Welcome to the Index summer festival The Defying Parrot. The defying parrot is one part character, one part mimesis, one part festival. The festival is a gathering point for the poly-vocal voices of Index’ learning program. Celebrating the form that harbours and contains the artistic work happening throughout the year in Index in relation to learning. The festival functions as a platform to test out the learning related temporalities of the institution.

Here in the festival format, we have invited the character of the parrot – one who can mimic and defy political, social and artistic forms – to help us to understand ways of approaching social responsibility, group dynamics and the core activities of learning with contemporary artistic practice. The festival generates and repeats poetic statements, much like a mimicking parrot lost in the city.

There are three new commissions for the festival, as well as workshops, performances and musical responses. The commissions each experiment with methods of co-authorship, inviting groups of young people to work alongside and within the process, complicating the question of mimicry in learning with contemporary art. The Defying Parrot invites you to follow the movements of social movements in the city, it greets you as the Host and The Ghost of the gallery, it calls out in response to technological aspects of mimicry, and visits an exhibition in character.

Responding to discussions and experiences of the Index Teen Advisory Board, the parrot is a critical response to the socially coded nature of art spaces.

Participating artists: Ina Hagen and Sol Archer together with Index Teen Advisory Board: Daniel Murisima, Ida Ippolito, Hannes Schelin, Mika Sundell, Maria Muhoza, Isabella Gillborg, and Niko Erfani, Celine Manz together with Amina Seid Tahir and Leo W O Silkeberg, Pontus Petterson together with The Hosts and The Ghosts, and Tyler Coburn.

Food and drinks by Vivo Vegan Food Bike, music by Stockholmskolan Deluxe led by Shida Shababi and DJ Lasmi Belmar. Producer and Curator: Emmeli Person

Friday

Shared dinner: POTLUCK POLLY

Fri 14 June, 18:00-20:00

Celebrating the third year of Index Teen Advisory Board we invite you all to a potluck dinner in the gallery. Sprung from the discussions of this years board we are putting the white cube on pause, as the gallery floor swells up to welcome the old, new and prospective voices that all help define Index as an institution. The aim of the Index Teen Advisory Board is to bring together a group of young people with differing life experiences and reflect together on the role and potential of art and culture today. Come to celebrate the board members with us. Bring a dish, bring a friend, celebrate another terms end.

Saturday

Walk: TO ALL THE GODS HONEY, TO THE MISTRESS OF THE LABYRINTH HONEY IN EQUAL AMOUNTS

Sat 15 June, 16:00-18:00

Artists Ina Hagen and Sol Archer together with Index Teen Advisory Board have built a new work for the Index summer festival. Over six months the board and the artists have collaborated to better understand socialised behaviour and ways of being in public. You are welcome to join for the final part of this commission that draws inspiration from the Brazilian carnival structure, called a ‘Bloco’, which moves through public spaces of the city without a fixed route or hierarchy. The walk extends directly from a series of interventions and provocations created by the Index Teen Advisory Board with the artists. Limited places, RSVP info@indexfoundation.se.

Requirements: bring a phone with a data connection and sufficient power. There will be quite a lot of walking involved, so wear shoes that you are comfortable in, if you have specific mobility needs please contact us to discuss them in advance. THIS WALK WILL ALSO BE HELD SUNDAY 16TH 14:00 – 16:00

Performative workshop: HOSTING AND GHOSTING

Sat 15 June, 16:00-18:00

Artist and choreographer Pontus Petterson works with social choreography, and he invites allies, characters and figures that co-exists in choreographic formations. During the festival Petterson will lead a performative take on a workshop, that looks into the concept of hosting. Together the group engages artistically with service professions that are normally given to young people, jobs such as the gallery assistant, the intern, the service provider, the waitress. You can take part in the workshop by emailing info@indexfoundation.se or simply watch the hosting and ghosting taking place in the gallery.

Open workshop: LANGUAGE IS A VIRUS

Sat 15 June, 16:00-18:00
Welcome to a collective writing workshop that attempts to build a glossary for the defying parrot. Taking the starting point of how computers collect information from human activities – for example, Google Docs algorithms that learn from the writing of its users – this workshop looks to bacteria and viruses as a model for crafting the glossary of our times. Together we un-code, mimicing and reseeding the AI data mines. No RSVP necessary, you can join and take part in the virus making as you wish. Led by Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris and Emmeli Person.

Performance: fold; REAN-ACTORS

Sat 15 June, 19:00-19:20

Artist Celine Manz works with the nuances between being inspired by, copying and re-anacting. The project fold; investigates the case of Swiss Avant-Garde artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp and what happened to her artistic legacy after her death. For the Defying Parrot festival Manz has invited two younger Stockholm artists, Leo Silkeberg William-Olsson & Amina Seid Tahir, to interpret and appropriate her work. The performance is written and performed by Leo and Amina for this context and mimics the effects of what happens when artists are no longer in control of their work.

Performative reading: RICHARD ROE

Sat 15 June, 20:00-20:30

On the occasion of the Index summer festival, artist Tyler Coburn will read excerpts from his memoir Richard Roe, exploring concepts of personhood from legal, psychological, and metaphysical realms. The name “Richard Roe” is one of the oldest used in English law when the real name of someone is withheld, or when a corpse cannot be identified. Richard Roe is a known unknown, a one-size-fits-all, a potentially everyone and actually no one. Coburn’s memoir was published by Sternberg Press in 2019 and designed by Luke Gould.

DJ: Lasmi Belmar & Parakeets

Sat 15 June, 20:30-22:00

Parrots like to dance so do we.

DJ Lasmi Belmar will perform a set for the Saturday evening of the festival. Neo soul, hip hop, dancehall and brazilian funk is status qou when Brujas go to tunes. Expect nothing else than a magical vibe. Belmar is a local Stockholm artist, who also takes part in the independent youth art program, Stockholmsskolan Deluxe. Let the tunes drift over you, as the defying parrot and parakeets, take flight.

Sunday

Walk: TO ALL THE GODS HONEY, TO THE MISTRESS OF THE LABYRINTH HONEY IN EQUAL AMOUNTS

Sun 16 June, 14:00-16:00

Artists Ina Hagen and Sol Archer together with Index Teen Advisory Board have built a new work for the Index summer festival. Over six months the board and the artists have collaborated to better understand socialised behaviour and ways of being in public. You are welcome to join for the final part of this commission that draws inspiration from the Brazilian carnival structure, called a ‘Bloco’, which moves through public spaces of the city without a fixed route or hierarchy. The walk extends directly from a series of interventions and provocations created by the Index Teen Advisory Board with the artists. Limited places, RSVP info@indexfoundation.se.

Requirements: bring a phone with a data connection and sufficient power. There will be quite a lot of walking involved, so wear shoes that you are comfortable in, if you have specific mobility needs please contact us to discuss them in advance.

Throughout the weekend

Booksale: A BOOK IS A BOOK IS A CHEAP BOOK

During the entire weekend Index will host an art book sale – selling and sharing titles from Index’ ever changing bookshelf. This is a chance for you to take home a forgotten art classic, an unusual artist book or a parrot dictionary. Books and acts of reading have been a core thematic during 2019 at Index, and this book sale continues this theme, with a chance for our audiences to take home their own art book and continue the loops of reading and sharing.

Stockholmsskolan Deluxe: DE-PARROTING

This year, Stockholmsskolan Deluxe (SSDX) have been hosted at Index as an organisation within an organisation. An independent voice acting in and taking over the space after closing hours. This is a school for young people between 18-25 who wants to try out different artistic method. A school with a clear voice that counteracts the echoes from the established artworld. During the festival this years students answer the call of the defying parrot with soundworks that embody repetition, sampling and remix.

Index Summer festival is produced with kind support from Kulturrådet, OCA – Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Nordic Culture Point mobility funding, CBK Rotterdam and Kunstkredit Basel-Stadt.