August 17, 2023

Shelley Sacks on ‘Exchange Values on the Table

In this interview artist Shelley Sacks discusses her work Exchange Values on the Table with Owen Griffiths and Alessandra Saviotti.
The conversation was recorded as part of Griffiths and Saviotti's artwork 'Tablecloth as Toolkit - Manchester version' which was included in 'Economics the Blockbuster: It's not Business as Usual' at the Whitworth (30/06 - 22/10, 2023).

Exchange Values on the Table (1996 - ongoing) is a social sculpture developed by artist Shelley Sacks in collaboration with banana producers in the Caribbean Windward Islands. A ground-breaking work of social practice, Exchange Values on the Table is a complex lifelong project which has affected social and political relationships. Over the years, it has influenced how work, fair trade, monoculture farming, and racial capitalism are discussed and understood. In doing so, it has created public space to explore and experience how art can inspire positive social change.

You can read more about 'Exchange Values (on the table)' on exchange-values.org

More info about 'Economics the Blockbuster: It's Not Business as Usual' is available here: www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/whats-on/…ckbuster/

Published by Alessandra Saviotti in 1:1 Scale, Toolkits, Use Value
Tags: Interview

June 21, 2023

From dpe to Economics the Blockbuster

In this conversation, Prof. John Byrne and PhD candidate and curator Alessandra Saviotti discuss some new content and intentions for Decentralising Political Economies at the horizon of the exhibition Economics the Blockbuster at The Whitworth in Manchester.

They refer to the text 'From Decentralising Political Economies to Economics The Blockbuster', a text that launches the next phase of the research that is going to be published on this platform.

Published by Alessandra Saviotti in 1:1 Scale, Hacking, Toolkits, Use Value

May 12, 2023

Dr. Dani Admiss responds to DPE

In this conversation, Dr. Dani Admiss responds to some questions posed by DPE toolkits editor Alessandra Saviotti. Admiss was invited to respond via a written contribution to 'From Decentralising Political Economies to Economics the Blockbuster', a text published on DPE, illustrating a series of questions the platform intends to explore over the years ahead.
Admiss focused on a specific question that emerged from the text such as: 'How would we begin to develop more pluralistic ways of seeing, using and participating in this complex (and often hidden) social economy?', and she used her recent project Sunlight Doesn't Need A Pipeline to formulate a possible answer to it.

In this conversation, Saviotti and Admiss unpacked some aspects which emerged from both texts.

Dr. Dani Admiss text is available in the library, please follow this link.

Published by Alessandra Saviotti in Library, Repurposing, Uncategorized, Undercommons, Use Value
Tags: Interview

November 18, 2021

DPE: Roaming Symposium – Second Week Recap

In this video, co-editors of dpe.tools Alessandra Saviotti and John Byrne analyse some key concepts and questions that emerged after the first week of workshops and panel discussions as part of DPE: Roaming Symposium.

Even though the topic of being in the midst of a pandemic has been always in the background, it was the first time that it was discussed over both sessions. It emerged the idea of the pandemic as a portal to perhaps reconsider our won locality. It also emerged how seriously it should be taken the 'space of encounter', being either virtual or in real life as a possible way to generate new forms of collaborations or support structures.

Published by Alessandra Saviotti in Hacking, Toolkits, Undercommons

October 29, 2021

DPE: Roaming Symposium – First Week Recap

Co-editors of dpe.tools Alessandra Saviotti and John Byrne analyse some key concepts and questions that emerged after the first week of workshops and panel discussions as part of DPE: Roaming Symposium.
Words such Dreams, Post-scarcity, Immediate Intimacy, Tequio, Power of Assembly and Power of Storytelling are some of the concepts emerged as a pattern across the different sessions.

Published by Alessandra Saviotti in 1:1 Scale, Coefficient of Art, Hacking, Toolkits, Undercommons

October 11, 2021

DPE: Roaming Symposium | An introduction

In this video, co-editors of dpe.tools Alessandra Saviotti and John Byrne explain the trajectories of the roaming symposium, the first public event organised as part of the platform in October and November 2021.

Decentralising Political Economies: Roaming Symposium is a research event with art professionals (artists, curators, and directors of cultural organisations), academics, researchers, constituencies and practitioners who apply art as a tool to be used as a resource for social, economic and political change.

Published by Alessandra Saviotti in Toolkits, Undercommons, Usership

May 5, 2021

DPE and Ty Pawb

Published by John Byrne in Uncategorized

May 5, 2021

Dig Where You Stand

Alessandra Saviotti talks with Owen Griffiths, an artist, workshop leader, and facilitator based in Swansea, Wales.

During this conversation, they discussed how embodied practices transformed in the context of the pandemic and beyond. With this transformation in mind, Owen speaks about how some words connected to his practice such as collaboration or urgency for example, have been repurposed, misused, or simply used in different ways according to the current situation.

Published by Alessandra Saviotti in Uncategorized

May 5, 2021

DPE and the Certificate of Usership

Alessandra Saviotti interviews Christiane Berndes, former curator and head of collections at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (NL) and Leanne Green, curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Whitworth in Manchester (UK).

Both Berndes and Green were responsible within their institutions, for the acquisition of the Arte Útil archive. The process started back in 2017, when a group of members of the Association de Arte Útil together with the initiator, Tania Bruguera, started a collective writing process aiming at reframing the idea of collecting such project, after an invitation from Stephen Wright. At the outset, Wright proposed this challenge to Alexandre Bohn, director of FRAC Poitou-Charents, that was the first institution to sign and therefore commit to support the Asociation through what became the ‘Certificate of usership’. 

Published by Alessandra Saviotti in Usership

October 26, 2020

DPE and Institutional Change: An interview with Alistair Hudson by John Byrne

In the fourth part of an initial cluster of informal discussions between the instigators of ‘Decentralising Political Economies’, Alistair Hudson talks about the challenges facing our existing ideas about Art Institutions, Art and the historical legacy of use as we move toward a potentially ‘post-exhibitionary’ and operational landscape of post-Covid exchange.

Is it possible for useful art to actively inform and present alternative economic models of social and political change? And, if so, how does this affect our current understanding of art as an ‘experience’ to be had within the physical and ideological framework of the museum and gallery.

Published by John Byrne in Uncategorized
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