9th Apartment by Group Bouillon opens Participate Baku Public Art Festival 2013

Participate Baku Public Art Festival 2013 is supported by Bank Respublika

YARAT Contemporary Art Space is delighted to announce the second event of the Baku Public Art Festival Participate, which is to be launched on 15th March 2013 with projects running until September. 

9th Apartment, by Georgian collective Group Bouillon, will launch Participate 2013. They will paint an entire apartment white in the presence of festival visitors. This redecorating process restricts the audience’s movements, questioning our notions of personal freedom in public spaces, with particular reference to the Soviet and post-Soviet eras. As the collective say; “In the Soviet period there was no public space, the space which the government called ‘public’ was used by them for their political agenda…. Since then little has changed…, the spaces [simply] became private.” The group are representing their country’s official pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale.

The festival will further examine the role of contemporary art in a public urban setting and will implement ten projects, from performance to installations, presented by either individual artists or groups of artists. In line with YARAT's ongoing commitment to fostering dialogue and exchange between Azerbaijani and international networks, five of the ten projects will be selected from submissions by international artists. The projects in the festival will be notable for their immersive character and will encourage interaction between the artists, artwork and the audience. Participation of the visitors will be an integral component of the works presented. Each artist will also deliver an educational initiative as part of the festival.