Pro-Testo Laboratorija: Bendradarbiavimo Strategija Kaip Viešosios Erdvės Steigtis
Pro-test Lab: Constituting Public Space through Collaborative Strategy

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with participatory and collaborative aspects of the Pro-test Lab project, initiated by artists Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas (started in 2005). Founded as a movement for public and cultural spaces in Vilnius City, the project was seeking to research possible and impossible forms of public protest in a highly specific social and cultural context. The project assumes the perspective of artistic theory. It assumes that the collaborative strategy was the means that enabled the Pro-test Lab to actually found and perform public space and public interest rather than merely raising problems around them. The collaborative strategy subsequently led to its success and compelling status in the context both of contemporary art and political activism. Using and at the same time questioning the notion of artistic collaboration by Rudi Laermans, the article analyses a complex typology of collaborators and participants in the Pro-test Lab. The article concludes with the issues of anonymity and authorship, collectivity and unanimity, brought up by the contradictory way in which the project operates in contemporary art institutions.

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