PERCEIVING ACADEMY
by Eric Ellingsen
Eric Ellingsen worked with a group of 18 young practitioners - mainly but not exclusively fine arts and architecture students. The Perceiving Academy curriculum included walks led by experts on various knowledge fields, centered around the way in which we see and perceive the city as space, as well as on how we co-develop structures and relations within it.
As a reaction to their walks, the participants designed, constructed and publicly presented a series of temporary sculptures-interventions-structures that functioned as a point of convergence within public space, a place for meetings and debates, a starting point for renegotiating the interpretation and use of urban landscape.
These constructions were presented on Thursday, July 14 and were put together on location with the assistance of the public. This initial phase of the Perceiving Academy is an introduction to a long-term programme that the artist is currently developing in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and the Municipality of Thessaloniki, in the context of the project LABattoir for the Old Slaughterhouse - where the Academy was based for the duration of the residency.
As a reaction to their walks, the participants designed, constructed and publicly presented a series of temporary sculptures-interventions-structures that functioned as a point of convergence within public space, a place for meetings and debates, a starting point for renegotiating the interpretation and use of urban landscape.
These constructions were presented on Thursday, July 14 and were put together on location with the assistance of the public. This initial phase of the Perceiving Academy is an introduction to a long-term programme that the artist is currently developing in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and the Municipality of Thessaloniki, in the context of the project LABattoir for the Old Slaughterhouse - where the Academy was based for the duration of the residency.
About the Artist
Ellingsen's work is informed by collaborative learning through experienced experiments, relational thinking, walking, ecology and ecological economies, translation, performance and perception. The heart of Ellingsen's work involves learning how to learn. This takes place through the design of site and institution specific works, in which learning learns across different creative spatial practices. From 2009-14, Ellingsen co-directed and taught at the Institute for Spatial Experiments (University of the Arts, Berlin), an art education experiment for learning how to learn, started by Olafur Eliasson. Currently he is Visiting Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Previously he taught at Cornell University, AAP; the Illinois Institute of Technology; and the University of Toronto, Daniels. |
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Photos: George Kogias
Artecitya receives financial support from the European Commission within the framework of the Creative Europe - Culture programme.
The present communication reflects the views only of the authors. The Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
The present communication reflects the views only of the authors. The Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.