FORUM YESOMI UMOLU
PROPOSITION #1: IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY [SIC] WILL COME

When

Opening
19:00, 17. March 2011

Each month our residency guests will present their own work, a chosen theme, a current interest or present their residency project. Yesomi Umolu is Hordaland Art Centre's resident March 2011. During her residency, Yesomi will develop a proposition for a series of curatorial experiments that address the irony of transnational spaces titled Somewhere in....  As part of her presentation at the Hordaland Art Centre, Yesomi will present her research, taking as it’s starting point the problematics raised by investigations into The Poïpoïdrome project conceived by Robert Filliou and Joachim Pfeufer, and conduct a roundtable discussion about trans-national social spaces.

Proposition #1: If you build it, they [sic] will come

Somewhere In… is a series of research-led curatorial propositions instigated by London-based curator, writer and researcher Yesomi Umolu. The project aims to investigate the irony of trans-national social spaces by uncovering the systems, values and ideologies that define contemporary locations of cultural translation and trans-national encounters. Working from the conclusion that contemporary institutional frameworks presuppose the conditions of such exchanges, prioritising closed notions of dialogue and reciprocity with blind regard of the micro-political, Somewhere in... asks: How can we deterritorialise the ideological space of the trans-national encounter? Furthermore, focusing on Etienne Balibar’s conclusion that “every community reproduced by the functioning of institutions is imaginary”, how can we address the imaginary communities of trans-national social spaces as defined by institutional paradigms?

As a point of departure the discussion will consider Proposition #1 of Somewhere In….: If you build it, they [sic] will come, which addresses the role architecture plays in the construction of trans-national ideals. In this instance, architecture is understood as an expanded field beyond the built edifice – as a set of (pre-defined) spatial conditions and political positionings that construct, promote, inhibit, fictionalise or exoticise encounters between the here and the elsewhere.

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Yesomi Umolu (1984, UK) is a London-based curator, writer and researcher. She co-directs the curatorial agency AGM. Yesomi is a core contributor to the experimental interdisciplinary space Department 21. Her recent projects include co-curating the exhibitions AGM 10: Collectivus CPS (Manifesta 8, 2010), John Smith Solo Show (Royal College of Art, 2010), Goldfinger’s Lost Cottage (Platform 1 Gallery, 2010) and curating the screening programme Performing Localities (Iniva, 2009). Yesomi has held positions as a Curatorial Assistant for Chamber of Public Secrets at Manifesta 8, Public Programme Assistant at the Serpentine Gallery, London and Project Coordinator at Tate Modern, London. She is a regularly invited critic and seminar tutor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, London. Yesomi is a graduate of the Masters program in Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, London.

Yesomi’s research-led practice investigates critical spaces and sites of alterity, questioning their emergence and sustainability across a wide range of social, political and cultural spheres.