Sivuvalo – literary activism at its finest
Sivuvalo – literary activism at its best
Sivuvalo is literary activism at its best. The network/publishing company that works across national borders to promote non-Finnish literature from Finland is a fresh way for literature in a globalized world.
In a globalized world literature and the literary market are yet jetlagged. Slowly publishers and foremost independent networkers, writers and organizers are catching up on a development nobody can call recent anymore. Even big publishing companies that are specializing in the book market recognize the need to transform their portfolio to a broader and more international approach.
But this is still new and untestified ground for the literary world. For literature it can very well be said that it’s inhabited by coteries of increasingly problematic posts – post-colonialism, race, nation, gender, modernism, amongst others – when it goes international. And the hybrid spaces that are created by that carry the weight of weariness from the reader and writer as well. Continue reading “Sivuvalo – literary activism at its best”
Daniela Seel in conversation with Cia Rinne and Gernot Wieland
Translated from German by Hester Underhill
7 days, 2 artists, 1 location – Two new artists are coming together every week to create a new event at Lettrétage as part of the CON_TEXT project.
Poet and publisher Daniela Seel met with CON_TEXT artists, Cia Rinne and Gernot Wieland, at Lettrétage. This is what they had to say.
Daniela Seel: Let’s start at the beginning – what made you decide to work together? Why were you interested by each other?
Cia Rinne: I think I was very irrational. I liked Gernot a lot from the off and could imagine myself working well with him. The only thing was that, unlike with the other possible partners I could have had, I did not have a clear idea what the two of us could do together. That sort of open-endedness poses a kind of challenge that I really like. The way we work is rather different to how I am used to working – I’m really glad that we met. Selecting our partners was a mixed experience. Meeting the other artists was great but it was also tainted by the fact that we would imminently have to pick out partners to work with, which is always an awkward thing to have to do.
Gernot Wieland: I also think that the conditions set out for us were peculiar. What would have happened if all ten of the artists wanted to work with Cia and no one wanted to work with another author? The chemistry was right between us, that’s all. But I equally don’t know how else you could organise it.
DS: The teams were finalised by the end of 2016; you had to be ready to present by late January. You must have had to move insanely fast?
GW: In the world of fine arts, there are different types of people. You’ve got certain people who like to go to their workshops, throw on their overalls and get cracking that way. I’m more of a “deadline artist” – I get invited to do a project that has a theme and a deadline and I create a piece of work for it. That’s what helps me.
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Photos from the first annual gathering of the literary industry
As part of the „WiSU – Wirtschaftliche Stärkung der UrheberInnen in der freien Literaturszene Berlin“ project. The project is a relay station that enables a contact point between authors, editors, organizers of literary events, translators of literature and small publishers, in order to get in touch, exchange information, cooperate, support each other and develop new ideas TOGETHER.
A project of the literary house Lettrétage.
Funded by
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OMNIBUS Reading Tour in Kiel 2016: Literary Walk (DE)
Best of CROWD: impressions
Here you can see pictures from the various countries that the Crowdlitbus traveled through. The tour may be over, however if you would like more information, read interviews with the participating authors, or look at more pictures and videos, visit http://crowd-literature.eu/. There you can also find current information about CROWD.