Son[i]a #393
Kathrin Böhm
Image: Kathrin Böhm, "Compost", 2021
Kathrin Böhm’s (b. Höfen, 1969) practice spans several decades and branches out in many directions, constantly in dialogue with others. She approaches her field of action from a social perspective, while very consciously situating herself on the margins of the art market and of the white cube, in order to explore other ways of understanding the economy and relationality. Predisposed to communal and practical thinking, Kathrin has concentrated her efforts on the (co)production of many and varied organisational forms, focusing on issues such as usership and utility of art on different fronts and by means of different strategies. A long list of initiatives, communities, and even companies under a variety of names and constellations—Myvillages, Company Drinks, and the Centre for Plausible Economies, among many others—serve as relational experiments and exercises in shared learning that involve understanding culture as an everyday practice that can be found everywhere.
In this podcast, we open up a glossary of concepts that affect and leave their mark on Kathrin Böhm’s many constellations and collective projects. From the notion of compost—which triggered a radical shift in her way of working and interacting with her material archive in recent years—to a reassessment of the very idea of economy, which, as Katherine Gibson writes, helps us discern spaces of value production that are not immediately apparent. We talk about how these other strategies and ways of doing things lead us to qualify and problematise alternative ways of understanding social and/or participatory practices, and even to read the idea of community critically.
Conversation: pantea and Anna Ramos. Script and sound production: pantea and Anna Ramos. Voice over: Hiuwai Chu.
Sounds: RWM Working Group from the collective library "Bodily sounds".
Eva Rowson
Curator, artist and cultural producer Eva Rowson talks about her early contact with hospitality, collective learning experiences such as Open School East, the value of uncharismatic work, throwing parties with Andrea Francke, life lessons of a croissant, and how the best theory comes from practice.
Andrea Francke
Hablamos con la artista Andrea Francke sobre su interés en las infraestructuras y proyectos participativos. Inclusión, hospitalidad y los ecos del proyecto colonial aparecen en la conversación. Andrea va deshaciendo la idea de fracaso mientras reflexiona acerca de los desafíos que conlleva la elaboración de políticas y marcos legales institucionales. Hablamos también de categorías de arte importadas, de trabajos invisibles y de la idea de caridad como un callejón sin salida.
Raw Material Company
Based in Dakar, Senegal, Raw Material Company is an independent, collaborative centre that aims to foster critical thinking through artistic practice. In this conversation, Marie Hélène Pereira and Fatima Bintou Rassoul Sy—two key members of Raw Material Company—discuss a situated feminist and decolonial practice that focuses on doing rather than enunciating and categorizing. They share some of their experiences and talk about the strategies they use to create rich forms of dialogue and to negotiate the tensions and the ideological and economic constraints imposed through the still-colonial structures of the so-called global North.