_What are Alternativa?


Alternativa is a series of exhibitions accompanied by numerous additional events, which seeks new tracks for art and its social role. The Festival’s concept relates to the political traditions of Gdańsk as well as to new phenomena in art that started to emerge in Gdańsk at the beginning of the 1980’s. Their characteristic property was acting against political, historical and urban context. These movements characterised a tendency to selforganization, independence and discovering unknown areas of the city. At one time it was Wyspa Spichrzów, later Dolne Miasto and now the former shipyard premises.

Alternativa is an antifestival. It is not a firework of a few days of events but a programming series spread over time, constituting a platform for presenting art and accumulating and distributing knowledge. Its function is not only representative but also exploratory. We are interested in both systematic and formal knowledge, as well as informal and untypical methods of its acquisition. We believe that contemporary art and curatorial practice do not reproduce knowledge but are also a path towards knowledge.

Alternativa Project is a series of elements in the network of connections among:

research – to prepare exhibitions and other events by artists and curators,

mobility – of artists, intellectuals and curators,

production – of new artistic works, new publications and new exhibitions,

archiving and distribution – database, digitizing, archives, a project of interrelated websites,

discussion – debates, conferences, workshops and panel discussions,

presentation – contemporary art exhibitions, performance,

staying together – workshops, concerts and other events.


Aneta Szyłak
Artistic Director of Alternativa

Grzegorz Klaman
President of the Wyspa Progress Foundation


ALTERNATIVA
www.alternativa.org.pl

Ul. Doki 1/145B
80-839 Gdansk, Poland
www.wyspa.art.pl

Opening party:
May 28, 2011 7pm



From the left: Kuba Szreder, Bogna Świątkowska, Marta Szymańska, DJ Reza, Aneta Szyłak, Dominik Kuryłek, Monika Małachowska, Adam Witkowski, Stanisław Ruksza, Natalia Cyrzan, Roman Dziadkiewicz, Maciej Sekieta, Ines Moreira, Maaike Gouwenberg, Åse Løvgren, Dieter Roelstraete, Ewa Opałka, Marta Kubik, Karolin Tampere, Miro Górczyński, Nancy Proctor, Jakub Szczęsny,Gabriela Salgado.