On Thu, Sep 15, 2022, 02:17 Jo van der Spek M2M <
jo@xs4all.nl> wrote:
It was the absence of the lumbung artists in the venues that struck me,
A footnote to this: This absence was largely caused by the fact that the documenta organization had only obtained 90 days visitor visa for the participating non-EU artists while documenta lasts 100 days. As far as I know, even members of ruangrupa were affected and couldn't stay for the whole period of the event.
Ruangrupa's initial idea to shorten the running time of documenta fifteen as a means of working around the visa issue was turned down by documenta's organization.
It is one of the many examples of how documenta failed to be a good host for the participating artists. Obviously, documenta is an exhibition event that was neither used, nor equipped, to host artists who would not just come for building up installations/art pieces, but stay for the whole event and run it in the manner of a festival rather than an exhibition.
Collectives like Jatiwangi art Factory (from Indonesia) came to Germany in two shifts of two groups of people to work around the visa limitation, but at the closing weekend, only one person was left and supported by a volunteer group from Kassel's art school and my own school in Rotterdam.
Before that, the group lived with about 15 people - among them little children - for 3 months in a former factory office building with no shower, a single toilet and sink, and a small kitchen with 4 electrical platters. Those conditions wouldn't have been tolerated in any asylum seeker shelter.