Passages: a symposium including film screenings, performances, panel discussions, and many thought-bending lectures in the iconic Minneapolis Skyway System.

–with Jennifer Newsom/Dream the Combine, Elsa Dorlin, Interesting Tactics, Cameron Gainer, Brandon Hundt, Bill Lindeke, Alexandra Midal, Lisa Middag/Downtown Mpls Improvement District, Andy Delany/OOIEE, Sarah Petersen, Emilie Pitoiset, Daniel Shinbaum, Emily Stover, Sandra Teitge, Susana Vargas Cervantes, and Ramaya Tegegne.

Europe-based feminist art and culture magazine Petunia is organizing Passages, a weekend symposium of performances, screenings, readings, and discussions at co. (company projects)/The Third Rail and at the Goethe Pop Up Minneapolis Goethe in the Skyways in the city’s iconic skyway system.

Passages, of course, refers to the skyways as physical passageways. It also, in this case, refers to passing the baton in a relay race. This handoff, or passage, is an apt metaphor for several of the contributing spaces, organizers, and magazines who are participating in the symposium and are themselves transitioning to new manifestations, handing over their own legacy. Finally, Passages refers to a book written by Walter Benjamin dedicated to the famous 19th-century urban Parisian arcades, one of the direct forerunners of Minneapolis’s skyways. Benjamin used those urban features as a pretext to discuss other subjects, just as this symposium will use the skyways to think about legacy, traces, private and public spaces, and more.

Coinciding with the conclusion of both Goethe Pop Up Minneapolis Goethe in the Skyways and the relocation of co. (company projects), the aim of the two-day symposium is to invite critical feedback while reflecting on the notions of transition, transmission, commitment to the local, as well as reflecting on this peculiar urban space/architectural environment: the Minneapolis Skyway System.

The symposium is preceded by a month-long film program There is No Neutral Space that introduces the writers, theoreticians, and artists who have been featured in Petunia or films that have been reviewed within the journal since 2009, such as Lizzie Borden, Kathryn Bigelow, Pauline Boudry/Renate Lorenz, Alexandra Midal, Caroline Mesquita, Michelle Naismith, Lili Reynaud Dewar, and Emily Wardill. There is No Neutral Space will take place at co. (company projects) every Wednesday in September.

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This project is supported by Etant Donnés Contemporary Art, a program developed by FACE Foundation and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States, with lead funding from the French Ministry of Culture and Institut Français-Paris, the Florence Gould Foundation, The Ford Foundation, the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Chanel USA, the ADAGP, and the CPGA.

Performance by Ramaya Tegegne with the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia
Clothing elements for the performance by Emilie Pitoiset generously provided by agnès b.

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DAY 1 / Friday, 27 September

co. (company projects)/The Third Rail
1237 Fourth Street NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413

2 pm Introduction
2.15 pm Presentation Pétunia by Valerie Chartrain
2.30 pm Presentation Goethe in the Skyways by Sandra Teitge
2.45 pm Presentation Third Rail & co. (company projects) by Cameron Gainer
3.30 pm Podium discussion ‘Crossing Practices and Questioning Legacies’ with Sandra Teitge & Cameron Gainer. Mod. Valerie Chartrain
Intermission
4.30 pm Lecture by Alexandra Midal. Good Vibrations: Shake, Shake, Shake!
5.30 pm Lecture by Susana Vargas Cervantes. Looking through Pigmentocracy.
6.30 pm Film by Renate Lorenz / Pauline Boudry, Silent & Lili Renaud Dewar, Lady to Fox
7 pm Performance by Ramaya Tegegne. Corner
8–10 pm Launch The Third Rail Issue 13 & Finissage of Pirouette presented by Ouecha Ouecha

DAY 2 / Saturday, 28 September

Goethe Pop Up Minneapolis
Goethe in the Skyways
City Center, Skyway Level
40 South 7th Street, Suite 208
Minneapolis, MN 55402

2 pm Introduction
2.15 pm ‘Experiences from Goethe in the Skyways. Shifting Perspectives’ with Sarah Petersen, Sandra Teitge, and Daniel Shinbaum.
2.30 pm Lecture by Bill Lindeke. Skyways, a history.
3 pm Podium discussion ‘Perspective on the Skyways’ with Andy Delany/OOIEE, Jennifer Newsom/Dream the combine, Lisa Middag/Mpls Downtown Improvement District, Brandon Hundt, Mod. Valerie Chartrain
4.30 pm Lecture by Emily Stover. Tender City: feminist spatial practices in the urban commons.
5.00 pm Guided tour by Interesting Tactics. Who are the future Skyways for?
5.30 pm Performance by Emilie Pitoiset. It took the night to believe.
7 pm Farewell and conclusion by Valerie Chartrain at Goethe in the Skyways