Basilea invites us to reflect on a city’s possibilities through a series of immersive projects connecting the City of Basel, its residents and the 90,000+ fairgoers anticipated to attend Art Basel. This project is conceived by artists Lara Almarcegui, Isabel Lewis and architecture studio Recetas Urbanas led by Santiago Cirugeda.

 

Basilea aims to create awareness of the active role we, as citizens, have to intervene and alter any given urban environment, at an individual and collective level, encouraging discussions about the use and ownership of public space. The project includes a collectively built structure, a large scale installation, a series of workshops, events and occasions. Basilea is free and open to the public.

 

There are two open calls to participate in Basilea, one with Recetas Urbanas and one with Isabel Lewis. Find out how to get involved below!

 

With more than twenty years of practice, Recetas Urbanas —in English Urban Recipes— has worked with more than 2,500 individuals from all around the globe and all kinds of social backgrounds, abilities and ages. During the three weeks proceeding Art Basel, and as an exercise in self-governance, Recetas Urbanas calls to work with local and international volunteers to collectively design and build a multi-purpose civic structure, using locally sourced and second-hand materials. Participants are invited to learn from and teach each other in a collective experience led by architect Santiago Cirugeda. During construction and upon completion, the structure will be open to all and activated by programs and performances that will culminate in a proposal for the structure’s future uses —such as handing it over to a local collective, association or school that will extend the meaning and usefulness of the project longer after the fair is over.

 

How to Sign up for Recetas Urbanas
– Fill in this Google Form according to the instructions. You can sign up individually or in a group
– Alternatively, fill in this PDF and send your completed form to basilea@creativetime.org
– We will confirm your availability and send you information about participation. Everyone is welcome!

 

What Will We Be Doing?
– We will drill, hammer, saw and build while listening to music and meeting new people
– We will work together in small groups under the direct supervision of Santiago Cirugeda
– We will use building materials comprised almost entirely of recycled materials
– Your ideas will be an integral part of the building process, your input will become an important part of the artwork itself
– Each day you will be surrounded by excellent company, eat good food, and, last but not least, gain a fantastic sense of accomplishment and togetherness!

 

Isabel Lewis will be offering a series of free, public workshops that assemble and interweave a selection of physical practices that can be found within the city of Basel. Participants are invited to join Lewis and her collaborators in the workshops evolving on the Messeplatz from 25th of May through the week of Art Basel ending on the 17th of June. These workshops will function as a meeting point for practices that, in Lewis’s view, can form specific and intimate relations with urban space.

 

In these workshops Isabel Lewis will share ideas behind her practice with a focus on movement in public space. No formal training of any kind is required and all adults with a curiosity about movement and other embodied practices are encouraged to attend. Through these workshops Lewis makes available structures for public expressions of care and sociability, as well as opportunities to listen in an expanded sense–to sounds, to music, to the vibrations of urban material: urban lives and nonlife.

 

Isabel brings together techniques from contemporary dance, performance, Tai Chi, and Parkour, in a hybrid new bodily praxis created with Nuno Damaso and Arvo Losinger, that the artist calls urban flourishing. Urban flourishing is imagined as a kind of practice for the body that can open up ways of engaging differently with ourselves, with one another, and with our built environment. The workshops are a chance to experience collective playfulness and full-bodied mindful engagement that can be seen as a strategy of resistance to the standardization, alienation, and hyper-individualization of contemporary urban life.

 

For these workshops Isabel will also collaborate with Colin Hacklander an avant-garde percussionist and composer that will share techniques for listening, as well as Nuno Damaso, a local Tai Chi instructor, and Arvo Losinger, a local head coach at Parkour One.

 

How to Sign up for Isabel Lewis
To register, please fill in this Google Form or this PDF with your name name, age, contact details, preferred level of engagement, and availability between May 23 through June 17. If you use the PDF application, send your completed form to basilea@creativetime.org

 

 

What Will We Be Doing?
– Have fun and connect with our bodies through movement, drumming, and singing!
– Experiment and try new creative activities with friends and family and make new acquaintances
– Get to know Basel in a different way.
– Question the notion of the “public” addressed by “public space”
– Explore themes around belonging and alienation, flow and containment within social and material boundaries

 

Workshops

Each workshop will have a 3-part structure:

 

Part 1: PREPARING THE BODY
Exercises to warm up the body and explore moving creatively in urban space by combining ideas and movements from practices such as Parkour, Dancing, and Tai Chi.

 

Part 2: MAKING MUSIC TOGETHER
We will focus on breathing exercises useful for both vocalizing and percussion. Participants with drums are invited to bring them along to play rhythm and beats. Other participants will continue with rhythmic and vocal exercises.

 

Part 3: SYNTHESIS
Participants will have the opportunity to learn and perform a short sequence of group movements group movements with drumming and singing created by dancer and artist Isabel Lewis and percussionist Colin Hacklander. These short sequences will build from session to session to create a larger piece that can be performed at the end of the workshop period.

 

Outcomes
– Exercise together with individuals coming from different backgrounds and walks of life
– Increase coordination, mobility, flow, and gain performance experience from session to session
– Try out new ways of drumming, moving your body, and using your voice and breath with specialist guidance
– Increase awareness of your body as tool in drumming practice
– Be part of a creative process with the artist and others
– Gain a different kind of connection to the city of Basel, both its urban landscape and its inhabitants

 

Workshops take place on EVENINGS and WEEKENDS with performances during the day for the week of the fair.

 

LEVELS OF ENGAGEMENT:

– INTENSIVE (3 sessions per week)

– LIGHT (at least once weekly recommended)

 

We will confirm your availability and send you information about participation. Adults of all ages and abilities encouraged to participate!

 

 

Overview

Schedule

Conversations Series

Lara Almárcegui

Isabel Lewis

Recetas Urbanas

Art Basel

Project Support