Intercult organises the CORNERS Caucasus Xpedition 27 September to 13 October 2011. 30 artists, researchers and cultural producers, from 9 European countries, travel by bus from Hopa (Turkey), through Georgia and Azerbaijan, to meet people in the region and find stories and inspiration for new artistic work. SOM engages in the local coordination of Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s parts of the expedition.
CORNERS is a collaboration of six cultural organizations and is financed by the EU Cultural programme and Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport of Ajara (Autonomous republic of Georgia). Biryasam Culture and Ecology Association hosts the events in Hopa.
The goal of the arts project CORNERS is to produce and tour new art work based on ideas collected from the corners of Europe. Stories on one street corner will be retold on another street corner. The expedition meets with local artists, refugees, politicians, cultural organizations and citizens during two intense weeks on the road. It is these encounters that will determine which stories are gathered by the artists and researchers that participate in the expedition.
CORNERS Caucasus is the second of four Xpeditions, that go to parts of Europe that the participating artists have few connections to and often know very little about. A month ago 17 European artists explored Samiland, the area of Sweden’s indigenous people Samis. CORNERS North Xpedition was organized by Umeå 2014 – the European Capital of Culture. The bus trip went from Norway through Västerbotten to Umeå in Sweden. Stories of the vast nature, Sami culture, tradition and their relation to the Swedish state were in focus.
In the south east corner of Europe the present social political situation is a theme for the expedition. The artists and researchers will travel as a group to the capitals, Tbilisi and Baku, as well as to provincial towns and villages like Hopa (Turkey), Batumi,Tskhaltubo, Chiatura, Telavi (Georgia), Sheki, Agsu and Ciyni (Azerbaijan).
In Georgia and Azerbaijan traces of Soviet culture are interfaced with new realities of independent countries, developing their own interesting mixture of East and West. Both nations are rich with cultural and demographic diversity. , and the enclaves, autonomous regions and break-away republics such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia within and outside their borders underline the ethnic, religious, cultural and political complexities of the South Caucasus region.
Is it narratives of separatists and East-West that dominate the locals’ lives? Or is it other stories that give meaning to people’s every day life and aspirations?
CORNERS Caucasus Xpedition will bring artists with a cross-disciplinary interest, active in fields such as visual art, audio, film, digital media, theatre, dance and performance. Three researchers will also go on the trip. The group comes from nine countries: Georgia, Northern Ireland, Ukraine, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Poland, Serbia, Croatia and Sweden.
CORNERS is a EU-financed cultural project with a Swedish cultural organization as initiator. Intercult is an independent production group and a resource centre based in Stockholm, with long experience of international collaboration. The partners of the project are Umeå 2014 – European Cultural Capital of Culture, Gdansk 2016, POGON, Exodos Ljubljana and Drugo More. CORNERS is supported by EU:s Cultural Programme.
In 2012 another two Xpeditions go to the Balkans and East Europe. CORNERS will have visited seventeen countries, including Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus. The finished co-productions will be presented across Europe.
Follow the Xpeditions day by day on:
Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/_CORNERS_
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/cornersofeurope
CORNERS blog www.cornersofeurope.org
