PENINSULA @ Platforms Project, Athens
In the context of the Platforms Project 2017 in Athens, Peninsula presents the project Backbone by Stefania Migliorati.
Backbone is a relational project that reflects on the topic of resilience, defined in scientific terms as the ability of a system to overcome a change. The print portrays a list in a chronological order of all the secondary jobs that some of the members of Peninsula (a nonprofit art association based in Berlin) have held during their careers in order to be able to continue pursuing their work as artists. The final list, which resembles a backbone and recalls the Italian expression farsi le ossa (literally to make your bones strong, meaning to learn the ropes), does not provide the names of the artists. Instead, it lists the jobs and the years they were conducted in order to focus on the effort expended by the artists to ensure their own professional survival and how this has changed, or not, over the course of different decades. The work addresses a taboo rarely discussed: the difficulty of making a living as an artist exclusively from the sale of one’s work. It also considers the continuous efforts of resistance, remodeling, elasticity, and reinvention with regard to oneself, one’s research, and all the external conditions that continuously vary in relation to the market, social, and political contexts. Twenty-one artists have contributed to this project, engaging in the process, enriching the discussion, and offering critical perspectives on the topic. They have my sincere thanks.
The Platforms Project is an international exhibition of the independent art scene that has been presented annually since 2013. The objective of the Platforms Project is to map artistic action as it is produced in the context of collective initiatives by artists who decide to join forces in seeking answers to artistic questions by creating the so-called platforms.
The Platforms Project 2017 will be presented at the Cultural Centre (Charilaou Trikoupi Str. 121, 114 73 Athens) and will run from 20–25 May 2017, including a rich program of lectures, videos and performances by the participating platforms