Working on the project "Atlas" with Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann

Workshop directed by Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann

In 1929 the economist and philosopher Otto Neurath (1882 Vienna, Austria – 1945 Oxford, United Kingdom) and the artist and graphic designer Gerd Arntz (1900 Remscheid – 1988) began their collaboration in the Wiener Institut für Bildstatistik (Vienna Institute of Graphical Statistics). In 1930 they published a basic illustrated atlas of society and the economy entitled Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft. Bildstatistisches Elementarwerk. The atlas included around a hundred graphs with the aim of indicating and informing readers of the most important economic conditions of the times by providing tools to dig deeper into its historical and cultural context.

The German artists' collective Creischer/Siekmann has worked before to update many pages of this Atlas in collaboration with students from different universities and schools, such as, for example, in Lüneburg (Germany) in 2003 and in Klagenfurt (Germany) in 2005. On this occasion, Creischer/Siekmann propose a workshop for conducting research to update pages 45 and 46 of the Atlas, which deal with natural rubber production translated into soy production. The result of the workshop will consist of a new panel that will be included in the exhibition Modernologies, which will open in the MACBA at the end of September.

During the workshop, the artists will explain the project Atlas and will discuss the research method to pursue. After the end of the workshop, the project will continue developing via email if conditions are established for the artists to do so.

Workshop aimed at students and other people interested in conducting research on topics such as agricultural industry, the socio-economic consequences of soy cultivation, the global economy and its consequences for world hunger