Pekinpah Association

ISKRA, Non-Aligned Design: 1946-1990 exhibition

The Pekinpah Association is a very curios production house, simultaneously catering for designers, architects, musicians and dancers. Established in 2007 and based in Ljubljana, its main activities feature contemporary dance production; publishing and presenting live theoretical and practical reflections on design; and managing the musical band Silence. The association focuses on organising and producing exhibitions, lectures, congresses, and research into new media and information practices. Though these activities are done separately, in accordance to their respective fields, it also tries to connect them and present them in a joint context.

It is an eminently international enterprise in all of these respects, regularly performing, lecturing or collaborating abroad. Among its many activities is the annual Spider Festival, also a transnational artistic network.

Dance

Pekinpah is mainly working 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 sets up most of its shows either at Stara Elektrarna or at the Španski borci Culture Centre. The artists themselves are often invited for international co-productions and they work with renowned individuals and groups.

A few of the venues or festivals abroad hosting 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, cooperating with the Frontier Danceland Company), and Ganz Novi Festival (Zagreb, HR).

Spider Festival

The SPIDER project was initiated by three dancers and choreographers: Matej Kejžar (Slovenia), Michaël Pomero (France). 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, sculptors, visual artists). Under the auspices of SPIDER Pekinpah has organised international artistic events in Athens, Zagreb, Lyon, Berlin, Brussels and Ljubljana.

The Spider project is at once an contemporary dance and performing arts festival, a transnational artistic network, a platform for modular and transferable artistic projects and a potential for mobility and residencies.

Design

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

Hosting the Institute of Design, the association is mostly working with dr. Petra Černe Oven and dr. Barbara Predan. Pekinpah has published a number of works with their contributions, yet is also working with authors from outside Slovenia. Its publications are frequently (at least partly) done in English, with some of the being Back to Design: an Anthological Survey of Design Theory in Slovenia (2007, together with Litera Publishing House); Sustainable Alternatives in Design: It's High Time We Start Losing Time (2009 together with the Museum of Architecture and Design, a book of lectures on design theory edited by Barbara Predan and Cvetka Požar. The book is available either in English or Slovenian language and features texts by Dieter Rams, Ezio Manzini, Jonathan Chapman, Clive Dilnot, Per Mollerup, and Victor Margolin); the book ISKRA: Non-aligned Design 1946-1990 (accompanied by the exhibition with the same title in November 2009. A separate Slovenian edition was also published; both in collaboration with the Museum of Architecture and Design); On Information Design (Edited by Petra Černe Oven and Cvetka Požar, Published by MAO, featuriong).

Pekinpah collaborators Barbara Predan and Petra Černe Oven wrote theri articles for the Information Design: Research and Practice (Routledge, 2017)

Pekinpah is a part of the CODEC, the Contemporary Design Collaborative, an initiative to build a network of design professionals in the CEE region.

Events

In 2008 Pekinpah in collaboration with the Museum of Architecture and Design (former Architecture Museum Ljubljana) organised a series of lectures about sustainable alternatives in design, hosting international lecturers.

In 2009 they 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.

The lecture series about visual communications theory On Information Design was prepared in collaboration with Petra Černe Oven and Pekinpah Association, starting in November 2009 at the Museum of Architecture and Design, and continuing throughout the year 2010.

The Pekinpah Association hosted renowned type design studio (Vik Burian & Jose Scalipne, Typetogether) in Ljubljana. The aim was to introduce high-end experts to local type scene and establish fruitful connections. It also organised the 5th Italian Business Forum (together with Jože Stefan, (Barbara Predan held a lecture entitled "Initiating Collaborative Networks through Design"); In February 2010 the exhibition was presented through lecture An Overlooked Giant: Iskra, Non-aligned Design 1946-1990 by Barbara Predan at the Fourth International Conference on Design Principles and Practices at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Pekinpah has also collaborated at the Slovenia Design Showroom Milano 2017 (curated and edited by Barbara Predan); with Lauba – People and Art House (HR), where Predan and Černe Oven led workshops;

Music

Pekinpah Association is home to the renowned band Silence. SILENCE is: Hladnik (music and arrangements) and Benko (music, lyrics and vocals). The duet Silence has released five albums so far: Ma non troppo (1997), Unlike a Virgin (1999), Vain – a Tribute to a Ghost (2004), Key Silence (2CD, 2006) and Musical Accompaniment for the End of the World (2012). In 2006, the duet composes and produces Volk, Laibach’s 12th album. In 2015, Laibach and Silence become the first Western alternative acts to perform in North Korea. Silence have written numerous scores for plays and dance performances. They regularly collaborate with theatre directors Matjaž Pograjc, Tomaž Pandur, Aleksandar Popovski and Primož Ekart. The duet's discography includes the following theatre scores: Maison des rendez-vous (2003), Love Unto Death (2007), Veronika (2005) and The Passion of the Cold (2008), a double album with music from (and inspired by) Pandur’s plays Barroco and Caligula. The duet has also scored three feature films by Damjan Kozole (A Call Girl, Project Cancer and Nightlife) and a handful of short films.

In September 2009 the association published the new album of the duet Silence, The Passion of the Cold, a limited edition handmade book containing two CDs, featuring music from or inspired by Slovene director Tomaž Pandur's plays Barroco and Kaligula.

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

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