The Collectives Encounter presents “Mapping the Flâneur” by Wideyed and ASA collectives (UK)
www.collectivesencounter.wordpress.com
commissioned by Curator Yasmina Reggad as part of the group exhibition “The Flâneur. The Dwelling Place of the Collective”, March 2011
in collaboration with collectives: Belgrade Raw (Serbia), Black Box (Nigeria), Black Dog Collective (Denmark), BlankPaper – La Escuela (Spain), Blind Collectif (France), Boreal Collective (Canada), Collectif Item (France), Depiefoto (Spain), Dreamboats Collective (USA), dvafoto (Serbia, USA), Galeria Experiência (Brazil), Garapa (Belgium, Brazil), MJR (Germany, UK, USA), NAPO Images (Poland), Rolê (Brazil), TerraProject (Italy), Verso Images (Russia), Zorye Kolektiv (Slovenia)
Wideyed is a non-profit photography collective that initiates creative collaborations with photographers and photography collectives around the world, and promotes compelling contemporary photography in exhibitions and cross-media publications. Based in the North East of England, Wideyed was founded in February 2008 by photographers Lucy Carolan, Richard Glynn and Louise Taylor.
ASA is a collective of people from various backgrounds who believe in the power of storytelling as a vehicle to promote reflection and discussion on several issues of the human sphere.
“Mapping the Flâneur” was commissioned by Curator Yasmina Reggad as part of the group exhibition “The Flâneur. The Dwelling Place of the Collective” which took place during the Collectives Encounter at Format International Festival in March 2011. During the Fotofestiwal, it is presented a slideshow of two of the more than ten collectives invited to participate in the exhibition.
It is a dynamic photographic installation designed as an image-based response to the fragmentary, indexical nature of Walter Benjamin’s “The Arcades Project”. As a constantly evolving exhibition of crowd-sourced new work, produced by talented contemporary photographers involved in a selection of the world’s most exciting collectives, it created a vibrant global photographic dialogue providing an overview of the growing photography collective movement, of contemporary photographic practices, and the complexity of urban life worldwide.
Inspired by the development of cloud printing, the installation remotely produced prints for exhibition daily, and the images were also tracked online at the project’s site mapping-flaneur.tumblr.com. The installation was a real-world print model of online image sharing: the experimental nature of the project was a response to critical debate about the future of print in the internet age, using the web and print to produce a crossover between the tangible and virtual worlds. Street photography is currently enjoying a popular renaissance and, with the active involvement of international contemporary photographers, the project was also intended to broadly explore the boundaries of this genre.
“Mapping the Flâneur” was produced with the support of Arts Council England and Photo Festivals, and made possible by the generous contributions of collectives throughout the world.
GROHMAN’S VILLA
Tylna 9/11
opening hours
10.05 (Thu): 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
11.05–20.05 (Mon-Sun): 11 a.m. – 8 p.m.
latest entrance: 7.00 p.m.
opening: 10.05, 6 p.m.
exhibition will be held: 10–20.05
