Thinking Archives, Archiving Thoughts

Featuring
Danger Museum (Miho Shimizu & Øyvind Renberg)

Curated by
Heman Chong

7. - 30. October 2004

at Sparwasser HQ, Tostrasse 161, Berlin Mitte
open Wednesday to Friday 4 - 7pm, Saturday 2 - 6pm

Artist-run space as artist-run residency: Sparwasser HQ is proud to invite two members of the international artist collective, Danger Museum, Miho Shimizu and Øyvind Renberg to participate in its first residency programme. In line with Sparwasser HQ's attitudes towards contemporary art and culture, this residency programme facilitates an extended artistic process for Danger Museum, unfolding over a series of activities. During the month of October 2004, Danger Museum will inhabit Berlin, utilizing the residency as a platform to both introduce their practice to the public and extend their body of research concerning social and cultural circles in different global locations.

Artist-run residency as artist-run exhibition: Danger Museum will present a series of "Concept IIIustrations" that will be shown at Sparwasser HQ. In their own words, "We want to make this project a reflection over our own and Sparwasser's practice, through the development of a series of so-called Concept Illustrations, installed at the Berlin venue. Concept Illustrations are a line of preliminary architectural plans, produced for the first time in advance of the exhibition Peanut Circuit at Norsk Skulpturebiennale in 2003. In our consecutive exhibitions we gave these drawings a more central position, establishing a visual dialogue between the idealised blueprint and the resulting exhibition space... From producing a tool for visualizing and documenting an art project, 'the making of these virtual spaces had gradually turned into a practice in its own right."

Artist-run exhibition as a space of confluence: A set of conversations with artists and curators who have been previously involved with the activities of Sparwasser HQ or simply living in Berlin. These meetings are designed for Danger Museum to be "hot-wired" into the workings of the individual artists/curators as well as discussing the frameworks of artist-run organisations. A selection of this material may be used as part of Danger Museum's new idea to produce web radio spots.

Danger Museum is an artist collective facilitating and exploring the relationship between art institutions, artists and audiences. DM_s interest lies in long-term developments of concepts and projects with collaborators that are channeled through exhibitions, publications and the web. Miho Shimizu and Øyvind Renberg are based in Tokyo and Oslo whilst the third member Tien Wei Woon lives in Singapore. Recent projects include: Contemplation Room, Overgaden/public spaces in Copenhagen, Denmark, 2002, The Danger Museum, Space@inIVA, London, UK, 2002, Peanut Circuit, Norwegian Sculpture Biennal 2003 in Oslo, Norway, 2003, Ssamziespace 3 months residency, Seoul, South Korea, 2004, Radio Hue, Art Space Hue, Seoul, South Korea, 2004. Current / Upcoming: Thinking Archives. Archiving Thoughts, Sparwasser HQ in Berlin, Germany, 2004. Calculated Risks, book project, edited by Marianne Heier, Cork Midsummer Festival, Cork, Ireland, 2005, LOCALE (3 months residency) at Peacock, Aberdeen, Scotland, 2005.