-- Main.dada - 03 May 2006
News from the Head Room #1
29 April -- 6 May 2006
The head room project
Schedule of the first week
10 random questions for a box
(1) BAO: beatrice leanza, philip tinari and li naihan
In construction
Practicalities
The head room project
7 hosts -- with very different backgrounds except for the city they live in -- stage 7 interventions in a public space in the city. Through the use of a Head Room home box, a box covering their heads yet leaving their bodies visible, they invite one person for a face to face conversation.
This home box, designed by architect Stephane Derveaux, is not just a box, but a reproduction of the hosts’ favourite room in their own houses. The Head Room, from this perspective, balances on the edge between so called private and public space.
The hosts themselves -- an artist, a shopkeeper, a scholar, a worker -- decide who to invite. The conversations they engage in are no interviews. There are no specific questions that need to be answered. It is in the first place about the actual experience of being in the Head Room, its performative aspect, the feelings and reflections it brings about.
The Head Room home boxes, the hosts and their conversations are brought back to the project’s base camp -- the Head Room of the project -- located at the platform China studio in the 798 factory. Every box adds another “room” to the installation that is being created as the interventions proceed.
The Head Room in 798 is open 24 hours a day, during the Dashanzi International Art festival, and serves as a laboratory, archive and platform for lectures, screenings, discussions and workshops, bringing together organizers, curators, researchers, artists and of course audience.
More information on the exact schedule follows in this, and other newsletters or can be found on www.bilderwerfer.com or www.diaf.org.
Or write to headroom@theatreinmotion.org.
Schedule of the first week
SAT 29 APRIL . 17:30
Base Camp Soft Opening
Head Room base camp
Informal opening of the Head Room base camp in the Platform China Studio in 798
SUN 30 APRIL . 17:30
WORKSHOP/LECTURE
Head Room speaks Transborder Language
Head Room base camp
Transborder Language, the live art festival, makes an appearance in the Head Room. Together with Shu Yang, the curator of the festival, Bilderwerfer puts a physical workshop together.
MON 1 MAY . 19:30
SCREENING
Playtime/Jacques Tati (1967)
Head Room base camp
In this modern classic, an ackward choreography between urbanity, architecture and the body evolves.
TUES 2 MAY . 10:00 to 12:00
BODY WORKSHOP
On Body#1
[Bilderwerfer]
Phoenix Dance Studio
Through movement, Bilderwerfer explores the physical visibility and mental representation of the body. The workshop is free of charge, and experience is not necessary.
TUES 2 MAY . 19:30
TALK/PRESENTATION
Intimate Spaces: Talk with Marrigje de Maar
Head Room base camp
Dutch photographer de Maar talks about the experiences she had while taking photographs of people’s private spaces.
WED 3 MAY . 19:30
TALK/SCREENING
BAO/Hosts#1
[BAO is Beatrice Leanza, Philip Tinari and Li Naihan]
Head Room base camp
BAO is an integrated Beijing-based platform for curatorial,
editorial and design production. During the Head Room project,
they will organize three evenings, with every time a different
meaning of the “bao” character as starting point.
BAO#1: “the unborn”
In the first of three evenings, BAO hosts an open conversation about the BAO creative practice.
THURSD 4 MAY . 10:00 to 12:00
BODY WORKSHOP
On Body#2
[Bilderwerfer]
Phoenix dance studio
In this second body workshop, Aschwanden and Stamer continue to investigate the relationship between the body, its representation and its surroundings.
THURS 4 MAY . 19:30
SCREENING
Wu Wenguang selects
Head Room base camp
Wu Wenguang, documentary filmmaker and director of the Living Dance Studio, presents the villages self-governance project, for which he has invited peasants from all over China to document their own lives.
FRI 5 MAY . 19:30
LECTURE/SCREENING
On Head Room
[Bilderwerfer]
Head Room base camp
Daniel Aschwanden and Peter Stamer give a basic outline of the Head Room concept, their general approach and the process the project went through. With video fragments and the following shortfilms: La Jetée/Chris Marker (1962), 100 Flowers Hidden Deep/Chen Kaige (2002), Chinese Whispers/Bilderwerfer (2005)
SAT 6 MAY . 19:30
SCREENING
Ou Ning selects (to be confirmed)
Head Room base camp
Ou Ning, film maker and curator based in Guangzhou, is invited to compile a screening in the Head Room.
10 random questions
for a box
(1) BAO: Beatrice Leanza, Philip Tinari and Li Naihan
WHO? BAO!
On Wednesday evening May 3, the Head Room provides BAO with space and air time. BAO is an integrated, Beijing-based platform for curatorial, editorial and design production, recently founded by Beatrice Leanza, Philip Tinari and Li Naihan.
Beatrice Leanza works as a critic for Art Flux and the New York Arts Magazine, among others. She is active as curator, showing specific interest in the relationship between art and the public space. She recently made the Object Cast exhibition, which also involved a publication.
Philip Tinari defines himself in the first place as a researcher of contemporary chinese art -- previously working for Harvard University, Sotheby’s and the
Guangzhou Triennale. He also made significant contributions as a curator, bringing for example Wang Wei’s Temporary Space to Lu Jie’s Long March Foundation.
Li Naihan is currently involved as an architect with the Dynamic City Foundation, an architectural test tube researching dynamic density, producing projects on the edge between art and architecture. Before that, she worked with architect and artist Ai Weiwei.
TEN QUESTIONS
We virtually invite BAO in our Head Room home box. What crosses their minds?
1) Do you believe in dialectics?
2) Who do you think really designed the CCTV Tower?
3) Do you like Chinese food?
4) Is Ai Weiwei an artist or an architect?
5) Do you like women in high heals or sneakers?
6) Which drug do you prefer?
7) Jacques or Rem?
8) Grids or Rings?
9) Who would you bring to the Courtyard Restaurant for a date?
10) Do you like clichés?
Send us your own questions! headroom@theatreinmotion.org
In Construction
Practicalities
The Head Room base camp is located in the Platform China Studio in the Dashanzi Art District, also known as the 798 factory. The district is situated in the north of Beijing, Chaoyang District, Dashanzi region, Jiuxianqiao Road number 4, close to the Dashanzi Roundabout and the Lido Holiday Inn Hotel.
The Platform China studio can be found in front of the Cave Cafe, in the same building as the Beijing New Art Projects Art Space of the Gao Brothers, on the third floor. The Phoenix Dance studio, where the body workshops take place, is located just nextdoors.
The Head Room base camp is open 24 hours a day during the Dashanzi International Art Festival 2006 (DIAF 2006), from the 29th of April till the 21st of May 2006. All events are free of charge.
Check out the following newsletters, www.bilderwerfer.com and www.diaf.org or write to headroom@theatreinmotion.org if you want to know more about the Head Room home box interventions downtown.
Head Room is a project by Bilderwerfer/Daniel Aschwanden and Peter Stamer in collaboration with Stéphane Derveaux, Theatre in Motion/Els Silvrants and Platform China for DIAF 2006.
With contributions of Daniel Aschwanden, Peter Stamer, Stephane Derveaux, Els Silvrants, Qing Qing, Disen Cai, Shu Yang, Wu Wenguang, Phil Tinari, Beatrice Leanza, Anu Leinonen, Rory McGowan?, Dong Hao, Neville Mars, Cao Kefei, Leng Lin, Georg Blume, Bérénice Angremy, Marrigje de Maar, Zhang Han, Jin Yong, Gwynn Guilford, CS Kiang, Leon Lee Baoyan and others.
Supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum, City of Vienna, Bundeskanzleramt, That’s Beijing, Tanzquartier Wien.
Thanks to offiCina_ Thinking Hands