Join us for a week of participatory workshops, conversations, screenings and talks as part of a Turner Contemporary takeover by Platforma Festival.

The Platforma Festival for the arts, refugees and migration, brings together artists, organisations, funders and others for discussions, workshops and the chance to share practices and showcase new work. The 5th Platforma Festival takes place across Kent & Medway this month.

Platforma Arts is produced by Counterpoints Arts, national charity working in the field of art, migration and social change.

All activities are free and many of the workshops are suitable for families.

#PLATFORMA5

Rich Wiles, Ongoing Journeys

Interactive video based work – 12.00 to 17.30, Monday 21st to Friday 25th

Ongoing Journeys is an intimate, collaborative photographic exhibition and accompanying interactive multi-media web platform. It explores the idea of ‘family’ through the story of Rami, Ruba and their children as they attempt to rebuild their lives in Yorkshire following their displacement from Syria.

Bringing together documentary photographs produced in the UK with family archive images and WhatsApp ‘still life’ images – the project probes ‘identity’, ‘home’ and ‘resettlement’ and examines the notion of family and its fragmentation, as experienced by millions of people today.

Rich Wiles is a socially engaged documentary photographer. Wiles returned to the UK in 2016 after more than 10 years based in Palestine (including 6 years living in a Palestinian refugee camp) and is currently trying to navigate through the UK’s immigration minefield with his wife, herself a Palestinian refugee. 

Aida Silvestri, Why Margate?

Workshop – 12:00 to 16:00

Question: Why did you choose Margate as your home?

Invitation: Transform Margate’s postcards with embroidery by adding your personal touch to produce fun, colourful and alternative results.

Please note: You are welcome to bring your image, but it has to be Black & White A5 image printed on a card.

Aida Silvestri is a UK based artist who creates work concerning the sensitive issues of culture, ethnicity, race, identity, health, politics, and the urban landscape. She holds a BA (First Hons) in photography from the University of Westminster, London.  She has experience of coordinating photo-shoot sessions, running workshops and public speaking. Her work explores new and unique approaches to documentary photography to raise awareness, give voice to the voiceless and to promote acceptance within communities.

Silvestri’s work has been shown in Folkestone at the Brewery Tap and Sassoon Gallery, in London at Autograph ABP, Photographers’ Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, Roman Road Gallery, Mall Gallery and in France, Greece, Luxemburg, Taiwan and Reunion Island.  She was voted one of the British Journal of Photography’s two ‘Best of Show Winners’ at the Free Range exhibition, London in 2013 and was shortlisted for the 2017 Arendt, European Month of Photography awards.

Aida Silvestri, Why Margate?

Anna Ray and People United, Home

Crafting workshop – 12:00 to 16:00

In 2018 over the course of seven months, textile artist Anna Ray ran a series of workshops with a group of women in Ashford, including recently resettled Syrian women. The workshops explored the ways in which ‘home’ can be represented. The aim of the project was to bring a new community together to discover commonalities and celebrate differences.

This group continues to make artwork together as friends, meeting regularly to embroider and try out new skills learnt during the commission

Join the artist and some of the participants in a ‘making together’ workshop at Platforma 2019 alongside the original pieces made by the participants and Ray.

Home was commissioned by People United, the Diocese of Canterbury and Ashford Borough Council in 2018 and funded by Arts Council England.

Sawt of the Earth, Sawt of Margate

Field Sound Recording Workshop – 12:00 to 16:00

Please join us in a workshop with Sawt of the Earth in collaboration with sound artist, Mark Gergis.

Gergis will share some of his field recording works and explain how this process of capturing sound can be used in a variety of ways. The art and social and political power of field recordings as a means to capture the sonic traces of people, landscapes and locations will be discussed. Workshop participants will have the chance to capture their own recordings of the sonic environment of Margate and will be shown how to edit these sounds and weave into stories.

Sawt of the Earth are a collective experimenting around the convergence between sonic memory and social collaboration, exploring the practice of using acoustics as a plane of radical exchange between people, time and space.

Adam Chodzko, A Hostile Environment 2019

Conversation with the artist – 12:00 to 13:00

Internationally renowned Kent based artist, Adam Chodzko, presents his past and current work engaging with questions of displacement, belonging and citizenship. Adam will be in conversation with Almir Koldzic, Co-Director of Counterpoints Arts.

Adam Chodzko, A Hostile Environment 2019

Local Network: Creating an Archive

Networking event, open to public – 14:00 to 16:00

Exploring the history of arts, refugee and migration projects in Kent. How might we work collectively to bring this archive to life? Led by local artists Julie Neville and Douglas Noble.

All welcome. To reserve a free place contact julie@jneville.co.uk

Farhad Berahman, Memory, Slow Portraiture and the Afghan Camera Box

Workshop -12:00 to 16:00

The Afghan Camera, or ‘kamra-e-faoree’ is still used as a traditional method of capturing memories by veteran street photographers in Afghanistan and Iran. The hand-made wooden camera acts as both the camera and darkroom, thus working as a ‘2 in 1’ machine. This enables capturing and instant printing of photographs, an individual copy handed to visitors upon processing of the image. This process of taking a photograph creates a space for exchange and conversation.

Join Berahman in the photographic process and in a hand colouring activity, a technique of treating images dating back to the early 19th century. The production process underpinning ‘Afghan Camera Box (kamra-e-faoree)’ can also be seen in Marcia Chandra’s short film, Conversation: Afghan Camera Box.

Umama Hamido, On Akka’s Shore

Performance and screening 16:00 to 17:30

Umama Hamido is a Lebanese artist who is currently based in the UK. Through performance, film, sound and text she explores experiences of loss, yearning, and remembrance. Her work unearths the ever-present human threads of resistance within seemingly insurmountable structures of power.

On Akka’s Shore was originally commissioned for SPILL Festival 2018: On Time. Supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation, Pacitti Company and Artsadmin.

Farhad Berahman, Memory, Slow Portraiture and the Afghan Camera Box

Workshop – 12:00 to 17:00

The Afghan Camera, or ‘kamra-e-faoree’ is still used as a traditional method of capturing memories by veteran street photographers in Afghanistan and Iran. The hand-made wooden camera acts as both the camera and darkroom, thus working as a ‘2 in 1’ machine. This enables capturing and instant printing of photographs, an individual copy handed to visitors upon processing of the image. This process of taking a photograph creates a space for exchange and conversation.

Join Berahman in the photographic process and in a hand colouring activity, a technique of treating images dating back to the early 19th century. The production process underpinning ‘Afghan Camera Box (kamra-e-faoree)’ can also be seen in Marcia Chandra’s short film, Conversation: Afghan Camera Box.

Afghan Camera Box by Farhad Berahman

Jillian Edelstein, Transitional Portraits, Photography and Displacement

Artist talk and photographic workshop – 12:00 to 17:00

Join us for a combined talk and participatory workshop with photographer, Jillian Edelstein. Edelstein will present photographs from her forthcoming book Here and There: The Search for Great Aunt Minna, which tells the story of her own family history of displacement.

Mixing photography with writing Edelstein often uses Instagram as a format to curate stories online – with images from Lesvos and Calais, to meeting Venezuelan refugees in Colombia, visits and post war trips to Rwanda, Kosovo, Bosnia, El Salvador. And the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.

Using mobile phones and a selfie printer to produce instant images, the workshop will invite participants to explore a number of themes mixing writing with photography:  the familiarity of culture, food, clothing, music; the fabric and texture of a known, comforting, familiar life and how that contradicts with one of non/unfamiliarity; exploring the same themes – music, food, culture, a way of being and new and different rules – lending towards feelings of being ’the other’ and what emotions that stirs up.

Henna Asikainen, Foraging ‘Omens’ Walk

Foraging ‘Omens’ Walk:  – 11.30 to 13.30

Join Asikainen as she guides us on a foraging pathway from Turner Contemporary to 101 Social Club.

Asikainen is a mixed-media artist, born in Joensuu, Finland.  Her work explores questions surrounding environmental justice, climate change, migration, human relationships with nature and the interplay between social, cultural and ecological issues.

Many of Asikainen projects have a site-specific element with communal and social experiences and have been created with the participation of displaced peoples’ communities and especially migrants with a refugee background.

Meet at front desk, at 11.30am.

Headway London (with Headway Thanet), Submit to Love Studios

Gallery talks, sound installation and workshop – 12:00 to 16:00

Sound Installation: 12 brain injury survivors share their stories in a sound installation. Listen to stories about their cultural, geographical and physical displacement in an ever-changing world. Drawing on some key themes from this years’ Turner finalists, these conversations provide a platform to unheard communities with intersecting identities and experiences. Project run by charity Headway East London.

Workshop: Led by the artists of Submit to Love Studios as they explore identity and model-making in response to Turner nominee Oscar Murillo’s work.

10-Minute Talks: Talks will take place in the Turner Prize galleries, between 14.00 and 16.00. Four members of the Headway group will reflect on the works in the Turner Prize exhibition.

Headway East London is a charity supporting people affected by brain injury. They offer specialist support and services to survivors and their families, whilst also campaigning for greater awareness. They also make art, music, food and culture at their Hackney hub. Their vision is to create a community where people with brain injury are valued, respected and able to fulfil their potential.

 Submit to Love Studios is home to a group of mostly self-taught artists who have all survived brain injuries. They work collectively in an open environment and help bring out the best in each other. Their mission is “discovery through art”, and the studio is based at charity Headway East London in Hackney.

Juan del Gado: Drifting Narratives

Screening of Fleches Sans Corps (8 min, 2003)

Screening of excerpts and a work-in-progress presentation by del Gado, in relation to his current multi-screen project In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun.

Following a refugee from Damascus in search of answers to his identity in Sweden, In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun explores displacement, global warning and belonging via a journey through the vast landscape of the Arctic.

A Counterpoints Arts’ Learning Lab in partnership with Plymouth College of Art

The Art of Networking and the Platforma Festival

Learning Lab – 13:30 to 15:30

A map of the Platforma Festival 2019 spans across the edges and centres of local areas, neighbourhoods, arts venues and cultural organisations in Kent and Medway, resulting in a rich range of creative connections and co-productions. It shows that the art of building networks lies at the very heart of the commissioning and co-curatorial process of the Festival. These are the networks that aspire to be collaborative and cooperative, are often fluid and thrive on negotiating relationships, mutual exchanges and the sharing of resources.

Join us for a reflective conversation before the Platforma Festival ends to help capture some of the concrete forms and potential legacies of these evolving networks. The dialogue will address questions emerging from the event, how we move forward to develop tangible projects and what the implications may be for the institutions and organisations that we interact with. This conversation will include several of the artists, cultural activists, curators, producers, educators and participants who have helped shape and have fed into the reciprocal architecture of the Festival as well as invited participants including: Aida Silvestri (Artist & Community Organiser); Gurvinder Sandher (Artistic Director, Cohesion Plus); Stephen Felmingham (Plymouth College of Art); Julie Neville (Platforma South East Coordinator); Tim Butcher (Department for People and Organisations, OU); Tom Green (Counterpoints and  Platforma Coordinator).

Moderated by Áine O’Brien, Co-Director Counterpoints Arts

http://learninglabeditions.org/

https://www.plymouthart.ac.uk/