ANDREA ABBATANGELO

PROJECT RADIOLONDON

Statement

Project RadioLondon* is my long term experimental work in which performance, teaching and media arts practices encounter and inspire each other.  The project consists of a series of sound sculptures and site specific installations which will form a gallery of biographic-portraits of artists that moved from Southern and Eastern to Northern Europe. I aim to produce a series of biographic portraits of artists who actually are living the experience of migration as a personal, social and political opportunity for both the artists but also the societies they migrate too. This is in stark contrast to popular perceptions, especially amongst Europeans, of migration as a negative phenomenon*’.  The project will provide artists from less developed countries with visibility in more affluent communities, thereby increasing their likelihood of professional success. One important manifestation of inequality is the difference in opportunity faced by domestic residents versus immigrants. The goal is to connect groups and collaborative events in physical places to a digital archive of documentation: a Web Radio that will work as a platform of empowerment and mobilization because facilitates and moves people to act together and is also a model which tends to promote long-term relationships.

Project RadioLondon position digital technology critically through creative exchanges between people, materials and contexts that seek to open up questions rather than offer technological solutions.

For me it’s important to look at how emerging art practices could survive while wars, political instability and austerity measurements are still in place, resulting to major changes within the arts; these scenarios lead to a huge gap and become limiting and restricting for lesser known artists or projects that are currently still building their audiences, to succeed.

With this project I seek to challenge the thinking that fuels the rising extremist political movements throughout Europe and the informal groups that have formed in social media over the last ten years. The increasing of nationalism and neo-fascists groups requires me to be critical and bold in addressing them openly, to speak of truth to the people of my community as well as to governments and to contrast the spread of fake news that take root easily in people who feel excluded and living in solitude. With my artistic project I have the opportunity to work with individuals and entire communities. With Project RadioLondon I intend to claim some of the historical values of social justice, internationalism, sharing, redistribution, responsibility - which at the moment seem to be clouded by the desire of the “strong leader”. In this perspective, with my project I promote a widespread leadership, an inclusive experience that involves individuals and groups of people in physical places and in digital platforms.

The project has been presented and supported by public and private institutions and festivals such as Villa Arson, Nice (2015); Manifesta 11 at Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich (2016) and Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, Harare (2018).

*Radio London (in Italian Radio Londra) was the name used in Italy for the radio broadcasts of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), starting from 27 September 1938, aimed at the populations of German-dominated continental Europe.  The idea may have come from the Italians themselves, as the Arabic-language broadcasts received from Radio Bari in southern Italy were very popular in the Middle East and North Africa, where British and French influence was predominant and where they soon acquired an attentive and interested audience in the local upper middle class.  The BBC's Italian-language broadcasts began with the Munich crisis. With the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, Radio London's broadcasts increased, reaching 4.15 hours in 1943.  The success of Radio London's broadcasts was because the British War Office, instead of managing their propaganda broadcasts directly, had entrusted them to a self-governing body, the BBC, which was already well known for its independent journalistic style, with news kept separate from comments.  Radio London's editorial staff became famous for their timeliness in transmitting information around the world, with a direct and pragmatic, typically British style. 

Project RadioLondon at the Pavillion of Ukraine, 58th International Art exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia as part of The Shadow of Dream.

Pavilion of Ukraine at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia – will present the project entitled The Shadow of Dream cast upon Giardini della Biennale devoted to rethinking the notion of myth and its significance and influence on contemporary art.

For the full duration of the biennale there will be performances in the pavilion based on the myth of the flight of the world’s largest cargo aircraft over Venice on May 9th at noon.

Project RadioLondon will takes part of Open Group's project for the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia with other individuals and international organizations such as:  mediacollaboration in real time, Alina Mann & Coco Schwarz, Angy Artist, Altaluna Art Group, Andrii Ivanchuk & Rostyslav Imilowski-Duma, Apartment 14, Art For People, Art Electronix, Art group NURT, Art studio Yaskravo, Art-Women Club and many others.

Project RadioLondon 

Project RadioLondon is my long term experimental work in which performance, teaching and media arts practices encounter and inspire each other. The project consists of a series of sound sculptures and site specific installations which will form a gallery of biographic-portraits of artists that moved from Southern and Eastern to Northern Europe. I aim to produce a series of biographic portraits of artists who actually are living the experience of migration as a personal, social and political opportunity for both the artists but also the societies they migrate too. This is in stark contrast to popular perceptions, especially amongst Europeans, of migration as a negative phenomenon. 

Open Group

Open Group was established in Lviv in 2012 by 6 Ukrainian artists. The group’s structure has changed over the years, and it presently consists of four members: Yuriy Biley, Pavlo Kovach, Stanislav Turina, and Anton Varga. They occasionally invite other artists or activists to take part in their projects and join the Open Group. Group members have been spearheading the creation of independent spaces, such as Detenpyla Gallery and Еfremova26 Gallery (2013-2014) in Lviv, since 2011. Open Group won the Special Distinction of the PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2013, and the Main Prize in 2015. Their works were featured at the Ukrainian National Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. In 2016, the Open Group curated the show entitled Dependence Degree, Collective Practices of Young Ukrainian Artists 2000-2016 (Wrocław, Poland). In 2017, the group’s work was presented under the aegis of the Future Generation Art Prize @ Venice 2017 (collateral events of the 57th Venice Biennale).

For further information read below or go for the external page here

Project RadioLondon at Terni Festival 2018

This project invites viewers to expand their thinking about what spaces are considered “Public”. Who designated them? Who visits them? What takes place there? From piazzas and parks to institutions the very idea of “public space” proves itself to be an incredibly malleable thing.

Through a series of recordings taken of Cascata delle Marmore viewers are immersed in a sound experience. Water becomes a metaphor for that which possesses the possibility of crossing borders, acting as a leisure space, all the while potentially being a highly contested thing. While the 2018 Terni Festival hypothesizes what humankind would do with the option to travel and live on the Moon, water presents itself as something vital and once again its symbolism can take on many meanings.

Water stands in as a metonym for social fabrics and leisure spaces during the course of this installation. The Public space of this site specific project is constructed to be a multi-layered thing and capable of holding multiply meanings for any given person--the river that divides Terni sits just meters away for instance. Abbatangelo weaves together sonic vestiges of water to create a soundscape—layering these individual pieces into one, resounding whole.

This project is the result of a months long collaboration between artist Andrea Abbatangelo (London, UK) and curator Adia Sykes (Chicago, USA)

Terni Festival 2018

Welcome to the new planet è lo spazio che il collettivo Parasite 2.0 ha creato per ospitare le voci degli artisti e del pubblico.

Il 22 e il 23 settembre si susseguiranno due momenti di eclissi popolati dalle azioni di tantissimi artisti.

sabato 22, dalle h 15:30: Andy Field | Cristina Kristal Rizzo | Danae Theodoridou| Livia Massarelli e Anna Borini| Menoventi| Opera Bianco | Silvia Costa| Stranivari

https://bit.ly/2xBHViK

domenica 23, dalle h 15:30: Adia Sykes e Andrea Abbatangelo| Alex Cecchetti + Orlando | FOSCA | Friso Wiersum| Graziano Graziani| gruppo nanou| Ivana Müller | Lucia Guarino | Strasse

https://bit.ly/2DduU4V

Project RadioLondon Preview at Villa Arson

I’m very glad to present a preview of RDLDN - Project RadioLondon at Villa Arson - Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'art  in Nice. A series of sketches will be exhibited at the Galerie d’Essais et Galerie Provisoire with a short performance and  followed by a panel. The project consists of  an archive of audio portraits and connects physical places to a digital archive of documentary audio/video portraits. This  of a series of performative and collaborative events and sound sculptures serie, which will be recorded and stored in a web radio, and which will form a gallery of portraits of artists that recently moved from Southern Europe to Northern Europe, especially in cities such as Amsterdam, London, Helsinki, Zurich, Copenhagen, Berlin, etc.

RDLDN - Project RadioLondon calls for a planning of itinerant sounds­workshops and the resulting contents will be avaible in an open and free­of­charge archive, which propose an alternative system of representation and documentation, based on emancipation, inclusion and self­cultivation. My purpose is to produce a series of portraits of developers, pioneers and cultural activists who actually live the experience of immigration as a personal, social and political opportunity, and not as a gap.

As an ‘emerging artist’, it is important for me to look at what is happening within in my immediate environment, exploring notions of how it could be possible to continue an engaging art practice and be aware of my time.

The project will act as part of a research topic exploring possibilities of how emerging art practices could survive in the geography known while wars, political instability and austerity measurements are still in place, resulting to major changes within the arts; these scenarios lead to a huge gap and become limiting and restricting for lesser known artists or projects that are currently still building their audiences, to succeed.

The Goal of the radio is to make 1000 hours of recording available on demand in the Web Radio and involve hundreds of people between Northern and Southern european countries.