Executive curator of SUBVIRT aladin (left) pictured with artist Franko B, Wysing Arts Centre, Bourne, Cambridgeshire, January 2008; during a research visit for a feature on Franko for 'Latest Art Magazine'. Image: Nichole Rees.
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subvirt + aladin
subvirt is the curatorial alter ego of aladin, who conceived it the early 1990s as a virtual platform and vessel for creative processes initiated either 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)
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.
aladin’s initiatives have since received mainstream attention, gaining a number of distinctions, including selection for: the National Review of Live Arts Platform 1990 (U.K.), the British Festival of Visual Theatre 1999, the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) 1999; showcases at D&AD Workout 2002 and D&AD New Blood Festival 2010; 2-day mini-festival at Portobello Film Festival 2007 of aladin's/ALADIN's curatorial, performative and film work (including rare screenings of projects directed by aladin such as the pop video for 'Badder Badder Schwing' by Freddy Fresh+FatboySlim and a BBC 1 TV project). aladin's application of cultural practice to leadership training attracted an FT/Arts & Business Innovation Award in 2002 and aladin/aladin's unique approach to interrogating sustainability policy using interdisciplinary arts practice during the CHARCOOL climate change project was widely acclaimed - also in an evaluation by ARUP/Ipsos-Mori.
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.
In addition to having been Co/Vice-Chair CSG aladin is also a former Chair of the Boards of Entelechy Arts , Head4Biz (a project of the National Theatre’s ‘Art of Regeneration’) as well as Black Mime Theatre, was Chair of the Steering/Development Group for CRISIS and CardboardCitizens when the culture-based Skylight Project was being set up and advises and chairs the advisory groups of the sustainable fashion label Amoosi and the cultural production space Spitz.
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.
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.
Dissemination
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, London’s City Universityand the KCC Foundation. aladin has written widely on society and culture including for the Nordic Institute of Contemporary Arts, Latest Art Magazine, The Photographer’s Gallery, Performance Research journal, the Almanac of Political Art, and Deepak Chopra’s 'Intent'.
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.
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.
