Parkcycle arrives in Baku | Aug – Sept 2013 | Produced by YARAT for PARTICIPATE Baku Public Art Festival

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A joint project by N55 and Rebar Group, Parkcycle Swarm has landed for August – September 2013 at PARTICIPATE: Baku Public Art Festival 2013, produced by YARAT Contemporary Art Organisation.  Specially commissioned for PARTICIPATE, John Bela of Rebar Group (U.S.A.) joined forces with Till Wolfer and N55 (Scandinavian collective) to create the four-piece Parkcycle  Swarm. The work joins Baku’s six-month festival, which continues until 17thSeptember 2013. This year the annual festival includes five international artists’ projects and five Azerbaijani artists’ projects, each involving viewer participation.

YARAT’s founder Aida Mahmudova comments, “Parkcycle Swarm is a brilliant addition to the Public Art Festival, helping expand our expectations of ‘public art’ and creating a social, green space wherever its components travel. We hope to inspire artists and the public alike with our programme, so we are delighted to welcome both the Parkcycle Swarm and Rebar group’s director John Bela to give a lecture at YARAT.”

Parkcycle Swarm for Baku consists of four small mobile parks, which are being cycled through the city. Described by Rebar group as a “human-powered, open space distribution system,” Parkcycle debuted in San Francisco in 2007, offering immediate access to green space for the neighbourhoods it parked in. By bringing the project to Baku, Rebar Groupaims to expand the possibilities of public sculpture whilst raising awareness of cycle-power, community participation and the importance of green space.

Works at the Baku Public Art Festival 2013 range from a giant Rubber Duck by Florentijn Hofman (Netherlands), which arrives on 5th September, to Farkhad Haqverdi’s (Azerbaijan) Yard Art initiative, which has transformed Baku’s most neglected spaces, through to a performance and installation 9th Apartment by Georgian collective Group Bouillon, which questioned post-Soviet ideas of public and private space.
The festival aims to engage with the city socially and creatively and to bring awareness to public art. PARTICIPATE runs alongside YARAT’s exhibitions in YAY Gallery, their education program, film festivals and involvement in international festivals and biennials.

Parkcycle Swarm will be followed by Florentijn Hofman’s Rubber Duck, landing in Baku 5th September.

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Written by: admin on August 21, 2013.

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