In recent decades, more and more artists around the world have been involved in artistic-communal activity which blurs the boundaries between art and life, encouraging discourse and social activism, thereby expanding artistic practice beyond its aesthetic nucleus.

Periphereality
Conference at Petach Tikva Museum of Art
17 June 2012, 10–16

Petach Tikva Museum of Art
30 Arlozorov Street
Petach Tikva, Israel

www.petachtikvamuseum.com

In recent decades, more and more artists around the world have been involved in artistic-communal activity which blurs the boundaries between art and life, encouraging discourse and social activism, thereby expanding artistic practice beyond its aesthetic nucleus.

Petach Tikva Museum of Art will hold a conference as part of the exhibition cluster Art-Society-Community, which strives to shed light on different models of social involvement through a range of projects by Israeli and international artists who are active in communities in various geographical and cultural regions, striving to promote a social and political agenda and thereby set processes in motion and influence society and the establishment. Drorit Gur Arie, chief curator and director of the museum who curated the current cluster, chose to focus on social-artistic activity in disempowered and excluded communities in invisible peripheral spaces.

The conference Periphereality will try to map the social-communal awakening in Israel. Participation and communality will be explored as key notions in initiatives of artistic involvement financed by various institutions, which give rise to action taken in the public field. Israel's southern region will serve as a case study through which to examine social involvement. Furthermore, the conference will attempt to develop a critical discourse while introducing social, economic, cultural, and architectural aspects, all pertaining to the interrelations between art, society, and community in the Israeli sphere.

Mapping the Israeli Situation
Speakers include Prof. Eva Illouz, a professor of sociology and anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who will present The Universal Model of Citizenship. Economist Prof. Yaron Zelicha, Dean of Business School at Ono Academic College will address The Social Cohesion in the Middle and Lower Classes as a Necessary Condition for Economic Growth in Israel. Chief curator and director of Petach Tikva Museum of Art Drorit Gur Arie and Noam Segal, curator and director of Rothschild 12 Art Space, will explore Social Art in Israel while presenting Mitterrand's Pioneering Cultural Policy, and Models of Community and Periphery.

Agents of Space: Collaborative Planning and Design
The session will offer a distinction between social design, collaborative design, and design for disempowered communities, while introducing critical questions pertaining to these notions in the context of the speakers' respective fields of practice. Architect Prof. Zvi Efrat and artist Yosef-Joseph Dadoune will address questions arising from the exhibition Ofakim, while relating to the rehabilitation of the Of-Ar factory as a unique proposal for the construction of a cultural-communal-business hothouse. Architect Kerem Halbrecht will discuss apparatuses for collaboration and activation of municipalities for quick action in the public sphere. Dr. Yael Guilat, Head of the Art Institute, Oranim College, will present a critical hermeneutical approach to the Bat Yam Biennial.

Moderator: Carmella Jacoby-Volk, environmental designer and cultural researcher, head of the Department of Interior Design, the Academic Studies program, College of Management.

The desert – a case study and a source of inspiration
Poet Moshe Ohayon will converse with sociologist Dr. Shani Bar-On about factory workers' strikes in the periphery as a tool for development of personal and communal growth.

Respondent: Yitzhak Krispel, social entrepreneur and activist.

Observer / Participant
The concluding panel will address the prevalent use of theatrical-performative tools to set in motion involvement and encourage communal spirit. Participants will include: Yaacov Amsellem, director of a community youth theater in a Bedouin village in the Negev; artist Orit Hasson, who has been active in projects involving art, society, and community; and musician and artist David Peretz, founder of the indie music lab in Beer Sheva.

Moderator: Yonatan Amir, art critic and co-editor of the on-line art magazine Erev Rav.


Free admission. Limited seating.
Please register in advance by email to pt.convention@gmail.com.


*Image above:
Nomansland Project, Muslala group and The Self-Broadcasting Authority.
Photo: Alexander Janetzko.