Corners, a platform for artists and audiences, designed and driven by cultural organisations at the edges of Europe, entered a new phase. After the research and development phase, the partner organizations will execute a variety of art projects that will be taking place in fourteen European cities over the next three years. Exodos Ljubljana, Slovenian partner of the project, who is also responsible for the entire logistical and technical coordination of platform, will host its own event in May 2016. Launch of a new phase was held simultaneously in 10 European cities: Stockholm, Donostija / San Sebastián, Newcastle on the River Tyne, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Rijeka, Belgrade, Gdansk and Bari.
Corners began in 2010 as a two-year research and development project in which a group of 60 European artists and researchers conducted seven research trips (Xpeditions) and five work meetings (Basecamps), and as a result of this joint action various art projects (Co-creations) emerged. By obtaining new funds from the European Commission (Creative Europe programme / Culture) participating artists and researchers will be able to execute developed ideas in the next three years. The series of events will begin in May 2015 in Sweden and end in June 2017 in UK.
At the event moderated by publicist Jedrt Jež Furlan, Nataša Zavolovšek, logistics coordinator of Corners and director of Exodos Ljubljana presented previous Corners activities and shared several interesting anecdotes. She told: “Corners is live project, full of interesting stories that arise in cooperation with local audiences. A participant in the Kids on the Corners event in Ljubljana became so fascinated about the project, that she has started to learn Swedish, since the next stop of the project was Umea.” She also highlighted: “In the time when culture is receiving less and less funding, is participation in international projects such as Corners, a great opportunity for artists, producers and cultural organizations on the edges of Europe to expand their audiences and make useful connections for operation.”
Actor and dancer Primož Bezjak who attended the North Xpedition, experienced this research trip as an artistic experiment, that enabled him to learned new things about himself, the environment and ways to find inspiration for his work. “What happens when you put on a bus 20 artists and 20 producers? Relations quickly turn into manipulation, resulting in small wars between various interest groups, and Balkans even create their own diaspora. At the same time you are expected to make a joint creation with your travel companions that will represent wider objectives of Corners, which suddenly becomes a challenging task, “said Bezjak. He also participated in the social-artistic project Kids on the Corners, in which he revealed the secrets of the acting profession to children from Trnovo and Roma children from Ljubljana, and found out that “the productivity is not necessarily the problem of Roma children.”
Miha Horvat, multimedia artist, attended three Xpeditions, North, East and Balkan. At one of them he stood in the corner and kneeled on the corn for the first time in his life and realized that the stability can be extremely painful. Despite the voluntary decision for this physical performance, he decided that two attempts were enough, temporarily abandoned the idea of continuing the project, and rather returned to the integration of art and interactive communication technologies. Together with three other European artists he started working on a new project that will connect contemporary art, table games, social interaction and performance. “The purpose of the project is through a conceptual process of formation, socialization, creation and researching theory and history of games to create an interactive game that will have four players and die without sixes,” said Horvat.