WHITE PAGE GALLERY
This is a new culture, concept, methodology. It is a happening and it will shape as it goes and people participate in it.
Introduction. What we believe in.
We need positive stories and counter narratives. Art can inspire new models, new practices, stronger and healthier cultures within the art industry and beyond if we make art about real life. The people getting involved in the White Page Gallery believe in this. We got to offer symbolic reasons to tackle and stand against political agendas and propaganda based on “insularity and parochialism” and the failure of communication, we are very aware of this and and we will work against it, but also we know that we need practical and real stories about the values and potentialities of cooperation based on networks and teamwork. This is what the WPG is about. People part of the WPG network believe in sharing, collaboration and participation among artists, art curators and art professionals. Our aim is that of creating positive, and critical, (counter) narratives to the present state of online and offline curation and influence it for the best and inspire new stories, scenarios, communities and art methodologies. WPG is not only about curatorial practices and real opportunities in online art. It is about culture, culture of establishing connections where there are barriers and nurture positive mutual values as respect, generosity, inclusivity. Art influence the world in its practices.
Step 1: What is a White Page Gallery?
The White Page Gallery is a new culture for art curatorial practices based on the values of sharing, collaborations and openess. The White Page Gallery is a decentralized network made of indipendent galleries runned by people, such as artists and curators but not limited to those art professional figures, on their very own websites. The White Page Gallery is a concept happening every time someone or a group of people opens a WPG on their/her/his website dedicating a webpage for others’s exhibitions and art projects. The White Page Gallery happens every time a connection and a collaboration are established between a host and a guest. The WPG’s host offers a space and the setting up. The WPG’s guest offers the contents. Every host of the WPG has their/her/his own rules for their own gallery.
Step 2: Working on a concept
What follows are my readings and considerations, the thoughts and ideas than then led me to do articulate and structure this into a project and a call.
I do not want to claim merits and credits, because on my own there will not be the White Page Gallery.
The texts are part of my researches and thinkings, they are notes and they do not come in a precise order. It’s a WPG brainstorming!!!
After you read this, if you like, it would be great if you choose to participate in the discussion and in the practice opening a White Page Gallery.
Here it goes…
If you are tired of chasing algorithms, updates and time tables and you wish to be in total control of what you do, who you do it with and when, this project is for you.
We have been online on social media for at least 10+ years experimenting social media and going through all of the struggles that comes with those private data trading services that become gold for few and pain for others. Is it possible to create collaborations and opportunities without enslaving ourselves to social media extortion demands and requests that require on our behalf huge efforts, almost a full time job, that too often turn out to be just a waste of time and causes to many a lot of stress and illusions? Let’s start building a common space starting from our own space, our websites. And lets start with art and experiment new practices for curatorial projects and collaborations. Let’s inspire new networking scenarios. With this map (please scrolla down to see the map) I introduce you to the in progress developments of the White Page Gallery, a project that aims to push forwards researches, experiments and new practices for establishing connections, collaborations, productive opportunities and real visibility. , please take a look at this mindpmap and get involved in creating a new space on your own terms with your own space.
There is a Facebook group if you would like to join in and find out more at this link
We should not withdraw in our dark corners of the internet and avoid every mainstream space of networking but we should definitely start to consider other ways to be online beyond and outside social media. The best place to start with are websites and build networks based on the possibilities and qualities of web pages. It is scary to think that places like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are a bond for life, or that there is not other way but social media. Reclaim your web space, get yourself a website, start a White Page Gallery!
Extended and enriched concept description:
The international political scenario is getting shaped by governments supporting the building of walls, new borders and increasing the margine of separation between people, especially between those of different race, ethnicity, culture and wealth. If the partys of opposition can not manage to intervene in this critical context with credible and productive alternatives, we must work to create and propose positive models as counternarrative to the present state of politics. Art practices and methodologies could play a positive role in this problematic situation. The #WhitePageGallery is a call for #artists to join a new way of establishing, supporting and creating new models of #collaboration, rethinking the concept of private and personal space, enriching the act of sharing with actual value, work for inclusion and accessibility. Collaboration as opportunity. Private space as common space. Sharing as distributing capitals, (eg, attention capital). An experimental field for #curatorialprojects but also as a ground for supporing human values, professional strategies without sacrificing generosity contrasting the toxic ideologies of bias and competition. It is about building bridges, a good way for imagining new occasions for human relationships. #Webpage, much more than a page.
CASE 1: ALTERED_DATA’S WHITE PAGE GALLERY
Practical example of the White Page Gallery happening on my website.
The White Page Gallery is where personal space becomes common space through shared and collaborative sharing beyond social media. An experiment in curatorial practices, The White Page Gallery is a space for curatorial projects hosted on my website. It is basically a collaboration point where personal space, my space, becomes our space. The White Page Gallery is my space for your curatorial projects hosted on my website, simple as that. I believe it is impotant for artists and curators to rethink the concept of space and personal space outside the social media landscape in terms of collaborations, cooperations, support, networks, nodes, and the very famous visibility. We can build our own space without having to sell ourselves to social media! Stop chasing algorithms and updates, avoid shadow banning, you on my website are very welcome! I will help you in promoting it!
Proposals are free but acceptance is not mandatory, of course.
I suggest that every artists will do the same, create a White Page Gallery on your website and host other people’s works, choose the time, I suggest one month, and then host another artist with another project.
We could create a website as a directory with the list of White Page Galleries around artists’s websites.
My White Page Gallery will features different shows periodically so bookmark this gallery url if you like to see what’s boiling in the art pot. If you are an artists or a curator or both and you would like to exhibit your projects outside your own space, you are more than welcome to use this space.
Get in touch with me and lets see what we can do.
DOM BARRA’S WHITE PAGE GALLERY IS HOSTING A PROJECT BY RUDY PAGANINI (FOREVERMIDI.COM)
http://www.dombarra.art/whitepagegallery
Here it follow another example of WHITE PAGE GALLERY happening on forever.midi’s website
CASE 2: FOREVERMIDI’S WHITE PAGE GALLERY
WHITE PAGE GALLERY’S LIST (A NETWORK)
This is the directory we are building which will list all of the White Page Gallery/s online.
If you would like to discuss this further please contact me on youarewelcome@whitepagegallery.network
