Gerardo Chávez-Maza

TTT

At a time when nationalist agendas and a renewed belief in the nation-state is gaining ground, freedom of movement across countries is increasingly threatened. Whilst geographical border controls are intensified to reduce the flow of people from one place to another, decreased financial regulations enables capital to circulate easily across the globe, accelerated via secondary routes such as financial offshore centres and tax havens. Within this context, can the offshore company offer a model to investigate ways of thinking and experiencing citizenship differently?

Turn The Tide is an offshore company operating from a boardroom temporarily based in the Dyson Gallery at the Royal College of Art. In this office environment, constructed from newly commissioned and existing works by international artists, members of the public are invited to take ownership of the company by participating in public board meetings. Through a series of live discussions Turn The Tide aims to establish a fluid space to explore how new, more flexible models of citizenship can be reached through sharing the company’s ownership.

Meetings are participatory and open to everyone who visits the Turn The Tide boardroom. Taking place throughout the duration of the project these events are divided into two phases. Each session begins with a collective reading of a script in the form of meeting minutes that explores ideas and experiences of liquidity, capital, citizenship and geographical borders, from diverse perspectives, drawn from a range of existing material including theoretical texts, film dialogue and interviews. This is followed by a debate between individuals attending the meeting, to discuss the launch of Turn The Tide’s liquidation process, and strategies to share the company ownership more broadly.

Each meeting is transcribed live and printed copies of these new minutes are given to all participants who attend the event. This document acts as a bearer-share1: turning the individual into a permanent share-holder and company owner. With this process, Turn The Tide activates real collective space dedicated to the production of shared knowledge.

Turn The Tide’s temporary boardroom has been produced by Eva Barto, Julie Béna, Jesse Darling, Martti Kalliala, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Aron Kullander-Östling / Centre of Nowhere and John Menick.
Curated by Vittoria Bonifati, Margaux Bonopera, Gerardo Chavez-Maza, Elisabeth Del Prete, Cédric Fauq, Umay Mammadzada and Cristina Vasilescu, as part of the Curating Contemporary Art programme Graduate Projects 2017, Royal College of Art.