Network
The exhibitions of the HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein are not only shown in Dortmund, but internationally, as well: thus, in 2007 the exhibition The Wonderful World of irational.org travelled to Glasgow (CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts), in 2008 to Novi Sad (Museum for Contemporary Art, Vojvodina), and in 2012 to Leuven (Artefact Festival, STUK); the exhibition History Will Repeat Itself was shown 2007–2008 in Berlin (KW Institute for Contemporary Art) and 2008 in Warsaw (Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle) and Hong Kong (Goethe Institute, Video Days and Hong Kong Film Archive). The exhibition Awake Are Only the Spirits” – On Ghosts and their Media was shown in 2010 in Torun (Centre of Contemporary Art ‘Znaki Casu’). The exhibition World of Matter travelled in 2014 to the James Gallery of the Graduate Center, CUNY New York, subsequently to Montréal and Minneapolis. In 2015 the exhibition His Master’s Voice toured to Montpellier (La Panacée). In 2017, Whistleblowers & Vigilantes travelled to Copenhagen (Kunsthal Charlottenburg), and The World Without Us was invited to Ljubljana and Rijeka (Mali salon, Museum of Contemporary Art). In 2018, The Storming of the Winter Palace was presented at the Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz.
Over the past years, through its various projects, the HMKV has built up a web of international and interdisciplinary networks – for instance, in the context of iRights.info, Berlin and the HMKV-initiated project Work 2.0 – Copyright and Creative Work in the Digital Age (2008), as well as the Arctic Perspective Open Space Conference (2010). In 2014 the HMKV cooperates with the Hochschule Coburg (FB Design) in the context of its research project Afro-Tech and the Future of Re-invention. Alternative Technological Energies and Intelligences in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria.
The HMKV has played a key role in founding various networks in Dortmund and North Rhine-Westphalia, among others the medienwerk.nrw, in which a variety of different institutions from NRW dedicated to media art and culture have joined together (its headquarters have been located in the HMKV since 2006). On the basis of this statewide consolidation, it was possible in 2010 to host the International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA) for the first time in Germany. Another element of cultural political work in the region is the HMKV’s participation, since 2000, in various funding committees of the federal land of NRW, which mainly provides support to young artists (i.e. the Promotional Prize of North Rhine-Westphalia in the Area of Media Art and the Fine Arts), as well as the organisation and administration of the North Rhine-Westphalia Grant for Media Artists.
HMKV is a member of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine (ADKV).
The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine (ADKV) is the umbrella organization for non-profit, member-based art associations, also known as Kunstvereine, and is dedicated to the presentation and promotion of contemporary art. A total of 297 Kunstvereine from 244 cities and villages are organized in the ADKV. Kunstvereine of ADKV have about 100.000 members and their exhibitions are seen by about one million visitors each year.
Die Vielen / The Many
HMKV among first signatories of NRW Declaration of the Many. We see arts and culture as open spaces belonging to many. We view our society as a plural gathering. By attacking cultural institutions as agents of this societal vision, right-wing populism stands in hostile opposition to the art of the many. Right-wing groups and parties frequently disrupt events, aim to determine repertoires, polemicise against the freedom of art and above all are working on the re-nationalisation of culture. As a signatory of the NRW art and cultural institutions, their interest groups and independent artists and cultural professionals, we counter these tendencies with the Declaration of the Many! Read the declaration: www.dievielen.de.