[-empyre-] from temporary to unfinished

[Ana Valdés]

Another place which is definitely both TAZ (temporary autonomous zone)
and selforganized space is Karosta, in Latvia, where Kirsti Briedl and
Carl  Bjorsmark drive K2, Campus Karosta, a place where artists,
multimeda students, architects and activists try to transform the
ghost city of Karosta, a Russian and Sovjetic closed city in a node of
activism and intellectual creativity.
When Kirsti and Carl started the project the place was in ruins, the
population changed in one day from 23.000 inhabitants to 6000, when
the Sovjetic soldiers left the base.
http://www.karosta.lv/

A really good example of grassroots activism and artist vision.

Ana, wich visited Karosta several times and always feels such a great
inspiration there...

On Jan 19, 2008 7:00 PM, School of Missing Studies
<info at schoolofmissingstudies.net> wrote:
> Some very interesting comments and url's—thanks for posting.
>
> Ana, to comment on temporary autonomous zones, this is very pertinent
> in the Western Balkans. The question may be how temporary is
> temporary? This gets into the "unfinished" business.
>
> First, so many individual initiatives sprouted up during and after
> the war.
> Some were great like Ljudmila, kuda, center for cultural
> decontamination, etc. but others were things like war criminals
> building huge television empires that promoted turbo divas and
> nationalist sentiment. People are building their own family homes
> extra-legally, claiming a certain right to private property in the
> absence of the government's ability to provide for them after
> socialism. But then, they are putting up their own fences around
> their property to block the world out. http://talkingcities.org/
> talkingcities/pages/182_en.html  http://www.europelostandfound.net/
> node/26
>
> On one hand this is great because people were active and exercising
> free speech and expression—but the question of taking responsibility
> for this freedom is a huge question we think. The Belgrade artist
> group skart has a great project "your shit, your responsibility."
> http://www.nyfa.org/nyfacurrent/skart/skart_page8_yourshit_part1.htm
>
> So I still didn't finish the thought on "unfinishedness," but do
> others have thoughts on whether it is necessary for a project to be
> unfinished or to be immaterial (different but related concepts) for
> it to be participatory? This is a huge discourse now from Nicolas
> Bourriaud to Claire Bishop to Jacques Ranciere. But we wonder what
> art, design, and media creators really think and practice?
>
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