13.August
2002
Actual art
Emplacements on the Red Flag Knitwear Factory
[Dimitri Pilikin]
The
Red Flag Factory will host a unique international event of contemporary
art by the pioneering emplacements project. Twenty artists from the
UK, Western Europe and Russia will develop work in response to their
experience of the factory, its history, environment, architectural significance
and the people who work there.
Emplacements is an artist-led cross-cultural collaborative project initiated
in 1997 by Francoise Dupre and Roxane Permar. Since this time they have
worked together with artists, curators and critics to organise events
in London and St Petersburg. In the summer of 2000 the emplacements
project enabled the people of St Petersburg to gain access to the historic
site of New Holland for the only time in its 300 year history.
This year the artists have had access to the Red Flag Factory from 1st
August. They have been making artwork in response to its workers, its
history and its architecture, in particular the part of the factory
designed by the internationally recognised architect, Erich Mendelsohn.
Visitors will be able to see installations of sculpture, video, sound,
mixed media and photography on the 19th and 20th August.
The Russian curator Dimitri Pilikin has collaborated with emplacements
to select artists from St Petersburg. Artists from the UK and Europe
are bringing the experience of their home bases, including London, Birmingham,
Glasgow, Shetland and Manchester. Major links have been made with the
city of Manchester.
The emplacements project in St Petersburg raises issues integral to
the contemporary context of urban regeneration, labour history and current
debates around the protection of historical industrial buildings.
There will be simultaneous events in Manchester and St Petersburg during
August. Further events will take place in the autumn 2002 and spring/summer
2003. Partner organisations in Manchester include a working textiles
mill, C.U.B.E. (the Centre for the Urban and Built Environment), the
Manchester City Council and the Manchester Art Gallery.
The project is supported by major arts bodies and universities in
the UK and Germany, including the British Council, the Arts Council
of England (Northwest), the Ikon Gallery (Birmingham), the Scottish
Arts Council, Hi-Arts and Manchester Metropolitan University, the University
of Central Lancashire, the University of Central England, Royal Holloway
(University of London) and the University of Westminster. Manchester
City Council and Birmingham City Council are also supporting the project.
In Russia the project is supported by the St Petersburg City Administration,
the Komitet for the Preservation and Use of Monuments of History and
Culture (GIOP), the St Petersburg office of the British Council, the
Directorate of the OFO "Red Flag Factory", the Independent
Programme of the Centre for Museum Pedagogy and Children's Creativity
of the State Russian Museum.
Participants: Bardosignetikcube (Sergey Matveev, Igor Potzukajlo), Ludmila Belova, Stevie Bezencenet, Igor Baskin, Sergey Denisov, Susan Brind and Jim Harold, Francoise Dupre, Alexey Garev, Irina Golovenok, Olga Kisseleva, Olga Kononihina, Andrea Lamest, Igor Lebedev, New Basis (Alexander Streletz, Eugeny Tukin), Gail Pearce, Roxane Permar, Dimitry Pilikin, Emma Rushton and Derek Tyman, Dmitry Shubin, TEA (Jon Biddulph, Peter Hatton, Val Murray, Lynne Pilling), Oleg Yanushevsky.
