GRAMMAR OF URGENCIES (GoU)

Grammar of Urgencies

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initiated by curator Maren Richter and artist Klaus Schafler, is a multi-disciplinary project and research platform for collaborations in different spatial, geographical and geo-political settings. GoU is intrigued by the growing recognition that the conception of ‘urgency’ shapes the “Now” in a more direct and urgent way. We use collaborative modes of working to create space and time for sharing, exercising, experimenting and negotiating urgencies as a concept of governance and affect policies - as well as a productive force for thinking the temporary, the ad hoc, the makeshift or improvisation as a potential counter model to existing ways of conceptualizing the world. We look into the hyper-layered or toxic fabric of lateral relations and chains of activity that administrate scales, times, bodies and materials. We investigate how they correlate, interact, interfere, how they (per)form, (re)formulate and constitute. And most importantly we collaborate with people from all disciplines and non-disciplines, from artists, scientists, scholars, to workers, fishermen or farmers. We learn and unlearn.

 

Our exhibitions curations follow an essayistic approach. The term “essay” derives from “exigere” (to examine) and “essaier” (to attempt, to put something to the proof) and as such inclines essayists to question themselves and what they know. Essaying is thus a free-style process of disrupting old assemblages, of experiment, of exploration, of inquiry, of interpretation, of provocation and of continuing reflection through assemblage, bricolage, collage, description, dialogue, poetry and storytelling.

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