ART COOPERATION TRANSMISSION
A.C.T. Demo(k)cracy
With the support of the Culture programme of the European Union
Conception: Larys Frogier
Partners in the A.C.T Democ(k)racy project:
. Altart Foundation, Cluj-Napoca - Romania
. École européenne supérieure d’arts de Bretagne - France
. Fabrica de Pensule, Cluj-Napoca – Romania
. Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow – United Kingdom
. Kultumi Centar Beograda, Belgrade – Serbia
. La Criée contemporary art centre, Rennes – France
. Onomatopee research centre, Eindhoven – Netherlands
When artistic practices offer the conditions for emancipation, they define the place and the moment for the implementation of a democratic practice. Establishing a critical and experimental community on Art and Democracy in Europe, gathering over than thirty multidisciplinary researchers, involving many artists and even more students, “A.C.T.” brings you, from January 2012 until June 2014, exhibitions, seminars and one symposium on education, freedom, urbanism and poetics.
The withdrawal into separatist identities which is taking place in many European countries, is an alarming symptom of a crisis of democracy within Europe.
A.C.T. Democ(k)racy project partners have chosen to promote art as a fundamental political space for debating the future of democracy. They argue that art is above all a locus for disensus rather than consensus, on the basis of which democracy can be forged: creating space for discussion, stimulating thought, and imagining symbols, allegories and all the other intrinsic metaphors of cultural creativity and social dynamism. The partners hold that it is important to cultivate the critical dimension of art rather than reducing it to a social event, an exhibition of images or an illustration of key messages. This critical dimension of art does not intend to disassociate contemporary artistic creation from societal and political issues, rather the opposite. The challenge is to recognise the importance of allowing artistic creation to be autonomous and enjoy critical freedom, at the same time as interrogating the way artists are trained and the way their works are included in social space. Indeed, recognition of contemporary art as a critical space is one of the foundations of cultural action capable of promoting the exercise of democracy. Art does not make any direct claim to having a social or political dimension, but it has the ability to establish critical distance and represent the full potential of democracy The A.C.T. DEMOC(K)RACY project seeks to serve as a factory for crafting symbolic representations of the contemporary world in the light of economic and cultural shifts, playing a decisive role in the establishment of inventive, collaborative democracies.
