Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos
26-31 July 2010

Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos is pleased to host the internationally renowned artists collective IRWIN, members of NSK (New Slovenian Art). Over a one week period of screenings, lectures and panel discussions, Towards a Double Consciousness: NSK Passport Project will take as its point of departure, NSK’s artistic intervention State in Time and its increasing significance in Africa especially within the context of Nigeria. State in Time, one of the most (in)famous projects produced by NSK, evolved out of their earlier activities, finding formation as a ’state’ at the collapse of Yugoslavia and the coming into existence of the Republic of Slovenia in 1991. NSK’s State in Time transcends a physical geographical location or a defined statehood within a prescribed ethnic, cultural or religious belief, providing what IRWIN collaborator and writer Alexei Monroe describes as “a conceptual form of identification for individuals from diverse nationalities.”

Since the initial presentations around the world in the 1990s of State in Time the project is currently receiving a substantial number of requests for citizenship of the NSK ‘State’ from Africa especially from Nigeria. This has resulted in many Nigerians assuming a dual identity as holders of NSK and Nigerian passports. In view of these new developments IRWIN conducted interviews with African/NSK citizens living in London, to ascertain their reasons for applying. Could it be in support of the initial artistic purpose of NSK? Do they see it as an avenue with which to move from one territory to another? Or is it for other socio-political reasons? Towards a Double Consciousness: NSK Passport project will allow further debate on both the artistic and political implications of the NSK State in Time action, offering an examination of their original artistic interventions within the Nigerian context.

This project forms part of CCA, Lagos’ year long programme On Independence and The Ambivalence of Promise celebrating 50 years of independence by seventeen African countries including Nigeria on the 1st October 2010. It provides an avenue to interrogate notions of nationhood at a time when our ideas of citizenship is continuously being challenged by state policies such as Nigeria’s contentious ‘federal character’ system or through religious and ethnic disturbances such as the recent unrest in the city of Jos, as well as the perennial civic unrest of the oil rich Niger Delta. Towards a Double Consciousness attempts to interrogate the way in which artists propose and individuals search for alternative – real or fictional – possibilities that goes beyond notions of a fixed identity or geography.

IRWIN is a collective of artists Dušan Mandič (b. 1954), Miran Mohar (b. 1958), Andrej Savski (b. 1961), Roman Uranjek (b. 1961) and Borut Vogelnik (b. 1959), which comprises one of the core groups within the artists’ collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). IRWIN was founded in 1983 in Slovenia. Recent exhibitions include: The Promises of the Past, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2010; The Eye of the State, The Israel Center for Digital Art, Holon, Israel, 2010; Third New Old Cold War, Moscow Biennial, Red October; Modernities, Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), Barcelona; State in Time, Kunsthalle Krems, 2009.
The members of the group live and work in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Programme

26th – 31st July 2010
Screening: Research interview of NSK Citizens as well as artists based in Nigeria.

Friday, 30 July 2010 Time: 3 pm
Topic: Introduction to media art and the use of video in relation to other forms of new media, technology and performance in contemporary art.
Speakers include; Dr. Inke Arns, IRWIN members: Miran Mohar and Borut Vogelnik and Performance artist Jelili Atiku.

Saturday, 31 July, Time 2pm
Screening: 2:00pm Screening of interviews with African NSK passport holders living in London.
Panel Discussion: 3:00pm
Topic: NSK State: The Nigerian connection. A discussion on the significance of an artistic action made in Europe in the 90s on contemporary African consciousness.
Speakers include; Dr Inke Arns, IRWIN members: Miran Mohar and Borut Vogelnik, NSK member Eda Cufer and Nigerian NSK passport holders. Moderated by Loren Hansi Momodu.

Curator: Loren Hansi Momodu
Curatorial Advisors; Dr. Inke Arns, Director, HMKV, Dortmund and Bisi Silva, Director, CCA,Lagos

The Advanced Cultural Management Programme and Towards a Double Consciousness are supported by the Goethe Institute, Johannesburg and Nigeria.

In the year 1945 the Nazis went to the Moon, and in 2018 they are coming back. This is the premise of the sci-fi film Iron Sky, the upcoming movie project from the creators of the hugely popular internet hit Star Wreck.

The soundtrack of the invasion will be provided by Laibach, in collaboration with Ben Watkins (Juno Reactor) as a co-writer and producer of the score. You can get the first taste of the soundtrack on the new teaser that was published today.

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15 April – 6 June 2010
At the International Centre of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana.

Thirty years have passed since the founding of Laibach, a group whose music and performances have become part of cultural history. What many do not know, however, is that Laibach in fact began its career as a visual art group. Images that most of us know from the paintings of the Irwin group – the cross, the coffee cup, the deer, the metal worker – were originally Laibach motifs. They were part of the capital the group invested in the newly established collective Neue Slowenische Kunst in 1984. With the founding of NSK, the visual art tradition Laibach had been creating up to that time was taken over by Irwin.

Laibach brought an alternative post-modern form of creativity into Slovene art. The group drew connections between New Image painting, the do-it-yourself art of punk bands and the post-conceptual practices that were being promoted in the Belgrade and Zagreb art scenes. Laibach “welded together” various media – music, video, film and performance – “high” and “low” culture, pop culture, politics and art. And at the very start of the 1980s, they defined in clear terms the fundamentals of the Retro-Avant-Garde.

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During the last couple of years, more than 2000 of people from Africa, (mainly from Nigeria) tried to contact NSKSTATE.COM by email. WORDS FROM AFRICA is a collection of emails organized according to the words that was used in the messages.

NSKSTATE.COM in collaboration with Irwin presented “Outlook: Words from Africa” (the latest version of the project) in “Utopics” the 11th Swiss Sculpture Exhibition in Biel/Bienne on August 29th. The exhibition will be open until October 25, 2009.

The first NSK Passport Office was opened in Athens on 14 June 2009 on the occasion of the opening events of “Heaven”, the 2nd Biennale of Athens that tool place in  the cost of Faliro.

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