about the project

“Spare Time” is an international project that seeks to capture fields of human endeavour not generally seen as socially formative, but that undoubtedly influence life in general as they become a voluntary stimulus for a greater or lesser swathe of human society.

The project focuses on long-term phenomena that affect life in general and have stimulated social change or at least represented a rupture – however decadent – in established conventions. The 20th century, though a period of great change, grand gestures, immense human catastrophes and loud  calls for humanity and democracy, also encompassed a desire for great empires that has overlapped with the present. Such is the monumental background for inappropriate activities that – with their strange and Utopian character and naïveté – fail to fit into the finer qualities of modernism, which lives on despite the ascent of the post-modern.

The collaborative preparatory teams will focus on exploring twentieth-century phenomena that might overlap with this century (where any such overlap exists) and study the influence of these phenomena on the present as well as the possibilities for forming similar Utopian movements in the near future.

The project will produce four exhibitions and workshops in the partners institutions: in Latvia (May – June 2011), Sweden (June – September 2011), Bulgaria (July – August 2011) and the Czech Republic (September – October 2011). Catalogues featuring concepts and results arising from the research of art and social movements will accompany the exhibitions.

The Spare Time project’s results and their dissemination seek to facilitate a dialogue between generations, among young artists and students as well as among art critics, cultural and art organizations, galleries, museums, educational institutions and the general public.

the theme

National Gallery in Prague

The purpose of the project  is to present artworks, movements and artistic expressions that have not been linked with intentions of attaining success and providing they remained known, then strictly as alternative activities – either of a private or socially critical nature. These undertakings are distinguished by a larger portion of unintentionality and a greater measure of desire for individual freedom, not only in the political sense, but above all with regard to personal privacy. The above project will open with a critical presentation of artistic material that has stood on the margin of those facets of aesthetic thought and expression that have been accorded greatest emphasis. This is why documentary photography is attracting interest today, whether images documenting their authors’ private lives, or pictures made originally as auxiliary material for the creation of works with major artistic ambitions.

Of similar importance today are expressions of the desire for sociability in the form of entertainment and pastimes of artistically inclined communities, as well as the pastimes and entertainment of non-artistic cultural entities. Therefore, the Czech part of the project will reflect on the culture connected with the utopia of the tramping movement, which expanded into a nationwide phenomenon in 20th-century Czechoslovakia. In the first decades of the 20th century, tramping was practiced as a type of escape from the stresses of urban life into nature; by the 1920s and 1930s, it had become a prominent social movement; in the second half of the 20th century, tramping was a getaway from a life ruled by totalitarian regimes. At the time, tramping was also manifested through distinctive forms of architecture, clothing, music, literature, as well as projects carried out by exponents of Czech avant-garde art – for example, the tramping camp built by the Mánes art association on the Malše River in southern Bohemia…

In this connection examined will be such phenomena as squatting, attempts of art movements to shun the traps of the market, different alternative trends, etc.

Latvian National Museum of Art

The endless political and social changes of the 20th century in Latvia created a philosophy that nothing is stable and that one must rely on oneself. National modifications to daily Soviet problem solving includes practical activities – fixing automobiles on work-day evenings and weekends, handicrafts, tending to small gardens, canning and pickling mushroom, and berry gathering – these practical activities carved out a topography from unattainable dreams to meditative flight. However after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the spiritual search that had its origins in the 6o’s and 70’s came out into the open it manifested itself in a new religiousness, Eastern philosophy studies and various spiritual paths typical of the New Age trend. Several artists have emerged, who pursue themselves to Yoga, Buddhism, Cyi-Gun, Hinduism and meditation practices. They strive for holistic spiritual and physical harmony with the Universe. These activities never became consciously organized movements, however they were quite widespread and were a major transformation, from Soviet and post-communistic reality and they continue in 21st Century Latvia.

Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Sweden

The Swedish attitude towards work and spare time was formed under the influence of Lutheran Protestantism.

Industrialism is one of the key factors that created a need for – and equally enabled – spare time. The regulation of working hours was crucial in creating a space in time that was something completely different than work. Already by the late 19th century the left wing was arguing for leisure, probably inspired by Paul Lafargue’s “The Right to Be Lazy”, which at the turn of the century was the second best selling political writing in the world, only second to “The Communist Manifesto”.

The Swedish concept will comprise a number of Swedish and international contemporary artists who in various ways deal with the concept of current spare time utopias: spare time as a time dedicated to recreation and self-fulfilment, spare time as a place for thought and reflection or spare time as a space for creativity and play. Spare Time also takes an interest in the social aspects of free time since some activities are better acted out individually while others need the participation of – and cooperation with – others. Yet they both can evoke the same kind of feelings, getting the body and mind interconnected through physical or intellectual activities, be it daydreaming, team sports or choir practice.

Cultural Horizon 2007 Association, Bulgaria

The Bulgarian national concept of SPARE TIME project is initially linked to the working hypotheses that the spare time in Bulgaria was never linked to Utopian visions. The concept is based on social researches, connected with: working place and spare time; artistic activities and spare time; youth and spare time – the main point of the Bulgarian project concept.

Modern art emancipates the artist`s personality. And change remained the only non-abolished sign of artistic expression after Modernity. Perhaps this is the reason for bright artistic presence of people who try to be as much topical as they can. Perhaps in Bulgaria there is no other stage than the stage of visual arts, categorically seized by young artists in the wake of the democratic changes (1989). They went there not to claim it but to declare that “they are” contemporary art. Range from “vanguard” to “nonconventional forms” came apart even more rapidly than in the parallel youth subcultures, seeking change in the Bulgarian interpretation of the art of that time.