Baku, June 12, AZERTAC

Commissioned by YARAT Contemporary Art Space, A Drop of Sky is the 3rd Public Art Festival in Baku and will run 13 June - 5 October 2015. Coinciding with the first European Games, and benefiting from the broad international audience who will be in Baku, over this period, the Public Art Festival will give both residents and visitors to Baku the chance to see a range of events held within the frame of the Festival. Participating artists include Wafaa Bilal, Ergin Çavuşoğlu, Farhad Farzaliyev and Nazrin Mammadova. Artworks will be displayed at various locations throughout the city as well as through a web based technological component that explores the virtual public art platform. The festival will be accompanied by an education programme including a film club, artist talks and a two week workshop, AA Baku school: a collaboration with Architecture Association in London led by architects and AA tutors Omid Kamvari and Kasper Ax.

Curated by Sara Raza, Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator for the Middle East and North Africa and YARAT Head of Education, the festival investigates how contemporary artists and audiences perceive the rapidly developing natural, scientific and technological changes currently occurring in Baku and beyond. Taking inspiration from the poetry and thinking of Russian Futurist Velimir Khlebnikov, the festival explores ideas pertaining to poetry, philosophy, astronomy, logic and illogic. Referencing the city’s rich history as a major trade port and its recent urban gentrification, A Drop of Sky responds to ideas concerning nostalgia for both the past and the future and the point at which the ancient and the modern intersect.

Launching the festival on 13 June, Turkish-Bulgarian artist Ergin Çavuşoğlu will present a special site-specific anamorphic perspective floor drawing within the Old City entitled ‘Liquid Breeding’ (2015). The work explores both the artist’s longstanding interest in the work of conceptual pioneer Marcel Duchamp and the vertical and horizontal expansion of Baku. Çavuşoğlu’s drawing has been appropriated from a three-dimensional architectural model, which the artist invites audiences to walk across. The everyday act of walking is recorded by a camera, which relays these recordings onto a monitor that presents the illusion of audiences walking within a sculpture. Çavuşoğlu will talk at the YARAT Contemporary Art Centre on 13 June about his work for the festival.

Further probing Baku’s architectural expansion, emerging artist Nazrin Mammadova reimagines the future regeneration of the city of Baku through the medium of her video game ‘OUROBORUM’ (2015), launching in July 22, through which she invites gamers to participate in a stimulating and playful reconstruction of a new future city. ‘OUROBORUM’ is named after the ancient Greek tail biting snake, a popular symbol of the cycle of renewal, and draws on several Azerbaijani cultural tropes, ranging from histories, geometric pattern language, futuristic architecture and traditional and contemporary local music. It will be available to download for free on iOS platforms.

Farhad Farzaliyev’s neon billboard project entitled ‘GÖYDƏ GÖY GÖYƏRTİ GÖYƏRDİ/ Green Grass in the Sky Turned Blue’ (2015) launching 26 June is a poetic tongue twister that toys with language and lyricism. By re-appropriating the language of commercial advertising through the repetitive use of the same consonants in multiple neon words Farzaliyev investigates the objects of public daily consumption and how these are sometimes absurdly processed through text, language and alliteration. In reversing the relationship between the ground and the sky the artist aims to confuse viewers both logically and linguistically and provide a humorous commentary on everyday commercialism and semiotics.

At the beginning of October, Iraqi-American artist Wafaa Bilal will be creating a special rendition of the camera obscura sculpture

entitled ‘The Hierarchy of Being,’ which was originally commissioned by Maraya Art Park in the United Arab Emirates in 2013. Bilal’s project is inspired by pioneering Islamic scientists, in particular the work of two influential Iraqi scientists in the field of optics and kinetic motion; Ibn al-Haytham and Ibn Al-Jazari, active during the Golden Age of Islam circa 750 - 1258 CE. In the context of Baku, Bilal looks at the relationship between architecture and the public as part of a permanent installation along the coastline of the Caspian Sea in Baku that seeks to slow down the motion of a city ‘on the move.’

In conjunction with the festival, a lively education programme of artist talks will commence in June. A series of film screenings inspired by science fiction and futurism will run from July to August at YARAT Contemporary Art Centre’s auditorium and open air cinema on the rooftop of YAY Gallery. The programme will include works by contemporary artists and filmmakers including Larissa Sansour, Shezad Dawood, Deniz Uster and Vahid Vakilifar. In addition, a two week special workshop orchestrated by the AA Baku School, formed in collaboration with the Architecture Association in London will be led by architects and AA tutors Omid Kamvari and Kasper Ax. The AA Baku School will be the first of its kind in the Caucasus region providing a space for architects, writers, artists and thinkers to converge and participate in an intensive workshop exploring current ideas on spatial thinking.

YARAT is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to nurturing an understanding of contemporary art in Azerbaijan and to creating a platform for Azerbaijani art, both nationally and internationally. Based in Baku, YARAT (meaning CREATE in Azerbaijani) was founded by Aida Mahmudova in 2011. YARAT realises its mission through an on-going program of exhibitions, education events and festivals. YARAT facilitates exchange between local and international artistic networks including foundations, galleries and museums. A series of reciprocal residencies further fosters opportunities for global cultural dialogue and partnership.