Together with artists and cultural workers, WEST is turning the former business university on Althangrund into a center for creativity, culture and urbanity – and is home to the following two projects participating in this year’s VIENNA ART WEEK:

Womens Research Wānanga: “DESCANSOS (We die a thousand deaths)”

“Descansos are symbols that mark a death. Right there, on that spot, someone’s life halted unexpectedly…. Something happened there that altered that person’s life and the lives of other persons forever.

Women have died a thousand deaths before they are twenty years old. They’ve gone in this direction or that, and have been cut off. They have hopes and dreams that have been cut off also. Anyone who says otherwise is still asleep.”

(Claudia Pinkola Estes, Women who Run with Wolves, 1992.)

What are these deaths, and what mark do they leave behind? This group show considers how we mark las muertes chiquitas (small deaths), and las muertes grandotas (big deaths) with Descansos, via transmutations of the subconscious, epigenetics, and physics and from the perspectives of mana wahine, autotheory, psychoanalysis and philosophy.

Exhibiting Artists:

Additionally, a Symposia to dive deeper into the themes of the DESCANSOS exhibition will happen on Tuesday November, 12 from 15:00-21:00.

Event Agenda:

15:00 – 16:00 – LECTURE – Monica C. LoCascio:

Materiality of the Mother[scoby]. Epigenetic somatics, trauma and Autotheory

16:30 – 17:30 – PERFORMANCE – Rychèl Thérin Scott

Ta te tamariki tana mahi wawahi tahā – It’s our job to break the clabash

18:00 – 19:30 – CRAFT WORKSHOP – Salit Crew

Descanos 4 All: Make your own descansos to add to the exhibition or take home.

Shared Kai [food] – Vegan Chilli and Rice

20:00 – 21:00 – MEDITATION THROUGH DANCE – Sarah Scharf & KiaOraKlub

Movement is the Remedy

VCAS – Vienna Contemporary Art Space: “90 Seconds to Midnight”

Seven minutes to midnight was the time set on the Doomsday Clock upon its creation in 1947. The position of the minute hand on the clock serves as a metaphor for how close humanity is to self-inflicted global catastrophe. The clock is updated in January of every year by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS), and is closer to doomsday than at any other time in history: the time is now only 90 seconds to midnight. VCAS – Vienna Contemporary Art Space presents 90 Seconds to Midnight, a group art exhibition featuring works made by invited artists and VCAS artists in response to the threat of imminent worldwide self-destruction.

In using the language of seconds and minutes rather than years and decades, the Doomsday Clock brings future consequences into focus – it should make us acutely aware of how precarious our situation is and how deeply we are all connected not only to one another but to everything around us. 90 Seconds to Midnight is thus intended for artists to address, with time running out, themes of: the environment and climate change, political upheaval, technological and scientific developments as a whole, and ecological catastrophe. None of these are easy to pin down; none feel as if they’re really our responsibility. And yet, time is running out.

Special thanks to Bezirksvertretung Alsergrund for sponsoring the event, and WEST for providing the exhibition space.