Friday 25 May, 2 pm - 4 pm/4.30 pm

Locatie
Scheltema voor actuele kunst
Marktsteeg 1 / hoek Oude Singel
2312 CS Leiden
www.lakenhal.nl


Round Table Conversation
Round Table Conversation in the context of the manifestation and exhibition 'The Return of the Shreds' of Ni Haifeng and Kitty Zijlmans.


X-Change
Investigating the exchange of ideas, concepts and materials between art, academia and audiences.


The Return of the Shreds covers a wide range of projects and installations, such as the title project in which 9 tons of textile shreds are displayed in the largest room of Scheltema; a re-installation of Of the Departure and the Arrival (2005) in which every day objects were made into blue & white porcelain objects in China, and send back to the Netherlands; Shrinkage 10% questioning original and copy in a diminishing series of porcelain objects, and the Used Passports project – asking people to hand in their invalid passport [a part of their past identity] and as such partaking in the project by being involved.

X-change is the main topic of the Round Table Conversation: exchanges and the subsequent changes in the processes of trade, between nations, cultures, concepts of art, and between art and scholarly fields/the sciences. Exchanges are rarely equal, mostly inequality is involved, power relations, rich and poor, etc, especially now in a globalizing world. These questions are underlying our project.

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Thesises

1. Many contemporary artworks make use of and reflect upon the mechanisms of the global economic system, the trade system, the postal system, the system of art institutions, etc., and by doing so they question the system from within – they criticize it by making use of it.


2. A large number of (mostly invisible) people are involved in the production and dissemination of art, e/g Ni Haifeng’s artworks. The artist comments on the economic/social dimensions by making visible the producers and underlying processes of exchanges within the production chain.


3. Art is a site for cultural and societal discourse. In this globalizing world, art can tell us something of our personal and communal existence.

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Participants
Kitty Zijlmans (Art Historian, Chair)
Ni Haifeng (artist)
Roel Arkesteijn (curator)
Delphine Bedel (artist, curator)
Jessica de Boer (MA Governance & Sustainability, Bestuurskunde Utwente; 3d year student
ArtScience KABK)
Lene ter Haar (curator Museum Het Domein)
Francesca Dal Lago (Research Fellow Universiteit Leiden Contemporary Chinese Art),
Paola van de Velde (art critic)
Janneke Wesseling (lector KABK)

Research MA students Art History University of Leiden
Thanavi Chotpradit
Margriet Krijgsman
Flora Lysen
Iberia Perez
Jianwei Wang