Please scroll to the bottom to contact Subvirt. Web links are underlined. =====================================================
subvirt + aladin subvirt is the
curatorial alter ego of aladin, conceived in the early 1990s as a
virtual platform and vessel for creative processes initiated by himself
or in association with a loose collective of fellow outsider artists.
Prior to this aladin undertook creative projects under the auspices of
the vehicles Peacock Arts, Outsider Arts and alkhemi. Executive Curator
of subvirt aladin is an interdisciplinary practitioner with an
influential and widely acclaimed body of work across boundaries and
conventions. Full biography of aladin at www.aladin.me.
'Heterodox, discordant, audacious, aladin's practice has influenced countless lives through utilising and excelling in multiple approaches and disciplines' (D&AD 'New Blood Festival', 2010)
"Iconoclast who is one of the U.K.'s most celebrated creative talents, bringing inspiration to millions, uniquely integrating strategy, culture and magic, counselling global industries and curating sustainable practices, arts projects and cultural plans." ('Design Inspirations, 2009)
"Under the radar, ahead of the pack away from the crowd and beyond fashion - aladin continues to plough his own furrow" (Portobello Film Festival, 2007) Background In the early 1990s aladin was a driver within a number of outsider arts movements, including the ensemble “Ernst Fischer's Living Room Theatre"/"Crack in the Wall Cabaret" at Brixton heArtRoom (with collaborator artist Franko B), the underground counter-culture collective “Megatripolis” as well as the avant garde “Cupboard Cabaret”
at the Rheingold Tavern. During the 1990s aladin sited outsider arts
projects across 20 public housing estates in the Walworth, Peckham and
Camberwell areas of London in collaboration with the settlement and
social action charity Cambridge House & Talbot and
around the La Paillade housing estates in Montpellier, France in
collaboration with the French community campaigning organisation Peuples et Cultures. By the 2000s collaborative practice was set up also with the radical arts company Cardboard Citizens, including projects at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, workshops with homeless persons at cold weather shelters run by CRISIS and master classes in interdisciplinary arts practice at Skylight Project.
Media coverage aladin’s
projects have received extensive coverage in the media, while he has
himself been featured on key factual programmes such as BBC Radio 4’s
'Midweek with Libby Purves', BBC1 TV’s ‘Metropol’ - a debate with the
Secretary of State for Culture moderated by Shaun Ley - as well as BBC
World Service Radio's flagship 'Outlook'. Major print profiles of
aladin’s own artistic work include, in the U.K., The Times (3 pages of
the Saturday Times Magazine) and The Sunday Times (centre pages of
Culture Section); abroad, The Asian Age, India amongst others.
Cultural planning, civil society and strategy aladin
brings a strategic approach to the management of cultural processes; he
has a consultancy and academic background in risk management and
strategic planning (including through his strategy consultancy alkhemi
- please consult the website www.aladin.me
for details). aladin has an international reputation for developing
cultural policy and planning which directly engages and integrates
with the wider processes of civil society – for clients including the
Nordic Council of Ministers, the governments of Estonia and Bosnia, the
British Council, the Arts Council of England and Wales, the Department
of Culture, Media and Sport, the Love Parade in Berlin, the Goethe
Institute. aladin has tested and adapted the uses of arts and culture
to re-engage marginalised groups in society, which he has done through
developing and directly carrying out creative youth and community
development work on public housing estates in Peckham, Camberwell and
Walworth, London and La Paillade, Montpellier (France) between 1990-97.
During this period aladin built research and practice through
extensive, creatively-based detached street-work with vulnerable
individuals and groups especially at risk of violence.
Following
Ken Livingstone’s election as London’s first Executive Mayor in 2000, a
Cultural Strategy Group for London (CSG) came into being, charged with
the development of the world’s first integrated plan for culture,
media, sport, arts, heritage and tourism. aladin was head-hunted by the
Mayor to develop the policy-making process between 2000-4,
co-authoring a groundbreaking published culture plan. As one of the
principal cultural strategy architects aladin played a key role in
leading and managing a process whose outcomes ranged from the
generation of the 2012 Olympic Bid to the underlining of the pertinence
of ‘diversity’ in cultural policy. The template policy development
process that aladin was significant in curating and directing is now in
wide international currency.
More recently aladin has been focusing on bringing a
creative approach to interrogating and building on initiatives in the
terrain of 'sustainability'; in 2007-8 he co-founded the collective
London United which has undertaken innovative and experimental action
research in the field.
Cultural consultancy/management aladin
has advised on development and strategic planning at a number of
creative industries internationally, including NKD Dale/Norway, Rooseum
Malmo/Sweden, NIFCA/Finland, Whitechapel Gallery/London, Love
Parade/Berlin, The Spitz/London, Serious Music/London, Akademi,
Scarabeus Theatre, Aarhus/Kommune, Pirate Productions/Annie Griffin,
Living Art Museum/Reykjavik and led on strategic planning as Chair of
Advisory Groups and Boards at culture centred enterprises such as Black
Mime Theatre Company, Entelechy Arts, Head4Biz, Skylight Project,
Amoosi.
aladin has also contributed to the development of
artists including TJ Rehmi, Lone Sigurdsson, Franko B, Miriam Elia,
Manuel Vason, Tunde Jegede and others.
Academic work aladin
has strong pedagogic links through his status as a visiting academic at
academic institutions internationally and across territories related to
cultural policy, contemporary cultural anthropology, organisational
management, leadership and negotiation. Institutions include:
Manchester University, Art Academyof Trondheim,Christies London,
Copenhagen Business School's Centre for Arts and Leadership,
KAOS-Pilots and The Learning Lab in Denmark, Reykjavik University and Nordic Institute for Contemporary Arts, London’s City
University and London College of Communications and the KCC Foundation.
Chairing/facilitation in cultural arena aladin
has chaired colloquia and conferences for Arts Council, D&AD,
Design Inspirations/Nissan, DCMS/Tate Modern, SouthBank Centre/SADA,
Chisenhale Dance Space, ADAD, The Deptford Albany, City Hall/Mayor of
London, London Design Festival, 2GetherFest08, Serious Music/EDF
Energy, Art of Regeneration/National Theatre, Skylight/Cardboard
Citizens/CRISIS, Peuple et Culture/Cambridge House and Talbot, Minority
Report/Aarhus Kommune, Living Arts Museum/Reykjavik, Black Mime Theatre
Company, Whitechapel Gallery, Amoosi amongst others.
Speaking aladin
has wide experience as a keynote speaker for creative institutions
ranging from the Tate Modern to the Danish culture ministry; he
inaugurated the Centre for Arts and Leadership at Copenhagen Business
School.
Magicianship Finally, subvirt
co-ordinates and programmes collaborations engaging with aladin’s
practice as a conjurer. aladin’s magicianship has developed as an
outgrowth of a Sufi inheritance and a long-standing engagement with the
tradition of itinerant Sufi adept. In 1997 aladin co-devised, produced
and delivered a magic festival in Bangalore involving almost 800
outsider artists from India and abroad and a combined live theatre and
television audience of hundreds of millions. Now widely recognised as
one of the outstanding pure sleight-of-hand magicians of the age,
aladin’s magic has also been featured in the Universal Pictures motion
picture ‘Magicians’ (2007), the triple Webby Awards-winning film
project Book of Cool (2006), the pop video for "Badder Badder Schwing"
by DJs Freddy Fresh + Fatboy Slim, the BBC1 TV pilot "The Shuffler” and
the BBC1 TV show "Late with Russell Peters". aladin has led
master-classes at The Jerwood Space, performed at the Institute for
Contemporary Arts and placed entire audiences in trance at Tate Modern
and SouthBank Centre. He initiated "Mugh-al" in 2009.
