Horacio Zabala. Revisar-Censurar. Drawing, 1974
Type of text: Manifesto
Related link: Blog Conceptual inexistente
Date of publication: March 2009
Southern Conceptualisms is an international platform for work, thought and collective positioning. The network was founded towards the end of 2007 by an international group of concerned researchers who felt the need to intervene politically in the processes being used to neutralize the critical potential of a set of conceptual practices that have arisen in Latin America since the 1960s.
The network Southern Conceptualisms believes that, just as has occurred with other emancipation projects, the subversive potential of such ‘conceptual practices’ was dismantled by State violence. The different attempts to reactivate this disruptive potential have been interrupted by the continual superimposition of various mechanisms: inoculation of the collective memory by the apparatus of the State, defensive forgetting by civil society, the depolarisation of subjectivities in their new role within neoliberal economies, the aesthetization of counterculture, etc. Over thirty years after the irruption of dictatorships in a large chunk of Latin America, their traumatic effect continues to suffocate intelligent life in our societies and to block the poetic and political potential of those experiences.
Southern Conceptualisms came into being with the idea of contributing to the re-activation of this critical potential. The main objective of Conceptualismos del Sur is therefore to vindicate the sensory memory of these experiences, so that it may become an antagonistic force in the current framework of cognitive capitalism.
The network Southern Conceptualisms is aware that museums, collectors and public and private art institutions that take part in the international system of contemporary art are involved in a serious dispute regarding the visibility, pertinence and management of artistic heritage and political experiences. It is therefore by no means gratuitous that we are witnessing a generalised process of institutionalisation and canonisation of archives, documents and other material and immaterial remnants derived from said ‘conceptual practices’. Our goal of reconnecting with these experiences, in order to reactivate their subversive potential, takes as its point of departure the need to influence this realm and thus invert these processes of neutralization.
Against this backdrop, Southern Conceptualisms considers itself to be a different possibility for politically thinking, doing, intervening, conceiving, exhibiting and historicizing the disruptive strength and critical capacity of the Latin American ‘conceptual’ art practices.
Founding Manifesto of Southern Conceptualisms
Since its inception in 2007, Southern Conceptualisms has grown informally thanks to the complicity, affection, solidarity and mutual trust of its members. With the idea of reinforcing its internal and external links, Conceptualismos del Sur wishes to manifest its intention to have, from this day forward, better articulated organizational, economic, technical and political mechanisms.
Through this founding document, Southern Conceptualisms declares the following:
That Southern Conceptualisms is an international platform for work, thought and collective positioning.
Southern Conceptualisms assumes that researching, generating archives and producing experiments for the re-activation of the memory of experience are political, and not merely academic or professional practices.
Southern Conceptualisms believes that the politics related to the creation, circulation and acquisition of archives must not only coincide with the recognition of the consequences of colonialism, but also with the recognition of the continued presence of colonialism in contemporary Latin America.
The name Southern Conceptualisms was chosen with the three following propositions in mind:
Through this founding document, Southern Conceptualisms declares as priority the following general objectives:
Southern Conceptualisms is comprised of individuals and groups.
Membership in the network is defined flexibly: whoever participates in an ongoing manner in one of its forums for encounters, work, deliberation and/or decision-making forms part of the network. This means there are different ways of taking part. Mere affinity to the process and objectives of the network is not indicative of belonging to it; belonging is defined exclusively by effectively taking part in one or more of its forums for organisation, participation, work, deliberation or decision-making and in accordance to the action protocols that each forum establishes for itself.
At the same time, the network promotes and creates different forms of alliance, collaboration or co-operation with other individuals and/or groups and institutions.
The organizational and decision-making structure is made up of the sum of its working groups and their transversal mutual interaction. A working group consists of a collective with specific, stated objectives that are defined and recognised within the network.
The working groups can be of two types:
(a) Specific working groups. These consist of individuals or groups that function with a high degree of autonomy within the network. They have the power to establish their own criteria regarding their degree of openness, flexibility, membership, etc., depending on the specific objectives of each of them. A typical specific working group would be, for example, one created in relation to the investigation of a specific archive or of an editorial project with a well-defined working subject.
(b) Transversal working groups. These consist of individuals or groups that address questions of general interest —transversal interests— to the network as a whole. The openness must be of the highest degree possible. Any member of the network who wishes to can be part of them, provided his or her participation is effective and his or her involvement is recognized as part of the group's internal working mechanics.
The working groups, whatever their type, must be based on transparent communication among themselves and with the network as a whole. Even when a member of the network does not participate in any working group, he or she must be able to enjoy free access (which should be complete and well-organised) to the set of research initiatives, information, deliberations and decisions which take place inside the working groups. The working groups therefore have the task of facilitating the organised transfer of the results of their work to the public sphere of the network.
The sum of the members and the working groups make up the deliberation level of the network.
The sum of the working groups make up the executive level of the network.
The working groups relate to one another in a collaborative fashion, based on the principles of transversality and autonomy, that is, on the articulated sum of common objectives and shared responsibilities. Decision-making criteria are thus the result of the autonomy of the groups and their transversal articulation.
The working groups recognised inside the network, of whatever type they may be, operate through specific mailing lists and occasional meetings for work and co-ordination purposes. The area of resonance or the public sphere of the network operates, in turn, through internal communication tools: a mailing list, a wiki, etc.
The occasional meetings are different from the network's plenary sessions.
The periodicity of the occasional work and co-ordination meetings depends on the development of the specific projects undertaken by the working groups. The plenary sessions will take place at least once every three years and will be devoted to taking stock and considering future prospects. In other words, they will make a diagnosis of the preceding phase and also pool and plan for subsequent objectives. The contents of the network's plenary sessions will be taken down in minutes which will be made public in printed form; to produce the minutes, a specific working group is formed, dedicated to creating this internal report. The participants in the occasional work and co-ordination meetings will also transfer the summaries of their meetings and the reports concerning their objectives, procedures and progress, to the network's public sphere.
Joining the public sphere or deliberative area of the network is open and horizontal but it requires that three previous conditions be met: 1) that one of its members present the new candidate; 2) that the new candidate manifest to the other members his or her interest in joining the group and 3) that he or she agree to the terms of this Declaration.
Any individual or group belonging to the network may propose and defend the creation of a certain specific or transversal group, or suggest him/herself as a candidate for forming part of one (or more) that already exist. Requisites for doing so are explaining the circumstances of his or her affinity with the group and, particularly, assuming the commitment to work with it. Criteria for including or not including a new member in a group already in operation depend on the general objectives of the working group and the specific objectives it has set, attending to both the need to strengthen horizontal, transversal and collective participation and also to the principle of specific organisation and efficiency in the management of each group.
Each group will regulate its own operation mechanics and its specific decision-making processes. The duration of the working groups will depend on the specific task involved.
The projects, specific objectives and protocols that each working group assumes must always be available to the public sphere of the network. The working groups must therefore promote transversality between their objectives and the network's deliberation forum.
The following individuals sign this document in mutual recognition of equality in difference.
March of 2009
Joaquín Barriendos Rodríguez (Mexico City / New York)
Jesús Carrillo (Madrid)
Helena Chávez Mac Gregor (Mexico City)
Fernando Davis (Buenos Aires)
Marcelo Expósito (Barcelona / Buenos Aires)
Ana Longoni (Buenos Aires)
Miguel López (Lima / Barcelona)
William Alfonso López Rosas (Bogota)
Fernanda Nogueira (São Paulo / Barcelona)
Soledad Novoa (Santiago de Chile)
Suely Rolnik (São Paulo)
Jaime Vindel (León)
Cristina Freire (São Paulo)
Alejandra Perié (Córdoba, Argentina)
Fernando Fraenza (Córdoba, Argentina)
Patricia Bentancur (Montevideo)
Cristina Ribas (Rio de Janeiro)
David Gutierrez Castañeda (Bogota)
María Clara Cortés (Bogota)
Sylvia Juliana Suárez Segura (Bogota)
Clemente Padín (Uruguay)
María Fernanda Cartagena (Quito)
Emilio Tarazona (Peru)
Paulina Varas (Chile)
Octavio Mercado (Mexico)
<< go back to Southern Conceptualisms Network
