<nettime-ann> Urgent Alternatives: Utopian Moments. 7 Banners at Secession in Vienna

[Oliver Ressler <oliver@ressler.at>]

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URGENT ALTERNATIVES: UTOPIAN MOMENTS
7 Banners

A chapter of Utopian Pulse â Flares in the Darkroom
Ines Doujak and Oliver Ressler

Between February and September 2014, a series of 7 large-scale banners will be presented on the faÃade of the Secession. They will relate to the uprisings, occupations, and social movements that have emerged in recent years. Utopian thinking has revived with a sense of urgency lately. It is the idea that things can carry on as they are which is real wishful thinking.

The first banner to be installed, Fluchthilfe & Du?, addresses the critique of the EU border regime and its migration policies expressed by the self-organized refugee protest movement in Vienna. The design of the banner, titled Fluchthilfe & Du? (Escape Aid & You?), echoes a current campaign by the Caritas, which collects donations with an appeal to charity while distancing itself from those it denounces as âhuman smugglersâ: people whose assistance to refugees made it possible for them to come to Austria and apply for asylum in the first place. Fluchthilfe & Du envisions aid to refugees as a service and publicly solicits support for their struggle for freedom of movement.
The work was created as an act of solidarity with those activists of the refugee movement who have been held in custody since July 2013 and accused of being members of an international human smuggling organization. The chargesâthey supposedly made millions and endangered the lives of refugees in transitâhave been rebutted, but the Austrian interior ministry continues to criminalize them.

February 20, 2014, 7pm
Official campaign kickoff of the charity organisation Fluchthilfe & Du
For further information please visit www.fluchthilfe.at

In March 2014 the British collective Wealth of Negations will design a banner. In April 2014 artist Halil Altindere will focus on utopian moments in the struggles around Gezi-Park in Istanbul. This series will then directly evolve into a second series of banners created by a group of international artist-curators, including Ayreen Anastas / Rene Gabri*, Zanny Begg, Mariam Ghani, Miguel A. LÃpez, Pedro G. Romero/Archivo F.X., Christoph SchÃfer and Bert Theis. They will produce one banner each between September and November 2014 in relation to their 1-week long research exhibitions in the Secession.

The banners will be displayed as an integral part of Utopian Pulse â Flares in the Darkroom, a research project by Ines Doujak and Oliver Ressler, which is funded by the Austrian Science Funds FWF (AR 183-G21).

* These artists reject the term âcuratorâ for their practice.

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