Insularities, Immunities, Communities Event

A series of interventions

In the framework of our one-semester class in the department of Artistic Strategies from the University for Applied Arts in Vienna, we, a group of students, teachers and practitioners, investigated the interrelated topics of insularities, immunities and communities through texts, artistic practices, and collective reflection on site at the Volkskundemuseum Vienna.
We questioned the dominant Western understanding of society and community where separation and bordering practices preside over other forms of relations. And we read and thought about some other modes of communalities and collectivities, where interdependencies, porosities, contaminations, translations help transgressing and deconstructing hegemonial categories and fixed identities. During the course, we developed site-specific interventions within Volkskundemuseum.

“Intervention is a common term, though not the only one, to describe the diverse practices of intervening in existing representations. At its core, there is a difference-creating process: Artistic or scientific interventions question the existing status in a site- or theme-specific way or add layers, deepen an aspect. As counterpoint and supplement, they shift perspectives, cross existing familiar or experimental, discursive or event-like. As eye-catchers, they enliven the familiar; as dialogue, they interact with what the foregoing and with the audience. Interventions can be related to the interpretive power and traditional logics of museums, to the built space or to objects and modes of presentation. Bringing in a critical view from the outside often coincides with the museums’ desire to change their image, to provide space for polyphony and reflection, to update permanent exhibitions or to use the museum environment as a stage for experience.“
Roswitha Muttenthaler in schnittpunkt, Handbuch Ausstellungs-theorie und-praxis, 2013 (transl. from German)

The eight interventions are dispatched within the exhibitions spaces and garden. They take the shape of installations and/or performances. They will be presented one after another on June 6th 2022 from 2 pm onwards.

With: Pierina Erazo & Felix Siegl, Emma Hontebeyrie & Gea Kalkhof, Mariya Khymynets, Linya Shi, Haoxiang Wang, Freda Yu Bing Jie, Qingyu Zhang, Qianwen Zhu. Accompanied by: Anne Faucheret & Antoine Turillon

This project is a cooperation between the University for Applied Arts Vienna & Volkskundemuseum Wien