will remain flexible. Part of Pedro’s visit will be to meet people and explore its possible development. Most of the evening will be about initiating a group discussion and conversation among those present.

We hope this event will give people who may be interested to participate in BETWEEN US the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas as we plan the specifics of each part of the project together.

Below you will find more information about 16Beaver, Pedro Lasch, and BETWEEN US.


2. About Pedro Lasch

Pedro Lasch is Assistant Professor of the Practice of Visual Arts at Duke University in Durham, NC where he is also Interim Director of the Latino/a Studies Initiative. Born and raised in Mexico City, he received his B.A. from The Cooper Union in New York, where he lived between 1994 and 2002. In addition to his individual work in a wide range of disciplines including drawing, painting, video, installation and performance, he leads on-going social, cultural and political projects with immigrant communities and art collectives, such as 16 Beaver Group. His work has been published and shown internationally at both alternative and mainstream institutions. For information on his current solo exhibition ’Open Routines’ at the Queens Museum of Art in New York go to:

http://www.queensmuseum.org/exhibitions/lasch.html


3. About 16Beaver

16 Beaver is the address of a space in New York’s Financial District initiated and run by artists to create and maintain an ongoing platform for the presentation, production, and discussion of a variety of artistic, cultural, economic, and/or political projects. Since its inception, the group has organized more than 300 events ranging in format from lunches, walks, and film screenings to artist presentations, readings, panels, and discussions.

A significant part of its activities is web based, please visit for a better idea.
http://www.16beavergroup.org


4. About BETWEEN US

DESCRIPTION:
This project is 16 Beaver’s proposal for the 2006 Gwangju Biennial in Korea and Insa Art Space in Seoul. It consists of the following components:

- Various discussions and workshops with Pedro Lasch from 16Beaver in Seoul (June 23rd through 28th) including a public presentation at Insa Art Space on June 26th.

- A set of workshops and activities in Seoul with Ayreen Anastas, Rene Gabri and Pedro Lasch from 16Beaver, as well as local people interested in the topics listed below (August 19th and 20th).

- A collective walk / drive / visit that would trace as closely as possible from the East to the West (or vice versa), the border between North and South Korea (August 21 through 28th).

- An installation regarding the border walk and all activities related to BETWEEN US at the Gwangju Biennial, including a free publication for gallery visitors to take with them (September 8th through November 11th).

IDEAS:
We have over the last years been exploring the possibility of a kind of experimental research theory and practice. This walk and its related activities would be part aesthetic intervention, partly communicative scenario and partly an opportunity to research/explore a very specific theme in Korea.

Since 1989 the world has witnessed a rapid realignment of borders, shifting seemingly fixed alliances, growing number of free trade zones, and the subsequent emergent bodies of governance (i.e., the formation of economic blocs like EU or NAFTA). The first phase of these changes opened up new spaces of conflict, often pitting groups of people who had once been neighbors into oppositional camps, rooted either in ethnic or religious divisions. Nevertheless, with the tremendous technological expansions experienced in the mid to late 90’s, a certain euphoria emerged, particularly based on ideas of disappearing borders, a global community which was able to communicate and organize directly with one another.

The anti-globalization or global justice movements that arose within this period were partly feeding on these revolutionary changes, but also involved in exposing the hypocrisies of such euphoric rhetorics, particularly as rich nations continued to strap poorer ones with debt and exploitative initiatives. The events of September 11, 2001, introduced a new phase and these movements and “realignments” were handed a severe jolt, and the floating signifier of “security” became the operative word for those in power to reassert authority, and to now “protect” these recently realigned borders.

Furthermore, greater focus and scrutiny was placed on the fringes of these borders, where complicity with the neoliberal agenda was not embraced so readily or where the claims to “self-determination” had not been heard. This new version of the Cold War would not pit modes of governance against one another (e.g., communism, autocracies, socialism, dictatorship, against democracy…), all would be included “on the same side”, as long as they embraced the neoliberal program/agenda and were “against the terrorists.”

This narrative outlines why border areas become interesting sites. Whether these borders are between Occupied Palestine/Isreal, Mexico/US, Armenia/Azerbaijan+Turkey+Iran, or North/South Korea, each introduce specific questions and interrogate common assumptions about the changes since 1989. We would like to invite anyone interested in the political, cultural, aesthetic, and social aspects of these topics to participate in the project.


5. How You Can Participate

Please come to the public event on Monday June 26th at Insa Art Space and invite others so you can share your ideas with us and ask any questions you might have. As this is our first visit and much of what will happen in later stages will be determined by this initial set of dialogues, we hope as many of you as possible can make it so we can work together on this project.

If you are interested in contacting 16Beaver before Pedro’s initial visit or if you are unable to come to the event, but are interested in possibly taking part. You can write to korea@16beavergroup.org

You can also visit the website for more information:
http://www.16beavergroup.org