This curated by Bronwyn
Lace and Basak Senova, is the first collaboration with the Centre for the Less Good Idea and the Octopus Programme. It will
take place simultaneously at William Kentridge's studio in Johannesburg and the university gallery in the Heiligenkreuzer
Hof, Vienna; it will be streamed and recorded.
The Octopus Programme is a guided
research-based educational programme, encourages artistic research and production-based collaborations across academies and
art institutions; students and professionals; diverse presentation modes; and processes of research and documentation in different
geographies. As an initiative of the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and Kamel Lazaar Foundation in Tunis, the first
chapter of the programme is designed as a two-semester course “Spectral Encounters”. Led by Basak Senova, Visiting Professor
at Art and Communication Practices and Barbara Putz-Plecko, Vice-Rector for
Research and Diversity, it takes place
both at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and B7L9, Kamel Lazaar Foundation in Tunis as a pilot application in 2020/2021.
While the Octopus Programme functions as a support mechanism for emerging artists, the main objective of the programme is
to accumulate experience-based collective and creative output by taking geopolitical, social, ecological, and educational
urgencies and diversities
into consideration.
The Centre for the Less Good Idea, based
in Johannesburg, South Africa is founded by artist William Kentridge, the Centre aims to find the less good idea by creating
and supporting experimental, collaborative and cross-disciplinary arts projects. Since its inception the Centre has hosted
IN CONVERSATION, often leveraging off existing opportunities and identifying remarkable individuals and fellow artists/thinkers
in to spontaneous conversations with Kentridge. In this connection Ponger and Kentridge will speak to one another from their
respective cities and spaces of work about their approaches to generating work and the points where their work coincides.
