In collaboration with

RIR in Public is an occasion that shares with the public current research by artists, curators, or writers in the Research-in-Residence (RIR) program in various and informal settings.

On Sunday 16 December 2007, the two-part workshop On movement, thought and politics by artists Ashley Hunt and Taisha Paggett drew from their present inquiries, which brought kinesthetic thinking and cerebral activity together in order to process the everyday patterns and habits that shape us as bodies and subjects, establishing our relationship to power and constituting the agency we might demand. The first part of the workshop foregrounded Hunt and Paggett’s research through a presentation interwoven with simple movement-thought exercises. The second part featured a panel discussion with local artists, dancers, academics, and activists whose own work engages the project’s broader themes. Panelists included Annette Krauss (artist) and Katya Sander (artist).

Taisha Paggett is a Los Angeles-based dance artist and co-instigator of the dance journal project itch. Her work is inspired by various discourses on the body as an expressive tool, and she is interested in bridging the sensibility and discourses of both the visual and performing arts. Her recent choreographic works include How we get by, and Living with – – – – is like living…. As a dancer, Paggett has worked extensively in the projects of David Rousseve, Cheng-Chieh Yu, Victoria Marks, and Kelly Nipper, and she assisted Yvonne Rainer in the development of Agon. She is also a member of the audio action collective Ultra-Red. ( www.taishapaggett.net)

Ashley Hunt is an artist, activist, and writer who engages the ideas of social movements, public discourse, and intersections between politics and subjectivity. His primary work of the past eight years has been the development of The Corrections Documentary Project, which deals with the contemporary growth of prisons and their centrality to today’s economic restructuring and politics of race. His most recent work is 9 Scripts from a Nation at War, made in collaboration with Andrea Geyer, Sharon Hayes, Katya Sander, and David Thorne for documenta 12. Hunt is based in Los Angeles. ( www.ashleyhuntwork.net)

The Research-in-Residence program (RIR) provides international artists, researchers, writers, curators, and critics with an opportunity to spend a period of time living and working in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands in order to develop their artistic or theoretical work.

Residencies are of different durations and vary according to the needs of the residents as well as the agreements and commitments with or towards the cooperating organizations. Two Utrecht-based art organizations are responsible for the RIR program: BAK, basis voor actuele kunst and SWK, Foundation for Working Spaces for Artists.