Launch of Rehearsing Hospitalities Companion 4
A four-day event on 5 to 8 October in Helsinki, Finland opens with the launch of the fourth book in the Rehearsing Hospitalities series, which is published by Frame Contemporary Art Finland and Archive Books (and can be downloaded free-of-charge here).
The publication, Rehearsing Hospitalities Companion 4 asks, What are the possibilities and limitations of hospitality? How escapable are the imbalances of power instilled in hospitality? Should we instead be “rehearsing” redistribution?
The publication focuses on doing things differently, and this is reflected in the format of the launch which will include the audience joining in an unrehearsed collaborative reading as a way to give voice to some of the words, anecdotes, terms, quotes, footnotes and titles from the book.
Community economies features in the book with a chapter by Ailie Rutherford, Artistic Director of Feminist Exchange Network, Glasgow and member of the Community Economies Institute (CEI).
Rutherford's chapter focuses on Mapping Below the Waterline, a process based on a print block mapping tool that workshop participants use to map, chart and visualise the interactions, networks, and systems of exchange that support, influence, and impact their lives.
Mapping Below the Waterline draws on the metaphor of the Diverse Economies Iceberg and it brings to life the multiple economies, often working invisibly below the surface, that make up our world.
Rutherford developed the process as part of her work with The People’s Bank of Govanhill (Glasgow, Scotland), a long-term collaborative project exploring ways of putting feminist economics into practice at a local level.
Most recently, Rutherford has used the process with ATLAS Arts, an organisation on the Isle of Skye in the Scottish Highlands, to run workshops with residents and ATLAS associates to see how this mapping process might instigate conversations around local economic diversity.
The process generates messy maps of people's lived economies to reflect the messiness of the multiple responsibilities and interrelations of the real world. The maps help to make the multiplicity more visible and to highlight the interconnectedness of things—including ecologies—that make up lives.
The four-day hybrid event, Gathering for Rehearsing Hospitalities, will be hosted by LAPS (Live Art and Performance Studies) onsite at the Theatre Academy of Uniarts Helsinki, and will pair physical events with online extensions for remote engagement.
The event will connect artists, curators and other practitioners within the field of contemporary art through activities that include an ongoing exhibition, discursive and performative events, and participatory workshops.
The theme for this 2022 gathering is on practices that deal with the redistribution of power, wealth, and resources within the art field and society at large.
Image: Ailie Rutherford's work on The People's Bank of Govanhill, Glasgow. Photographed by Bob Moyler.
Jenny Cameron