Past Event
What is the role of art in rural contexts? Director of Liverpool Biennial Sally Tallant joins artist collective Myvillages (Kathrin Böhm, Wapke Feenstra and Antje Schiffers) to map out local projects with international connections and consider new models for socially engaged practice in non-urban settings.
The work of Myvillages counters the assumption that culture is an exclusively urban phenomena. By committing to work in the rural, from villages such as Ballykinlar, Ireland to Ekumfi-Ekawfo, Ghana, their projects subvert established power relationships between the city and the country. Through long term approaches that work within the rural, they question who is producing culture, embedding their work in the existing cultural activities of communities.
Coinciding with the publication of the International Village Show catalogue, documenting a two year project that paired villages and regions that the collective has worked with, to share local knowledge across continents.
Followed by informal drinks and food sourced from various Myvillages projects and connections.
Myvillages is an artist group founded in 2003 by Kathrin Böhm (UK / DE), Wapke Feenstra (NL) and Antje Schiffers (DE). The work addresses the evolving relationship between the rural and the urban, looking at different forms of production, pre-conceptions and power relationships. Myvillages initiates and organizes international artistic projects which range from small-scale informal presentations to long-term collaborative research projects, from work in private spaces to public conferences, from exhibitions to publications and from personal questions to public debate.
Current and recent projects include Vorratskammer / Pantry at House of World Cultures in Berlin (2011), Good News from Nowhere at the Architecture Foundation London (2013), Lending Shape to Form (2015), A–Z Marzona Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Farmers and Ranchers (2012–2015) with M12, Colorado, US and the Fries Museum, NL and the International Village Show for the Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig (2014–2016), Myvillages’ ongoing work in London includes monthly Haystacks events and Myvillages Company: Movements, Deals and Drinks project, winner of the 2014 Create Art Award.
Sally Tallant is the Director of Liverpool Biennial. From 2001-11 she was Head of Programmes at the Serpentine Gallery, London, where she was responsible for the development and delivery of an integrated programme of exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes. She is a Board Member of the International Biennial Association and a member of the London Regional Council for Arts Council England.
