Green light: Movement workshop

Steen Koerner, movement workshop, Green light, Biennale Arte 2017
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#WithRefugees

The Green light project began at a specific moment in time, in 2015, when refugees were arriving in Europe by the hundreds of thousands, fleeing hardship, political and economic instability, and war in their home countries. Although these problems had begun years before, many – myself included – often felt emotionally disconnected from the reality of what we read or saw on the news. Art and culture, I believe, can have a pertinent role to play in responding to such events: as a start, it can reverse our emotional disconnect and, whether directly or indirectly, inspire us to take action.

But how does one proceed from the assembly of a light module to social change? The journey might seem long and convoluted, yet a simple but crucial first step is to trust the potential in the non-spectacular situation of sitting down together and doing something basic with our hands – in this case, working on a lamp that is more easily assembled by two pairs of hands than one. Add to that a multifaceted program of shared learning, with practical workshops, counseling, language classes, cooking, sports and cultural events, and knowledge exchange. What emerges during these activities is a shared social space. And once the initial nervousness has evaporated, moments of relaxed enjoyment unfold, pieces of personal history are exchanged. This elicits a feeling of interconnectedness that is incredibly strong.

I believe that allowing ourselves to be open to this feeling is key to intensifying our engagement in society and to participating actively in coming up with solutions in times where forced migration affects us all.

I undertook the Green light project with TBA21 with the hope of developing a scalable model that would work in an art context, but could reach beyond it and also be implemented in a school, a public library, or a political institute. . . . While the Green light community expands, I hope that cities, national governments, and policy-makers also begin to see the potential of creative approaches to welcoming refugees, addressing concerns among their populations, and devising collective solutions. Populations around the world will become increasingly multi-ethnic and multicultural and it is clear that the near and distant future will continue to be shaped by migration. We therefore need solutions, now and into the future, at all levels of society.

Excerpts from ‘Assembling a Light, Assembling Communities’, Green Light – An Artistic Workshop, published by TBA21 and Sternberg Press

Green light: Interview with Akam

Green light participant Akim, Biennale Arte 2017

Welcome! Arriving at an open house is usually an informal affair. The hosts might come to the door to greet you – or they might not. Clusters of guests form spontaneously, grow, dissipate. People wander about, check out books, or pick up an object lying around. You can hang out for hours or merely put in an appearance. There’s no schedule and, potentially, a good amount of unruly, social interaction.

And there’s a setting, a space that has been awaiting your arrival, awaiting you and imagining your presence, a space tuned to the act of welcoming – like this one here, in your hands. This book invites you into my studio in Berlin. For this book-as-openhouse, my studio team and I have left some of our favourite items lying about – experimental setups, sketches, models, some artworks. You will find fragments of conversations, stray quotes for inspiration, and ideas floating about, which give a glimpse into the daily concerns and exchanges among team members and with visitors.

Open house presents an opportunity to meet some of the approximately ninety people working at the studio. They come from diverse backgrounds and are engaged in a range of activities: some in woodworking and metalwork or on the glass team; some in charge of Exhibitions and Production or Design and Development;
others work on Research and Policy or with Media and Transmissions, while still others are involved in planning, logistics, or accounting. Finally, of course there is the kitchen team, which provides warm lunches four days a week for the entire studio. Olafur Eliasson, excerpt from foreword to Open House

‘Beauty’ archive, 1993–2016

Archival Beauty - from the first iteration of the work in 1993 to present day
Beauty will also be part of Maison des ombres multiples, opening next week at MAC, Montreal
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Little Sun teamed up with Santa Shoebox and raised solar lamps for students in rural South Africa.
Article via Designboom

Rainbow in a raindrop

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Today at Brilliant Minds in Stockholm, we are launching a new work in virtual reality, developed in collaboration with Acute Art, as part of the studio's continued interest in natural and ephemeral phenomena and how to explore these using the language of new media

Like the horizon, rainbows are perspectival and therefore exist in no particular location. A rainbow forms when the organic and the in-organic, eye and sunlight, matter and energy are brought into a sudden relation that changes the quality of light itself. The rainbow exist as an object, but an interstitial one, at a meeting place of relations and materiality. A rainbow is an alliance: solar gleam, errant cloud, water drops in motion, captivated eye, changed world” J.J. Cohen in Prismatic Ecology, 2013

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"I’ve always been interested in how we co-produce reality. When I make an exhibition I think of it as a reality-producing machine. Virtual reality has the potential to become a platform for new ways of experiencing if we include the body in our virtual work – I don’t believe in leaving the body behind. For this reason, I’ve been particularly interested in developing Rainbow so that it hosts many people at the same time. To me, this social aspect is crucial; it emerges through recognising the presence of others, by experiencing others’ impact on a space. To enter Rainbow is not to exit the world and leave the body behind. It draws on our deep motor-sensory knowledge and sense of space to bring people together across geographical boundaries." - Olafur Eliasson

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Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, Physica Sacra, 1731

Presenting Green light – An artistic workshop in the Exhibition Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale together with Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary has provoked many reactions. Some have been positive, others sceptical, and some clearly negative. There have been a lot of questions in the workshop space itself and beyond it, many of which are addressed and considered in depth in a series of essays in the Green light book recently published by TBA21 and Sternberg. Are people who came as refugees from very different countries being objectified when they take part in a transnational workshop at the heart of the biennale? Can the visitors participate actively, rather than remain outside, gazing at the participants from a distance? What is clear to me is that the reactions to Green light inevitably become a part of the project’s social fabric.

The project explicitly invites the general public to join the participating asylum seekers in the workshop, in building lamps and in taking part in the shared learning project – it trusts the point of contact, encourages interaction and collaborative work. Being in the Green light space and actively negotiating one’s role as a spectator or participant is a part of the project, whether one comes from a refugee background or not. I think, however, that not everyone saw that invitation, especially during the opening days of the exhibition.
Bringing Green light to the biennale means working within an exhibition platform that offers great visibility. It has been important to me throughout to actively use this visibility to bring the issues of migration and forced migration not just to those who are already interested in them (preaching to the choir, so to speak), but to everyone passing through the Exhibition Pavilion, since these are topics in the current political landscape that should not be ignored. It is also a means of giving the Green light participants a platform from which they can speak about their concerns.

Above and beyond what Green light communicates to the outside is the role it has in producing an engaged community. Integral to this is the Shared learning platform, an alternative educational programme organised by TBA21, which offers language classes, job training, psychological counselling and legal advice, as well as workshops, interventions, and seminars.
Green light – An artistic workshop presents no solution. It offers no easy ‘fix it all’ strategy. It is a modest attempt at addressing the issues surrounding forced migration and displacement through collaboration, community building, and individual engagement.

Green light: Participants discuss integration

Participants discussing integration in the Green light workshop, Venice Biennale, 2017
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Ice Watch

Tomas Saraceno, Aerocene Explorer, 2017

Studio Tomas Saraceno: An Aerocene Explorer aerosolar sculpture floating at Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich. courtesy Aerocene Foundation. @studiotomassaraceno @hauskonstruktiv

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"My name is Tahajud and I participated in the Green light project in Vienna in 2016. I then went to Prague to present Green light there and have now come to Venice to teach the new Green light participants how to do the threading for the lamps. I know they were scared when they first arrived. I was scared too, because as a teacher I have the responsibility to teach them well. If I am a good teacher, I would teach them in the right way and they would learn it. If not, they won’t understand and will not be able to build the lamps. I couldn't understand the people from Somalia, China, Afghanistan and Kurdish Iraq, and they didn't understand me. I know how they feel, I feel for them and I want to help them. We communicated with movements and we could do something good together. Now after the tutorial days they are great and very fast!"
Tahajud Alghrabi is from Baghdad, where she used to work as a school principal.
You can read more personal stories on the blog: www.greenlightworkshop.org

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[Blog post '1270'] @studioolafureliasson Instagram video

Our new book: Open House! A book about the artistic processes in the studio and its engagement with the wider world. The book is made in collaboration with independent curator Joanna Warsza, and includes conversations with studio members, texts by friends and insights into current research. Out in two weeks - pre-order now on Walther König

"We were making Green lights. And while we made Green lights we talked. I asked them to tell stories about the last cup of tea they had before leaving home. (…) The circle of stories began with halting incomprehension, and ended with a sudden flash of understanding. The borders, the border guards, the endless humiliation of the production of papers and narratives, the violence of waiting—all of these can be suspended in a moment of laughter, or in a random act of generous sharing.

And this is what we learned, again: freedom is like a little green light in a very dark room, that allows you to see yourself, that allows you to see other people and allows you to see the way to the door."

Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Raqs Media Collective, ‘The Light That Says Walk´, from Green light – An artistic workshop, Sternberg, 2017'

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Green light participant Hussein Hajhassan, Venice, 2017
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Green light workshop at TBA21 - filmed by theartVIEw

Hussein Hajhassan, Green light workshop at TBA21, Vienna, 2016.

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Green light participants Akissi Odile N’Guessan and Asho Adan. Click on image for more

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Image used on Blog post '1265' (from Instagram) - Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson
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