Basel | ArtRegion: Basel - Oberrhein

1.1

Alter-PhD

9. November – 14. Dezember 2019

Alter-PhD, organised by theredthread (Axelle Stiefel) & 23102015 (Guillaume Maraud)

It is not an exhibition, it is not a symposium; it is a mapping, a set of relations, not established yet, the relation of research: not to an abstract category or entity, but to artists themselves, their lives and their modes of investigation. And if this relation does not exist, it has to be imagined, fantasised, and exhilarated.

From the perspective of our integrated relational practices in the field of theory, pedagogy and contemporary art, Alter-PhD is eager to convey how collective experience of production of knowledge leads to the creation of common spaces for uncommon knowledge and alternative modes of governance.

In times of intensification of accountability and a decentering of institutional authority, we want to conduct a project where art research is based on relational collaboration and self-organisation by being actively pursued and developed, and using theory in a nonorthodox and non-academic way.

We believe these five weeks should be an attempt to chaotically bring together several strategic experimentations for independency that tend to approach change in a way that doesn’t isolate knowledge from action. The necessary change, my change, your change, and maybe the change of this time?

All contributors relate to either textual, contextual, or time and space-based practices. They have conducted research. They have engaged into singular processes of production of knowledge. They have met real problems. They have impacted their field of investigation with their making. They challenge preconceptions, habits, formats, categories, and therefore fall out of usual supporting structures.

Time, in its variability, is here the unit of measurement that decides the agency of our assembly at 1.1.
Each contributor comes along with a rhythm, that refers to a different speed of individuation and serves as a vector of encounter.