On Friday, 21 October at 6 pm, please join us for a performance-presentation by artist Hamza Mohammed Beg, currently participating in the joint residency programme of Tallinn Art Hall and Goethe-Institut Estland, The Art of Being Good!
PEDESTRIANISM is an in-progress site-specific investigation into how ideology can be produced in different ways. It is anchored by a central text which brings together ideas that range from the political to the spiritual and from the civic to the poetic. The aim of the residency project has been to expand these ideas into a set of four experimental workshops that focus on embodiment. As a group, we have been seeking to turn this emerging collection of cues and questions into something city-specific and organic to its environment. The final performance-presentation seeks to demystify the project and explain the processes that we have undertaken as a group. It aims to use the clarity of a presentation and the fluency of a performance without actually committing to either format.
Schedule
6 pm: Gathering in front of the Tallinn Town Hall (Tallinna Raekoda), followed by a collective outdoor walking activity. The audience is encouraged to follow or join the group as we walk together, collectively carrying a symbol of both our oppression and freedom to the venue. We will walk and find our way to the former Lugemik bookstore next to the main entrance of the Tallinn Art Hall.
6.30 pm: Performance-presentation at the former Lugemik bookstore next to the main entrance of the Tallinn Art Hall, elaborating and expanding on the workshop process.
A variety of materials that produced during the four workshops will be displayed at the venue. During a short break, attendees will be invited to explore the space, enjoy snacks and get to know each another. The evening will end with a short Q&A session, where the audience can explore the topics of civic participation, the role of art and artists in political change, non-authoritarian ideology and the possible pedestrian futures both here in Tallinn and elsewhere.
The event is held in English. Free admission!
Hamza Mohammed Beg is a walker, writer and artist based in Berlin, with roots in London, Pakistan and Mauritius. His practice ranges from the immaterial and quotidian to the hyper-specific and starkly visual. He uses video, poetry, audio and performance to explore place and place-making. His work at the Tallinn Art Hall marks the first part in a two-legged journey that also involves taking the process of PEDESTRIANISM to Lagos, Nigeria before the end of 2022.
The aim of the residency programme hosted by Tallinn Art Hall and Goethe-Institut Estland, The Art of Being Good, is to spur artistic research and discourse on the topics of ecological awareness, environmental sustainability and the ethics of making art. Although tackling the ecological, social and economic components of the crisis is common in art, artworks and exhibitions rarely direct attention towards their own role in the ruinous sequence of events. The residency complements Tallinn Art Hall’s ongoing exhibition series which pays special attention both to the possibility of being good and to ecological responsibility in conditions of certain destruction. Previous exhibitions in the series have been The Art of Being Good in 2019 and Pine-fulness in 2021.
