Founded in 2004, the KÖR institution in Wien (“Kunst im öffentlichen Raum”, or “Public Art Vienna”) is committed to breathing new life into the city of Vienna’s public space with permanent or temporary art projects.
Early 2017, KÖR´s ‘20 Seconds for Art‘ project placed an open call for soundless 20-second spots that interpreted the subject of ‘City-Visions’ artistically on 2.500 info-screens in underground stations, trams and buses in cities throughout Austria.
Holger Nickisch submitted the above short film, which is titled ‘Global change starts from within local communities´. The images in this 20 second spot were drawn from an urban art project Nickisch did earlier in Amsterdam-West, named …Punt.
With project …Punt, Holger Nickisch transformed an urban wasteland in Amsterdam Nieuw-West district into a public meeting point for the troubled demographic of that neighbourhood, with the aim of reviving a much lacking dynamic there.
In an interdisciplinary program that spanned over a year, Nickisch involved theatre maker Christiaan Mooij to co-create a dance-and-movement project for all generations in the demographic. The project brought the inhabitants of the district together, while involving local schools, businesses, amateur as well as professional artists, and policy makers.
Much like the title of this film entry for KÖR´s 20 Seconds for Art, the …Punt-project´s city vision revolves around activating the synergies which are potentially and concretely present within any local community, to enable the larger metropole to flourish. In that regard, the project in Amsterdam Nieuw-West was another successful example of how art & culture can play a significant role in achieving such an aim.
This 20 second film, reduced from the …Punt-project in Amsterdam-West, shows only five imaginative examples of the art interventions that took place in public space. It is but a modest testimony to the entirety of the year-lasting project.
