[spectre] Balaklava Odyssey, HMKV Dortmund, 7 July 2007, 19:00

[Inke Arns]

Dear colleagues and friends of HMKV,

despite the summer vacation we would like to 
invite you to an amazing film and project 
presentation on Saturday evening from 19:00 at 
PHOENIX Halle Dortmund.

There will be music and visuals (and drinks) 
afterwards and the exhibition "History Will 
Repeat Itself" will stay open late at night 
(until the events is over). Please also note our 
changed opening times (Thu + Fr 11 - 22 hrs; Sat 
+ Sun 11 - 20 hrs)

We look forward to seeing you at PHOENIX Halle!

Many greetings
Inke Arns


-------

(ad hoc translation!)

BALAKLAVA ODYSSEY
Film and project presentation

Hartware MedienKunstVerein
at PHOENIX Halle Dortmund
Saturday, July 7, 2007, 19:00 (c.t.)

http://www.hmkv.de/dyn/e_program_events/detail.php?nr=2478&rubric=events&


Balaklava was the 'Gallic' village of the Soviet 
Union which defied the class enemy during the 
Cold War. Since the 1950s Balaklava, located at 
the Southern tip of the Crimea, served as a 
submarine base of the Black Sea Fleet. A 
submarine hangar was built into the Tauris 
Mountain directly at the bay - serving at the 
same time as bunker and depot for nuclear 
weapons. Balaklava was a highly secret facility - 
so secret in fact that the entire settlement was 
closed for visitors and civilians, and that it 
even did not figure on Soviet maps.

It is thus that an important part of occidental 
cultural history was rendered inaccessible. 
Balaklava, in antiquity a Greek settlement, is 
the setting for the myth of the Tantalids. In the 
Odyssey, Homer mentions the bay, and Euripides 
and later Goethe incorporated the myth of 
"Iphigenie on Tauris" which is set in Balaklava, 
in their theatre plays.

It was only with the collapse of the Soviet Union 
and the dissolution of the submarine fleet that 
Balaklava opened up again. As a prelude for the 
cultural revitalisation of the city the Berlin 
based Sebastian Kaiser organised an international 
art festival in the former submarine hangar in 
2006. At the same time he made a film about 
"Balaklava-Odyssey" which portrays inhabitants 
and veterans who served in the once closed city, 
and presents the art event.

Many of the people Sebastian Kaiser interviewed - 
among them high ranking officers of the Black Sea 
Fleet and submarine captains - lived through and 
today stand for the period of the Cold War, from 
the beginning to its end. The life stories of 
these people, today well advanced in years, shed 
light on the mentality and the disintegration of 
the Soviet Union. The film traces the historical 
and cultural complexity as well as the opening up 
of Balaklava - which reads like a parable of the 
opening up of Eastern Europe after the Cold War.

The film and the project will be presented in 
Dortmund on Saturday 7 July 2007, at 19:00 hrs at 
Hartware MedienKunstVerein at PHOENIX Halle.

Curated by Sebastian Kaiser (Berlin)

Participants:
Joulia Strauss (Berlin)
Natasha Poloka (Moscow)
Dmytro Fedorenko alias Kotra (Kiev)
Svetlana Kazarina (Sevastopol)
Hendrik Schumacher (Berlin)
Aleksander Janicki (Krakow)

www.balaklava-odyssey.com

Funded by:
Kulturstiftung des Bundes

* * *

Currently on view at PHOENIX Halle Dortmund
HISTORY WILL REPEAT ITSELF - Strategies of 
Re-enactment in contemporary (media) art and 
performance
with 22 international artistic positions.

June 9 - September 23, 2007
Thu + Fri 11 - 22 hrs
Sat + Sun 11 - 20 hrs

More information:
http://www.hmkv.de/dyn/e_program_exhibitions/detail.php?nr=2104&rubric=exhibitions&

* * *

VENUE:
PHOENIX Halle Dortmund
Hochofenstr. / Ecke Rombergstr.
Dortmund-Hoerde

How to get there / map:
http://www.hmkv.de/dyn/e_contact_roaddescription/



-- 

Dr. Inke Arns
Künstlerische Leiterin / Artistic Director
Hartware MedienKunstVerein
Güntherstrasse 65 * D-44143 Dortmund
T ++49 (0) 231 - 823 106
F ++49 (0) 231 - 882 02 40
inke.arns at hmkv.de
www.inkearns.de

Don't miss these shows when travelling (to) Europe this summer:

/////// History Will Repeat Itself ////// Strategies of re-enactment
in contemporary (media) art and performance, HMKV at PHOENIX Halle
Dortmund/D, 9 June - 23 Sep 2007, www.hmkv.de

////// irational.org ////// Tools, Techniques and Events 1996-2006,
CCA Glasgow/GB, 16 June - 21 July 2007, www.cca-glasgow.com