The Wrong Place: Rethinking Context in Contemporary Art
3/4/5 February 2005
Situations Conference (in association with Arnolfini) at the Clifton
Pavilion, Bristol Zoo, Bristol.

Jason E. Bowman, Alex Coles, Phil Collins, Jeremy Deller, Claire Doherty,
Okwui Enwezor, Dan Hicks, Ewen MacDonald, Declan McGonagle, Cuauhtémoc
Medina, Susan Norrie, Paul O’Neill, Mario Rizzi, Hinrich Sachs, Doris
Salcedo

This conference will concentrate on the notion of the ‘wrong place’, as
proposed by Miwon Kwon in her significant study, One Place After Another:
Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity (MIT Press, 2004). Kwon proposes
that, “It seems historically inevitable that we will leave behind the
nostalgic notion of a site and identity as essentially bound to the
physical actualities of place.” Taking on this new theorisation of place,
this conference will balance critical analysis with artists’ case studies,
bringing together leading scholars, artists and curators to rethink the
notion of context in contemporary art.

It will ask:
• What is the significance of context in a biennial of contemporary art
and to whom?
• Do the specifics of location override the specifics of art?
• Has site-specificity been replaced by context specificity and if so,
what are the implications for first and second audiences?
• What kinds of new approaches have been developed to address the issue of
itinerancy (artists as temporary visitors) or is parachuting artists into
given situations a positive outcome of the globalisation of art production?

The conference will be launched on the evening of Thursday 3 February with
a screening of Jeremy Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave, introduced by the
artist. This will be preceded by Untitled (The Theory of Parachuting), an
optional day-long seminar designed by artist Jason E. Bowman, which seeks
to examine key issues regarding contextual practice and the methodologies
employed by artistic practices as they approach the ‘unknown’ (limited
places).

Contact Anne Conoley at Bristol School of Art, Media and Design at
[log in to unmask] or call 0117 344 4845 to book tickets or for
further information.

Situations is a research and commissioning programme led by the University
of the West of England, Bristol in association with Arnolfini, Bristol
City Council and Picture This. http://www.situations.org.uk

Programme

Thursday 3 February 2005
10.30am – 4.30pm Untitled (The Theory of Parachuting) an optional day-long
seminar dedicated to the ‘theory of parachuting’ designed by
artist Jason E. Bowman.
7.00pm Screening of The Battle of Orgreave with introduction
by artist Jeremy Deller

Friday 4 February 2005
Morning Opportunity to visit exhibitions and activities in Bristol
1.30pm Registration and light lunch
2pm Welcome, Caroline Collier, Director, Arnolfini
Introduction, Claire Doherty (Chair)
Research Fellow in Fine Art, UWE, Bristol
2.15pm Keynote speaker – Okwui Enwezor
Curator and art historian, Artistic Director of Documenta 11
and Artistic Director of the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale
3.00pm Keynote response – Professor Declan McGonagle, Director,
INTERFACE, Centre for Research in Art, Technologies and Design,
School of Art and Design, University of Ulster, Belfast
3.45pm Break
4.15pm Two artist case studies – Doris Salcedo & Phil Collins
5.00pm Dialogue with artist Jason E. Bowman
5.30pm Close
Optional evening activities

Saturday 5 February 2005
9.30am Coffee
10.00am Dan Hicks, Lecturer in Archaeology at University of Bristol
10.30am Alex Coles, Art critic and lecturer and editor of Site-Specificity:
The Ethnographic Turn, Black Dog Publishing
11.30am Break
12.00pm Two artist case studies – Susan Norrie and Lu Jie
1.00pm Lunch
2.00pm Hinrich Sachs, artist
2.30pm Ewen MacDonald, Sydney-based freelance curator, writer
and editor and co-curator of the Auckland Triennial in 2004,
in conversation with artist Mario Rizzi
3.15pm Discussion
4.00pm Paul O’Neill, an observer’s response
4.30pm Close

Please note that this programme should be taken as a guide to the three-
day schedule,
scheduling of some speakers may change. Full details of venues, times and
speakers will
be available online at http://www.situations.org.uk and all delegates will
receive a confirmed
programme in December 2004.

...............................
Dr Dan Hicks MIFA
Lecturer and Graduate Tutor
Department of Archaeology & Anthropology
University of Bristol
43 Woodland Road,
Clifton, Bristol. BS8 1UU. UK
tel: +44 (0)117 331 1188
fax: 44 (0)117 954 6001
email: [log in to unmask]
web: http://www.bris.ac.uk/archanth/