Pekinpah Association

ISKRA, Non-Aligned Design: 1946-1990 exhibition

Simultaneously being an organisational vehicle for dancers, designers, architects and musicians, the Pekinpah Association is a rather curious production house. Established in 2007 and based in Ljubljana, its main activities feature contemporary dance production; publishing and presenting theoretical and practical reflections on design; and managing the musical band Silence. The association produces performances and exhibitions, organises lectures and congresses, and publishes research into new media and information practices.

It is an eminently international enterprise in all of these respects, regularly performing, lecturing or collaborating abroad. Among its many activities is the Spider project, not only an annual festival but also a transnational artistic network.

Dance

Pekinpah mainly works with three internationally acclaimed choreographers – Matej Kejžar, Mala Kline and Leja Jurišić. Signing with them in 2010, Pekinpah has been producing, managing and promoting their performances in Slovenia as well as abroad ever since. In Slovenia, it often collaborates with the Bunker Institute, and mounts most of the performances of these choreographers as well as a few others at either Stara Elektrarna or the Španski borci Culture Centre.

A few of the venues or festivals abroad that have hosted Pekinpah's productions or artists are Festival Tanzhafen (Linz, AT), Festival d'Avignon (FR), Théâtre National (BE), XS 2016 Festival (BE), Shoonya Centre for Art and Somatic Practices (Bangalore, IN), SEAD (AT), Teatro Renascença (Porto Alegre, BR), SOTA Theatre (SG) and Ganz Novi Festival (Zagreb, HR). The three artists themselves are often invited for international co-productions, working with renowned individuals and groups.

Spider Festival

The first SPIDER project was initiated by Matej Kejžar, Michaël Pomero (FR) and Antigone Gyra (GR) in 2012. The project weaves a web of mobility with around 40 artists from different countries and cultures and from various artistic fields and milieus (dancers, choreographers, musicians, writers, visual artists). Under the auspices of SPIDER, Pekinpah has organised international artistic events in Athens, Zagreb, Lyon, Berlin, Brussels and Ljubljana (where SPIDER appears as an annual festival).

Design and publishing

One of the reasons for establishing the association was to promote and carry out activities regarding design theory, which was (and still is) rarely dealt with in Slovenia. With only a handful of studies on theory of design having been previously published in Slovenian language, Pekinpah's publishing endeavours in this vein have significantly altered the field.

Petra Černe Oven, PhD, and Barbara Predan, PhD, are the main force behind Pekinpah's design endeavours. They curate the publishing programme and have either edited or contributed to a number of works, often featuring renowned authors from abroad. The publications are frequently also published (at least partly) in English, with a good number of them co-published by the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO).

Highlights of the publications include Back to Design: an Anthological Survey of Design Theory in Slovenia (2007, published with Litera Publishing House); Sustainable Alternatives in Design: It's High Time We Start Losing Time (2009, featuring texts by Dieter Rams, Ezio Manzini, Jonathan Chapman, Clive Dilnot, Per Mollerup and Victor Margolin); ISKRA: Non-aligned Design 1946–1990 (2009, accompanied by the same-titled exhibition on industrial design by the Slovene company Iskra); On Information Design (2010, featuring Yuri Engelhardt, Rob Waller, Jorge Frascara, Karel van der Waarde, Malcolm Garrett and Karen Schriver).

Predan and Černe Oven were recently featured in the compendium called Information Design: Research and Practice, published in 2017 by Routledge. Pekinpah is a part of the CODEC, the Contemporary Design Collaborative, an initiative to build a network of design professionals in the CEE region.

ISKRA, Non-Aligned Design: 1946-1990 exhibition

Events

In collaboration with MAO, Pekinpah has organised several series of lectures (about sustainable alternatives in design, visual communications theory, etc.) hosting international lecturers (for example, in 2017 Vik Burian & Jose Scalipne from Typetogether). In 2009, MAO and Pekinpah conceived an overview exhibition on the development of design at the Slovene company Iskra. The project marked the 30th anniversary of the launch of Iskra's internationally recognised telephone, the ETA 80, by the distinguished Slovene designer Davorin Savnik.

Together with the Jožef Stefan Institute, Pekinpah also organised the 5th Italian Business Forum and collaborated at the Slovenia Design Showroom Milano 2017 (curated and edited by Barbara Predan). Predan and Černe Oven are frequently invited to lecture or present workshops around the world.

Music

Pekinpah Association is home to the renowned musical duet Silence, led by Primož Hladnik (music and arrangements) and Boris Benko (music, lyrics and vocals). Having published a number of very well-received albums, they frequently collaborate with Laibach and regularly collaborate with acclaimed theatre (Tomaž Pandur (1963–2016), Matjaž Pograjc, Aleksandar Popovski and Primož Ekart) and film (Damjan Kozole) directors.

In 2015, Laibach and Silence become the first Western alternative acts to perform in North Korea.

External links

Gallery

ISKRA, Non-Aligned Design: 1946-1990 exhibition

Spider project (Athens) poster, 2010

Karel van der Waarde's lecture on visual communication design, 2010

Clive Dilnot's lecture on Sustainable alternatives in design, 2008

Dieter Rams's lecture on Sustainable alternatives in design, 2008

Silence

Pekinpah Association

Contents

Dance

Spider Festival

Design and publishing

Events

Music

See also

External links

Gallery

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