The Blue Frog Society by Barbara Holub
Date uploaded: September 5, 2011
Barbara Holub
The Blue Frog Society | A Habitat Without Territory
At the 64th UN DPI/ NGO conference on "Sustainable Societies, Responsive Citizens"
Bonn, 3rd-5th September 2011
in collaboration with Shamina de Gonzaga, WCPUN (World Council of Peoples for the UN)
The Blue Frog Society claims a new habitat – a habitat without territory, not just as an idea, but as a messenger of a new future which was presented for the first time in New York on "Windows on Madison"/ Czech Mission to the UN, curated by Jaroslav Andel for the Czech Center, 2011, in collaboration with the Austrian Cultural Forum, New York.
At the 64th UN DPI/ NGO conference, The Blue Frog Society will directly engage with the participants of the conference and invite them to contribute their ideas, desires, expertise from various angles and backgrounds as well as their critical input for building this community and discussing the future of a habitat without territory.
This input will be presented right afterwards as part of the exhibition for the Artist Award of the Region of Salzburg, Traklhaus, Salzburg for which Barbara Holub has been nominated.
Creating, Supporting, Collecting: New Values, New Commons
The Blue Frog Society employs artistic strategies to investigate issues of territory and habitat that go to the very foundation of the dominant socio-economic system. It pushes the borders of the “possible” to make space for the unplanned and unthinkable, emphasizing civic engagement and the need for common public space, linking the art context to society.
This project also takes on a new understanding of “participation” and “commons”, developing an open ended process of acting, referring to the current political dimension of new forms of commons, as Michael Hardt describes them: “politics involve the production of the commons (not only the distribution), i.e.the production and reproduction of social relations and forms of life”. Jacques Rancière defines the relation between politics and aesthetics as a conceptual problem: artistic practices are possibilities of doing and acting, referring to the French notion of “le partage” which involves partaking and sharing, both contributing to “common wealth”.
Therefore The Blue Frog Society offers “shares” of the non-territorial habitat as a new form of collecting art: partaking in the development of the habitat and becoming part of a collective art project.
The presentation of The Blue Frog Society at the 64th UN DPI / NGO conference is supported by the WCPUN and the Ministry of Art and Culture of Austria.
