TURN! Leipzig on the 2nd of June 2011

TURN! was an event that took place on June the 2nd 2011 on the field of the main sports-stadium in Leipzig, Germany. 150 people came together to perform a mass-choreography. This event was filmed. There was no audience present in the Stadium.

The choreography that was created in collaboration with the choreographer Heike Hennig and composer Marnix Ike critically reflects the German Gymnastics- and Sport-events in the GDR and other events that took place on the ground on which the stadium in Leipzig is build. It refers to contemporary mass culture, to sports, demonstrations, pop, and contemporary western structures. We tried to find a way re-define the structures in the past and the present.

I initiated and organized TURN! in order to research the possibility in today's western society to come together physically and to create one thing together. How can this be done without force, without exclusion, without a propagandistic or commercial purpose? How can people (re-)claim a space that has been appropriated by political regimes in the past, and by commercial powers in the present? How can this be visualized?

The film that was made in collaboration with Daniel Günter Schwarz will reflect the event and the experiment in an artistic way, visualizing the social tension between mass and individual.

For broadcasts by local and national German media about TURN! in the stadium look HERE!

TURN! Flashmobs

To create more awareness about the fact that TURN! was going to take place in the stadium of Leipzig, and to communicate that anyone could participate in the mass-choreography that was going to take place on the field of this big stadium, we organized many Flashmobs in public and non-public spaces in Leipzig. Look at this video of the first Flashmob day in Leipzig. For more Flashmob video's you can check out the TURN! Youtube account HERE.

TURN! the preparations

TURN! started as my project, but became many people's project. Whether it's art, sport, dance, film, a flashmob, social, psychological, idealistic, or crazy, you can decide for yourself.

It is an experiment about movement, collectivity, history, individuality, joy, physicality and freedom.

It's not made to promote any political system or any commercial company or product, it's made to experience.

I am so proud this is happening, and it is with great GREAT pleasure, that I present

the WEBSITE to you: www.turn-leipzig.org

You might feel intimidated by all the German language. Don't be, just look at the pictures :)

Temporary Art Souvenirs at Manifesta 8

During the Manifesta 8 biennial that took place in Murcia in 2010, we (a group of artists that got together during a project at the Dutch Art Institute) presented the subversive TEMPORARY ART SOUVENIRS Shop. It sold specially tailored art souvenirs to as wide an audience as possible, translating high art into low, low art into high, and making it all available for everyone to buy as a souvenir of the 'special, one-off art event Manifesta 8'.

We formed an engaging commentary on the double nature of art as symbolic object and as commodity. The effects, problematics and possibilities of a temporal art event are explored in this unpredictable mobile shop, selling art as souvenirs and souvenirs as art. The shop’s mobility allows it to transverse the boundaries between different social spaces, enabling art and ideas to reach a wide range of audiences.TEMPORARY ART SOUVENIRS popped up at a different venue each day, including the Manifesta art venues, local squares, shopping malls, migrant neighborhoods and tourist centres.

Look at the T.A.S. Website and Blog, because it is f*cking GREAT!

TEMPORARY ART SOUVENIR was a project realized by Lauren Alexander, Lado Darakhvelidze, Jimini Hignett, Anna Hoetjes, Jeroen Marttin, Eva Olthof, Julio Pastor and Patricia Sousa.

GBA

Within the master program of the Dutch Art Institute, we work together with Manifesta on the (Un)Solicited Platform for Research and Advice. Each month the Manifesta invites a guest, that will give us a brief to react on. You can look at the blog to see the results.

Lauren Alexander and I developed the 'Global Biennial Associaton', an organization that researches the current trends within international biennials. The GBA aims to adjust the targetmarket of the locally orientated Manifesta biennial, to address the discrepancy between ideology and marketing strategies.

TURN! work in progress

At the moment working on a re-execution of a mass gymnastics event in Leipzig. I would like to perform a choreography with 2000 people in the Central stadium in Leipzig, Germany. It will be based on the mass choreographies from the German Gymnastics and Sports Festivals that took place in Leipzig during the GDR time.

From July until December 2010 I'm working in a residency at the LIA studio program in Leipzig, to realize this work. This stay is funded by the Fonds BKVB.

This video shows archival images of the festivals, together with an interview I took from a woman that participated in the last German Gymnastics and Sports Festival.

Es war hart / Es muss es wieder geben (it was hard / it should be there again) from annahoetjes on Vimeo.

Mistakes Show in NYC

This show was organized and curated by Anna Hoetjes. It took place in April 2009 at Papa B Studios in NYC. Former students from Cooper Union showed works based on their mistakes.

Tom Badley 'I've come to get what was promised to me' 2008
Harold Batista 'The appeal of the two pealed' 2009
Lily Benson 'Plans for a film, Plants for a film' 2009
Ian Burnley 'Untitled' 2009
Emily Grenader 'Crowd Painting #3 (Times Square)' 2009
Anna Hoetjes 'Es war hart / es muss es wieder geben' 2009
Steffen Levring 'Joyride' 2009
Jessica Williams 'Untitled' 2008
Robin Willis 'Every final plan I have ever made' 2009