Knots of Resistance

  • Collaborative Research

    Giulia Colletti (Italy/UK)
    Ross Little (UK)

    Yerevan, Armenia

Knots of Resistance is a project responding to the invitation of curator Giulia Colletti to artist Ross Little to extend their collaborative research in Yerevan, Armenia at the Art and Cultural Studies Laboratory (ACSL). The in-depth analysis of the territory and its socio-political dynamics has eventuated in a newly commissioned moving image work, accompanied by a curatorial script. Drawing upon the Velvet Revolution in Armenia, the protests in Georgia due to the police raiding nightclubs, and the long-standing Faslane Peace Camp in Scotland, Knots of Resistance addresses the oppositional relation between ‘Choreopolitics’ and ‘Choreopolice’. It reflects upon the rehearsal, care, and maintenance of the gesture of freedom, as an entanglement of socialities and intersubjective actions. Appreciating the remark of Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Knots of Resistance embraces her urgent reservation, ‘after the revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?’

In conceiving this collaborative project, Giulia Colletti and Ross Little adopt experimental theories of montage and film cuts as critical methodology. Direct observations, involvement, and encounters of local practitioners, contributed to represent the articulation of the demonstrations and their inner strategies of alliance, as well as to produce a polyphonic impromptu archive on the political imagination envisaged in these three temporary zones of intensity.

The project is kindly supported by the European Cultural Foundation (ECF).

Ross Little is an artist based in Glasgow. He works in moving image, installation, and painting to represent the complexity of contemporary economic and social relations. His work draws connections between seemingly disparate elements, looking to portray the entanglements of globalisation, the permeability of cultures, and the power dynamics that shape them. In his research, he attempts to map the history and contemporary nature of global mobility and trade – an exchange of peoples, animals, cultures, plants, diseases, ideas, objects and structures – defining the impossibility of ever perceiving these systems in their entirety. His solo shows include On General Antagonism (2018), Frontera 115, Mexico City; The Heavy of Your Body Parts and The Cool Air of The Air Condition (2017), Collective Gallery (Edinburgh Art Festival), Edinburgh. His group shows include Temporary Realities (2018), Karen Huber Gallery, Mexico City; 1957 Chevy Apparition (2017), Market Gallery, Glasgow; Street Scene, Bosque, Torch Light (2016), CCA, Glasgow.

Giulia Colletti is a curator based in Glasgow, UK. She is currently Associate Curator of Chalton Gallery. Previously, she was curatorial assistant at CCA Centre for Contemporary Art Glasgow and assistant curator to Barnabas Bencsik for the first edition of OFF Biennale Budapest. She has worked at a number of international institutions, including The Hunterian Glasgow, La Biennale di Venezia, and Fondazione Musei Civici Venezia. As an independent curator, she has collaborated with renowned artists such as Eduardo Abaroa, Sarah Browne, Nuria Güell, Tessa Lynch, Jonathan Monk, David Shrigley, Sue Tompkins, and Wolfgang Tillmans. She has just completed an MLitt in Curatorial Practice at The Glasgow School of Art. Her research interests include theories of labour, feminist theory, (de)activism, un-learning practices, performance, and institutional critique. She has written articles that have appeared in Kabul Magazine, Juliet, Artribune, The Art Review Glasgow, Purple, among others. Recent curated projects include One Missing Sock After Doing Laundry (2018), The Art Laundrette/CCA, Glasgow; On General Antagonism (2018), Aeromoto/Frontera 115, Mexico City; Conjunctive Tissue (2017-ongoing), Civic Room; In/Human (2017), The Hunterian, Glasgow.