Press release of the event:
Europe-based feminist art and culture magazine Petunia is organizing Passages, a weekend symposium of performances, screenings, readings, and discussions at co. (company projects)/The Third Rail and at the Goethe Pop Up Minneapolis Goethe in the Skyways in the city’s iconic skyway system.
Passages, of course, refers to the skyways as physical passageways. It also, in this case, refers to passing the baton in a relay race. This handoff, or passage, is an apt metaphor for several of the contributing spaces, organizers, and magazines who are participating in the symposium and are themselves transitioning to new manifestations, handing over their own legacy. Finally, Passages refers to a book written by Walter Benjamin dedicated to the famous 19th-century urban Parisian arcades, one of the direct forerunners of Minneapolis’s skyways. Benjamin used those urban features as a pretext to discuss other subjects, just as this symposium will use the skyways to think about legacy, traces, private and public spaces, and more.
Coinciding with the conclusion of both Goethe Pop Up Minneapolis Goethe in the Skyways and the relocation of co.(company projects), the aim of the two-day symposium is to invite critical feedback while reflecting on the notions of transition, transmission, commitment to the local, as well as reflecting on this peculiar urban space/architectural environment: the Minneapolis Skyway System.
The symposium is preceded by a month-long film program There is No Neutral Space that introduces the writers, theoreticians, and artists who have been featured in Petunia or films that have been reviewed within the journal since 2009, such as Lizzie Borden, Kathryn Bigelow, Pauline Boudry/Renate Lorenz, Alexandra Midal, Caroline Mesquita, Michelle Naismith, Lili Reynaud Dewar, and Emily Wardill. There is No Neutral Space will take place at co.(company projects) every Wednesday in September.
The film program took place from September 4th, 2019 to September 25th, 2019. The talks and performance program took place on September 27th & 28th, 2019.
For that event, I conceived, fundraised, coordinated and animated both the film program and the two-days event. More information (full program, pictures, and the sponsors) can be found on the website on Goethe in the Skyways and the website of The Third Rail.
image credits: valerie chartrain, émilie pitoiset, sandra teitge, wiley hoard