Curated education project with young people
Imaginary Borders/Shared Spaces was an exciting new digital arts project which took place over Saturday 12, Saturday 19 & Sunday 20 Oct 2002. The project was linked to the exhibition, Imaginary Balkans at Site Gallery; a ground breaking group show of work by Serbian and Croatian artists.
Imaginary Balkans is a ground-breaking exhibition curated by award-winning artist Breda Beban, bringing together Serbian and Croatian artists. The title of the exhibition is borrowed from the book Imagining the Balkans by Maria Todorova which traces the relationship between the reality and the in fiction of the Balkans. It refers to a space where certainty has collapsed; the notion of the centre has been displaced; and where the process of defining borders has been deemed an aggressive or exclusive act. The exhibition represents an intimate search to reclaim abandoned places and previous identities; and a desire for a re-imagined space after a period of unrest. “It is an attempt at reopening and reworking the plot to find somewhere else to go from” Many of the works in Imaginary Balkans focus not on the larger political situation, but on a return to simple things -objects and activities, ritual and processes- that relate to the everyday and to the individual experience in relation to recent ‘history’.
Taking up some of the themes of the exhibition, the project set out to explore the idea of borderlands, pathways and the city through the shared activity of mapping, navigtion and conversation between young people in the Britain and the Balkans (Sheffield, UK; Dubrovnik, Croatia and Tuzla, Bosnia & Herzegovina).
Over the two weekends a group of young people will work alongside artists Edina Husanovic and Mitra Memarzia to learn new creative skills and to explore the city through maps, walks, digital imagery, text and discussion. Walking and mapping Imaginary Borders explores the potential of mapping and walking as a way of experiencing geographical spaces and the city. Examining the practices of contemporary artists using this as the conceptual root of their practice, the project will involve 3 groups of young people engaging in a series of walks and actions. These 'events' will be determined through discussion and dialogue between the centres and will combine personal pathways, prescribed routes and simultaneous actions. Using maps of the cities as a starting point the group developed plans for a walk based on areas that they considered to have a significance within the city, and undertook as set of walking activities. Similar activities took place simultaneously in Dubrovnik and Tuzla. Connecting online with young people in the Balkans; ideas of communication and distance, unknown territory, short cuts and personal stories of the city space will be exchanged.
The three day project on 12th, 19th and 20th of October 2002 comprised of series of presentations and practical workshops. The programme was designed to introduce a group of young people to new creative and conceptual languages of exploration of the city space through maps, walks, digital imagery, and discussion. The conceptual basis of the workshops relied on the ideas of communication and distance, unknown territory, short cuts and personal stories of the city space. The practical side consisted of the workshops in photography, image manipulation , on-line chatrooms as well as drawing and writing.
The resulting images were displayed as a video piece on the projection window at Site Gallery on 28 February, 1 and 2 March.
