FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   A TRINITY SESSION PUBLIC EVENT TOWARDS BIG TORINO bigguest.net, 2002 Turin’s Biennale Internazionale Arte Giovane – BIG Torino 2002 BIG SOCIAL GAME 19 April – 19 May 2002 Artistic director: Michelangelo Pistoletto * The Trinity Session presents an introduction and digital projection of the SAFE FOOD website launching at the opening of the Turin Biennale. Friday 19 April 6 pm The | PREMISES, The Johannesburg Civic Theatre. Entrance top of Ameshoff Street. Braamfontein.  Please join us for drinks and live link to the opening in Turin.  * SAFE FOOD: interactive public component   Sunday, 28 April from 10.00 am, Joubert Park   You are invited to participate in a unique fundraising event that will contribute towards the success of a rehabilitation programme for homeless youth, and workshops with the youth and the Trinity Session towards the SAFE FOOD project.   On April 28, 2002 from 10.00 am, invited artists and guests will arrange their vehicles in Joubert Park to participate in a car boot sale by displaying and selling their second hand clothing, household goods and appliances from the boots of their own cars. It is an opportunity to invest in an otherwise unexpected piece of artistic memorabilia and contribute towards a creative endeavour that seeks to redefine approaches to social responsibility with a group of committed partners.   Security and other services pertaining to the site for this one-day event will be provided by the Johannesburg Art Gallery, SAPS Hillbrow, the Joubert Park Forum and Metro Police.   SAFE FOOD will be presented as an interactive website comprising part of the online programme of Guestland curated by CALC - http://www.onair.co.za/safefood goes live with the opening of the Turin Biennale on April 19, 2002. It is an ongoing project. An additional component to SAFE FOOD (a silent auction of a box of mystery car boot sale goodies) features on this month’s project page on www.artthrob.co.za - contemporary art from South Africa.   Additional URLS:  http://www.bigguest.net, http://www.bigtorino.net http://www.calcaxy.com   THE TRINITY SESSION AND BIG TORINO’S GUESTLAND curated by CALC.   Turin’s Biennale Internazionale Arte Giovane is a multidisciplinary event aimed at the promotion of international young creativity and gives prominence to emerging artists. Three hundred artists have been invited to participate from Europe, and invited artists from guest countries are hosted on big-guest.net, a.k.a. Guestland.   For this second Turin Biennale of Young Art, the Johannesburg-based arts and culture initiative The Trinity Session (Stephen Hobbs, Marcus Neustetter and Kathryn Smith) has been selected to represent guest country South Africa. In response to the theme of BIG Social Game, participants were invited onto the Biennale on the grounds that previous work has been informed by specific modes of social transformation strategies.  BIG Social Game is not about orthodox definitions of artistic practice. This event aims to be placed on another side of art itself, preparing to meet and intertwine with the ordinary things of life; it mixes with the everyday facts; it interacts with the scientific, economic and political undertakings of our time. It is not about applied art; it is about implicated art. [paraphrased from Michelangelo Pistoletto’s project brief]   SAFE FOOD is generously supported by the Johannesburg Civic Theatre, JDA (Johannesburg Development Agency), The | PREMISES, SAPS Hillbrow, Proteaglen shelter (run by Sergeant Nicholas Ncube), Homeless Talk and Joubert Park Public Art Project.   OTHER EVENTS IN APRIL/MAY   Workshops at JAG Live link via web to Turin from The | PREMISES  --- Please see additional information on: SAFE FOOD project background and outcomes PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND WORKSHOPS SAFE FOOD PARTNERS Turin Biennale of Young Art     What is SAFE FOOD? SAFE FOOD is a matrix of urban phenomenologies employing image and text to describe and define human conditions for existence in a landscape commonly perceived through fear and threat. These aspects are represented in the SAFE FOOD Website, interactive public project (car boot sale), writings and research in collaboration with ‘Homeless Talk’ newspaper and the visual literacy workshops conducted by the Trinity Session with specific homeless organisations. In response to the notion of the Big Social Game (see brief below), we find our starting point in a (down)town with its particular cultural and political landscape we inhabit on a daily basis. We are speaking of Johannesburg. Many visitors to this place quickly learn that negotiating with and living in Johannesburg is predicated on a daily practice of urban survivalism. Somewhere in this process one finds oneself employing a range of strategies to cope with the surrounds: new street argot, for example, generated from African languages, English and Afrikaans often helps to cross the wide ethnic, social and cultural identity barriers prevalent in this space. As with language, bodies in space determine new informal settlements, giving rise to inventive architectural forms that sometimes last only a day. Inventive survivalism can be found in a multitude of forms and expressions in the detail of the urban fabric. The broad social and political problem with Johannesburg however, is that the (often) exaggerated perceptions of crime and violence cast a blur on the city such that narratives of this kind become secret histories and hidden presences. Paranoia shuts us off from a particular kind of social responsibility and awareness, as we are too busy securing our own longevity. Through the formation of partnerships between you, ourselves and networks that support the homeless, SAFE FOOD will manifest through a website, workshops, related print media and documentation in stills and video, aiming to visualise some of the survivalist strategies associated with homeless existence. The SAFE FOOD website comprises four components: an interactive game board; project background and information; a public feedback area; and guest artists Brett Morris (‘Disposables’ project) and Christian Nerf (‘Candid Camera a.k.a Working with Tom’). The site will be continually updated as new research is carried out and the project expands.   Nature of volunteering of goods All invitees are requested to make a selection of unwanted second hand clothes, household objects, appliances and so on. Monies raised through these sales will be collected and will contribute to the costs of hosting two visual arts workshops with a designated rehabilitation programme for street youth based in Proteaglen, Soweto and managed by the Crime Prevention Unit of the SAPS Hillbrow. We have requested that all unsold items be donated to the project. Further details and updates pertaining to forthcoming events will be posted by email in the following weeks.   Workshops The proposed workshops will take place at the Johannesburg Art Gallery In May, and will offer street youth from a shelter in Proteaglen (Soweto) the opportunity to express their experiences of street life, survivalism and attitudes towards definitions of home and homelessness. As the workshops will be based purely on interpretations of existing visual images and objects, framed within a ‘hide and go seek’ exercise around the gallery, they will introduce the youth, most of whom do not speak fluent English, to an experience that can transcend the barriers of language. These workshops will involve drawing, painting and clay modelling in response to objects in the JAG permanent collection. The direct results will be exhibited on the SAFE FOOD Website as well as at the Johannesburg Art Gallery and The | PREMISES at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre in Braamfontein. The possibility of selling these works to raise further funds is under consideration.   SAFE FOOD PARTNERS   Johannesburg Civic Theatre (locus and finance) Johannesburg Development Agency (infrastructure and support) Johannesburg Art Gallery (facilities and support) The | PREMISES (exhibition hosting) SAPS Hillbrow (research facilitation and support services), particularly Sergeant Nicholas Ncube, Superintendent Ben du Pisane and Captain Govender. Proteaglen shelter (collaboration) Homeless Talk (research) Joubert Park Public Art Project (support services) Public Eye (facilities)   Turin’s Biennale Internazionale Arte Giovane This multidisciplinary biennale is aimed at the promotion of international young creativity and provides prominence to emerging artists. This second edition of the event is expected to attract 520 artists, 42 European cultural institutions, 150 000 visitors, 240 journalists and more than 300 cultural operators from all over Europe. Invited artists from guest countries are hosted on big-guest.net a.k.a. Guestland. The artistic event, which closes on May 19, will be held in the central historic area of the city, as well as venues and theatres in the city centre, with some extension to suburban zones.   BIG Social Game 2002 [paraphrased from artistic director Michelangelo Pistoletto’s project brief] Having originated during the years that have seen an exponential acceleration of change in the means and systems involving and conditioning the whole of human society, Turin’s biennale intends to research and present those creative forms that confront the problems of society in today’s complex and contradictory panorama of civilization. Consequently the contemporary presence of various artistic disciplines in a single event will not be presented as a concentration of festivals or separate events, but as territory, both ideal and practical, where the different fields are brought closer together by means of a precise common objective. The title of BIG Social Game is an invitation to young producers in a range of artistic fields to ‘play together at changing society’. Many of the participants in this project have been selected on the grounds that previous work has been informed by specific modes of social transformation strategies. Art stakes itself in this game in the pleasure taken in making forms change. This pleasure is transformed into bringing changes to the systems that contain the products, whether they are visual, theatrical, musical or architectural. Things change through play. This is not about orthodox definitions of artistic practice. This event aims to be placed on another side of art itself, preparing to meet and intertwine with the ordinary things of life; it mixes with the everyday facts; it interacts with the scientific, economic and political undertakings of our time. It is not about applied art; it is about implicated art.   ENDS. << INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE >>   A TRINITY SESSION PUBLIC EVENT TOWARDS BIG TORINO big-guest.net, 2002   Turin’s Biennale Internazionale Arte Giovane – BIG Torino 2002 BIG SOCIAL GAME Artistic director: Michelangelo Pistoletto   SAFE FOOD: interactive public component   Sunday 28 April 2002 at 10 a.m.   You are invited to gather a collection of your second-hand clothing and household objects. These should be packed in the boot of your car and transported to Joubert Park on Sunday April 28, 2002 at 10.00 am. Cars will be arranged in a formation on the paving on the east side of Joubert Park between the park and art gallery (on the way to Lovers’ Lane). You are invited to display your wares from your open boot to passing pedestrians and park visitors. All goods should be marked for sale. Proceeds will go to a homeless shelter and a series of workshops with children from this shelter towards the Trinity Session’s big-guest.net contribution to BIG Torino 2002. Security and other services pertaining to the site for this one-day event will be provided by the Johannesburg Art Gallery, SAPS Hillbrow, Joubert Park Public Art Project and Metro Police. PLEASE CONFIRM YOUR PARTICIPATION BY NO LATER THAN MONDAY 22 APRIL, 2002 BY EMAILING TRINITY@ONAIR.CO.ZA        What is SAFE FOOD? SAFE FOOD is a matrix of urban phenomenologies employing image and text to describe and define human conditions for existence in a landscape commonly perceived through fear and threat. These aspects are represented in the SAFE FOOD Website, interactive public project (car boot sale), writings and research in collaboration with ‘Homeless Talk’ newspaper and visual literacy workshops conducted by the Trinity Session with specific homeless organisations. In response to the notion of the Big Social Game (see brief below), we find our starting point in a (down)town with its particular cultural and political landscape we inhabit on a daily basis. We are speaking of Johannesburg. Many visitors to this place quickly learn that negotiating with and living in Johannesburg is predicated on a daily practice of urban survivalism. Somewhere in this process one finds oneself employing a range of strategies to cope with the surrounds: new street argot, for example, generated from African languages, English and Afrikaans often helps to cross the wide ethnic, social and cultural identity barriers prevalent in this space. As with language, bodies in space determine new informal settlements, giving rise to inventive architectural forms that sometimes last only a day. Inventive survivalism can be found in a multitude of forms and expressions in the detail of the urban fabric. The broad social and political problem with Johannesburg however, is that the (often) exaggerated perceptions of crime and violence cast a blur on the city such that narratives of this kind become secret histories and hidden presences. Paranoia shuts us off from a particular kind of social responsibility and awareness, as we are too busy securing our own longevity. Through the formation of partnerships between you, ourselves and networks that support the homeless, SAFE FOOD will manifest through a website, workshops, related print media and documentation in stills and video, aiming to visualise some of the survivalist strategies associated with homeless existence.   Nature of volunteering of goods All invitee’s are requested to make a selection of unwanted second hand clothes, household objects, appliances and so on that will be priced and sold literally from the boot of the invitee’s vehicle. Monies raised through these sales will be collected and will contribute to the costs of hosting two visual arts workshops with designated homeless and/or rehabilitated communities. WE REQUEST THAT ALL UNSOLD ITEMS BE DONATED TO THE PROJECT. FURTHER DETAILS AND UPDATES PERTAINING TO FORTHCOMING EVENTS WILL BE POSTED BY EMAIL IN THE FOLLOWING WEEKS.   SAFE FOOD PARTNERS Johannesburg Civic Theatre, Johannesburg Development Agency, Johannesburg Art Gallery, The | PREMISES, SAPS Hillbrow, Proteaglen shelter, Homeless Talk, Joubert Park Public Art Project, Public Eye.   WEBSITE URLS www.onair.co.za/safefood www.artthrob.co.za www.bigguest.net www.bigtorino.net http://www.calcaxy.com     BIG TORINO 2002 Turin’s Biennale Internazionale Arte Giovane is a multidisciplinary event aimed at the promotion of international young creativity and gives prominence to emerging artists. Three hundred artists have been invited to participate from Europe, and invited artists from guest countries are hosted on big-guest.net a.k.a. Guestland. The artistic event will be held in the central historic area of the city, as well as venues and theatres in the city centre, with some extension to suburban zones. The title of BIG Social Game is an invitation to young producers in a range of artistic fields to ‘play together at changing society’ and many of the participants in this project have been selected on the grounds that previous work has been informed by specific modes of social transformation strategies. BIG Social Game is not about orthodox definitions of artistic practice. This event aims to be placed on another side of art itself, preparing to meet and intertwine with the ordinary things of life; it mixes with the everyday facts; it interacts with the scientific, economic and political undertakings of our time. It is not about applied art; it is about implicated art. [paraphrased from Michelangelo Pistoletto’s project brief] ENDS.