The aim of the workshop was to give different artists/groups an opportunity to collaboratively reflect the aims and strategies of their work and to position themselves relative to existing political systems.

As participants artists were invited whose work shows a political engagement of a certain kind: they are not just interested in political aspects of certain social situations or local problem situations, but rather in the (non-)functioning of the political system as such. They are not just politically engaged, but engage in questioning Politics.

Participants:

Pettek (Tal Adler, Israel)

Transnational Republic (Georg Zoche, Tammo Rist, Edwina Blush, Jakob Zoche)

Love Difference (Michelangelo Pistoletto, Italy)

Stateless Nation (Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti)

Immanuel Wallerstein (who is already a guest at Utopia Station on this day)

Elena Esposito (Sociologist, Univ. Urbino)

Margit Rosen (co-curator of the planned "Making things public" exhibition at the ZKM, Karlsruhe)

Molly Nesbit and Hans-Ulrich Obrist as curators of Utopia Station


The workshop was prepared and moderated by Dagmar Reichert (Zürich, Kassel) with assistance of Valeria Burgio (Venice).


The workhop day was structured in three sessions:

10.00 – 12.00 invited members of working group discuss, opened by some terminological remarks of Elena Esposito

13.30 – 15.00 invited members of working group discuss

16.00 – 18.00 public presentation of the best thoughts from the previous two sessions (moderated panel of working group members)