Cover Story—May 2020: Panama, back through the lens
Mon, May 4 2020
Latitudes' homepage http://www.lttds.org/
The May 2020 monthly Cover Story ‘Panama, back through the lens’ is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org
April 2020 marked 15 years of Latitudes’ curatorial practice. We’ve long been planning an update and redesign of our website, and with life and work on hold for the last few weeks, we’ve finally had the time to make it happen. The whole site has now been rebuilt: https://www.lttds.org/
The new widescreen home page features Donna Conlon, Jonathan Harker, and Sandino Scheidegger, the latest episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’, accompanied by Donna’s and Jonathan’s thoughts on how life has changed in recent weeks in Panama City.
April 2020 marked 15 years of Latitudes’ curatorial practice. We’ve long been planning an update and redesign of our website, and with life and work on hold for the last few weeks, we’ve finally had the time to make it happen. The whole site has now been rebuilt: https://www.lttds.org/
The new widescreen home page features Donna Conlon, Jonathan Harker, and Sandino Scheidegger, the latest episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’, accompanied by Donna’s and Jonathan’s thoughts on how life has changed in recent weeks in Panama City.
‘‘Panama is a country of many contrasts, bruised by a variety of social, political, and cultural crises”, writes curator Sandino Scheidegger in the latest edition of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’, in which he spent a day in January with the artists Donna Conlon & Jonathan Harker. “These tensions grow even stronger in its capital, Panama City, where an impressive skyline rises over an often struggling population below it.” Here high on a hill above the urban bustle, Jonathan, Donna, and Sandino clamber along railings and among branches in the Parque Metropolitano near where the duo shot the video ‘Capapults (Tapitapultas)’ (2012) – a slyly humorous take on military history, national identity, consumerism, and waste.”
→ Continue reading
→ After May 2020, this story will be archived here.
Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial projects and activities.
→ RELATED CONTENTS:
- Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
- Latitudes’ 15th anniversary and rebuilt and redesigned website 2 May 2020
- Episode #11 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Sandino Scheidegger and Donna Conlon & Jonathan Harker from Panama City 9 April 2020
- Cover Story—March-April 2020: The Bolós Cabinet 3 March 2020
- Cover Story—February 2020: Carioca Incidents 3 February 2020
- Cover Story—January 2020: Safeguarding Gestures 2 January 2020
- Cover Story—December 2019: Cover Story—December 2019: Curating in the Web of Life 3 December 2019
- Cover Story—November 2019: ‘Fighting fires in Valencia: the 30-year story of the IVAM’ 1 November 2019
Episode #11 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Sandino Scheidegger and Donna Conlon & Jonathan Harker from Panama City
Thu, Apr 9 2020
Browser view of episode 11 of Incidents (of Travel) from Panama.
→ http://incidents.kadist.org
The Incidents (of Travel) site was recently redesigned to present one continuous immersive read interwoven with vertical videos and images in a new mobile-friendly format. Tap and swipe!
In 2016 Kadist and Latitudes partnered in a new ‘distributed’ phase of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ extending the invitation to curators and artists working around the world, and publishing their dispatches as an Online Project.
A new episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ from Panama City is now live. This is part of the online projects produced by KADIST and edited by Latitudes
exploring the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter, an extended offline conversation between curator/s and artist/s.
Swiss curator Sandino Scheidegger (Random Institute) recently visited Panama City in preparation for a solo exhibition by Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker at Casa Santa Ana in 2021. Conlon and Harker collaboration since 2006 (while also pursuing their own individual art practices) has resulted in seventeen video works to date, “often focus(ing) on the beautiful things that don’t seek out our attention: falling mangoes, upturned bricks, floating bottles, all calling out to us to discover their overlooked beauty”, as the his report continues, with “a sharp eye for pointing out the anomalies of an ever-consuming society, one driven by an economy that isn’t far from consuming itself”.
The places Sandino, Donna and Jonathan visited together pointed to the origin of some of their video works, the ideas behind them, or simply served as stages in their pieces, turning into “an exercise in sneaking through fences to reach former recycling plants, imagining how things looked before the skyscrapers took over, and navigating the complex social fabric of Panama City — all while getting a taste of local food between every stop.”
In 2016 Kadist and Latitudes partnered in a new ‘distributed’ phase of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ extending the invitation to curators and artists working around the world, and publishing their dispatches as an Online Project.
Conversations have taken place in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Reykjavík (Iceland), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Hobart (Tasmania), Yerevan (Armenia), Terengganu (Malaysia), Lisbon (Portugal), Suzhou (China), Jinja (Uganda) and Chicago (US).
‘Incidents (of Travel)’ was conceived by Latitudes in 2012 with 5 day-long artist-led tours around Mexico City presented as part of a short residency and exhibition on Latitudes’ practice at Casa del Lago. The project had sequels in 2013 in Hong Kong with online dispatches published live via social media, including soundscapes (archived on Soundcloud), and in 2015 in San Francisco with daily posts as part of Kadist's Instagram take over “Artist Not In The Studio Curator Not At The Office”.
The third episode took place while curator Yu Ji and poet Xiao Kaiyu hiked on Dong Shan (East Mountain), 130 km west of Shanghai, on a peninsula stretching into Tai Hu lake near the city of Suzhou, China.
The fourth dispatch came from Lisbon, where Galician curator Pedro de Llano visited key locations that marked the life and work of Luisa Cunha.
The fifth episode took place in April 2016, when curator Simon Soon and artist chi too visited the Malaysian North Eastern state of Terengganu,
where chi spent some time in 2013, surrounded by "men and women who
work(ed) multiple jobs as fishermen, housebuilders, boat builders,
farmers, coconut pickers, food producers, and everything else that
matters."
The sixth episode narrates a walking itinerary conducted by curator Marianna Hovhannisyan with
Vardan Kilichyan, Gohar Hosyan, and Anaida Verdyan in Yerevan, the
capital of Armenia, documenting the transformed, disappeared, or
permanently-closed art institutions in the city centre.
The seventh episode comes from Hobart, capital of Tasmania. It is narrated by curator Camila Marambio, following an itinerary devised by artist Lucy Bleach. They spent the day "encircling the outer limits of human understanding by visiting the histories, both past, and present, of attempts to reach beyond our sensory capacities through governance, technology, and reverie", and ended the day cooking at Lucy's home-sharing their mutual love for quinces.
In the eighth 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch Móvil co-founder and curator Alejandra Aguado followed the itinerary devised by the artist Diego Bianchi around Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Their exploration took them from the self-regulated community Velatropa to the buzzing commercial area of Once, identifying human and non-human flows and interactions. This became an entry point for discussing Bianchi's interests in how, as consumers, we define a particular zeitgeist and appropriate trends that enable us to affirm our identities.
In the ninth dispatch, Canadian curator Becky Forsythe and Icelandic artist Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir navigate Reykjavík's surroundings considering Þorgerður's “current interest in Icelandic Spar (a form of transparent calcite), its double refraction and light-polarizing properties. In a race with daylight, they travel between sites collecting moments and considering the ways in which geologic time surfaces in the context of human time.”
→ RELATED CONTENT:
Tenth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Catalina Lozano and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané from Rio de Janeiro
29 January 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=144735152408473327/tenth-episode-of-incidents-of-travel
The ninth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Becky Forsythe and Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir, 8 February 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=6371927610418460689
The eighth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Alejandra Aguado and Diego Bianchi, 6 September 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=8721104601538735691
Seventh episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Camila Marambio and Lucy Bleach from Hobart, Tasmania, 28 June 2018
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=1055853895543348027
The sixth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marianna Hovhannisyan and students from the National Center of Aesthetics from Yerevan, Armenia, 1 March 2018
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=5887133486742947361
The fifth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Simon Soon and chi too from Terengganu, Malaysia, 26 April 2017
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4083951540089486920
The fourth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Pedro de Llano and Luisa Cunha from Lisbon, Portugal, 2 March 2017
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4185860148466062617
The third episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Yu JI and Xiao Kaiyu reporting from Suzhou, China, 6 September 2016
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1437935620149738144
Second 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch by Moses Serubiri and Mohsen Taha reporting from Jinja, Uganda, 30 June 2016
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=2504250800654900933
Kadist and Latitudes present 'Incidents (Of Travel)' online 31 May 2016
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1076947282278624159
The first dispatch launched in April 2016 with an itinerary by curator Yesomi Umolu and artist Harold Mendez from Chicago – a day photographed by Nabiha Khan.
The second dispatch came from Jinja in Uganda, where curator Moses Serubiri invited
photographer Mohsen Taha to explore Jinja's Indian architectural legacy
and Idi Amin's notorious expulsion of Uganda's Asian minority in 1972.
The third episode took place while curator Yu Ji and poet Xiao Kaiyu hiked on Dong Shan (East Mountain), 130 km west of Shanghai, on a peninsula stretching into Tai Hu lake near the city of Suzhou, China.
The seventh episode comes from Hobart, capital of Tasmania. It is narrated by curator Camila Marambio, following an itinerary devised by artist Lucy Bleach. They spent the day "encircling the outer limits of human understanding by visiting the histories, both past, and present, of attempts to reach beyond our sensory capacities through governance, technology, and reverie", and ended the day cooking at Lucy's home-sharing their mutual love for quinces.
In the eighth 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch Móvil co-founder and curator Alejandra Aguado followed the itinerary devised by the artist Diego Bianchi around Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Their exploration took them from the self-regulated community Velatropa to the buzzing commercial area of Once, identifying human and non-human flows and interactions. This became an entry point for discussing Bianchi's interests in how, as consumers, we define a particular zeitgeist and appropriate trends that enable us to affirm our identities.
In the ninth dispatch, Canadian curator Becky Forsythe and Icelandic artist Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir navigate Reykjavík's surroundings considering Þorgerður's “current interest in Icelandic Spar (a form of transparent calcite), its double refraction and light-polarizing properties. In a race with daylight, they travel between sites collecting moments and considering the ways in which geologic time surfaces in the context of human time.”
http://incidents.kadist.org/rio
The tenth dispatch begins with an itinerary proposed by Barcelona-born, Rio de Janeiro-based artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané
and is followed by images and videos recording a day roaming Rio's
natural and artistic landscapes with Bogotá-born, Mexico City-based
curator Catalina Lozano, who narrates their day spent together.
→ RELATED CONTENT:
Tenth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Catalina Lozano and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané from Rio de Janeiro
29 January 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=144735152408473327/tenth-episode-of-incidents-of-travel
The ninth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Becky Forsythe and Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir, 8 February 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=6371927610418460689
The eighth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Alejandra Aguado and Diego Bianchi, 6 September 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=8721104601538735691
Seventh episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Camila Marambio and Lucy Bleach from Hobart, Tasmania, 28 June 2018
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=1055853895543348027
The sixth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marianna Hovhannisyan and students from the National Center of Aesthetics from Yerevan, Armenia, 1 March 2018
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=5887133486742947361
The fifth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Simon Soon and chi too from Terengganu, Malaysia, 26 April 2017
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4083951540089486920
The fourth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Pedro de Llano and Luisa Cunha from Lisbon, Portugal, 2 March 2017
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4185860148466062617
The third episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Yu JI and Xiao Kaiyu reporting from Suzhou, China, 6 September 2016
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1437935620149738144
Second 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch by Moses Serubiri and Mohsen Taha reporting from Jinja, Uganda, 30 June 2016
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=2504250800654900933
Kadist and Latitudes present 'Incidents (Of Travel)' online 31 May 2016
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1076947282278624159