Dark Matter Games, Venice Biennale
LGJ was invited to participate to Dark Matter Games , a coproduction of SALE Doks and Workspacebrussels, a flemish organisation based in Bruxelles that is interested in social/art/interventions.
“Dark Matter Games” is an art project that aims to develop and present innovative and socially engaged art practices that often fall out of the scope of more classical art institutions. Inspired by the essay Dark Matter by Gregory Sholette, the project gathers, shares, develops and presents over 25 art practices that take social interaction and transdisciplinarity as their starting point.
A workweek in April gave the opportunity to the participating artists to share their practice and articulate possible urban interventions. In the context of the Venice Biennial opening weekend in May, we presented these interventions during an urban festival, the Dark Matter Games. This event combined exhibitions, round tables, performances and interventions alike. The aftermath took the shape of a publication presented in Brussels, in late fall.
For the program of the 3 days workshop, Le Grand Jeu was adapted to describe Venice reality.
Sale DOKS is a 10 years old occupation, legalized with a temporary agreement with the City of Venice that will fall out in 2019. Has a base with the still quite active network of alternative spaces of Venice. Their activity is since the beginning, as for Milano’s Macao, art practice based. They organize performances, public interventions, and shows, with an interesting history of fine arts and performance, always quite controversial. The venue is 3’ walk from the Peggy Guggenheim, in front of the Giudecca, and used to be a salt deposit from the 15th century on. The walls still white from salt concretions. The setup has been made with parts scavenged from previous Biennale pavilions and there is an atelier, a bar, a sort of reconfigurable theater space, and a lot of activity.
The workshop led to the definition of a “Venetian Edition” of the game custom made for the May 11/15 presentation when we presented an open game session of “Le Gran Jeu” Venice.
