Offer to Offer / 2022 -23
This school, inaugurated and hosted by the GAMPA gallery, runs from November 2022 to April 2023 in three different formats:
1. As a workshop in which artists came to write books-boxes
2. As a space for lectures and workshops in which participants explored their desire to give
3. As a library that offers a collection of book-boxes
Following the spirit of offering to offer (offering to another to offer), the School of Magical Giving is conceived as a space in which this principle is applied to different situations. This school of thought and action inquires about ways of giving that break with standard socialized situations in which the gift is expected, permitted and relevant, understood as a future or retroactive investment. In this school, who gives a gift, to whom it is given, what and when, are ingredients for experiments that investigate the creative power of disobedient gifting and unintentional reciprocity.
According to this school Giving is a tool to build, interpret, bond, and a way to receive signs and read life. We are not talking about a celebration gift or charity, but about the political agency that giving has in a capitalist system: giving to a stranger, giving for no reason, without expecting reciprocation, giving when one has a loss, giving when one has nothing to give, giving reasons to others to give, giving time and attention, giving in receiving, receiving without having to earn it, giving to a person, to a thing, to a non-human, or a nonsensical giving. All of them are reminders of magical giving. The kind of giving that calls the unexpected, feeds an uncertain but profound purpose, and allows a dialogue with the unknown, with synchronicity, and serendipity.
The School of Magical Giving initiates a long-term intervention in GAMPA with the program Offer to Offer, bringing to Pardubice’s audience the possibility to recall the mysterious and healing properties of giving. All of this in the midst of Mikulaš in the spirit of redimensioning the act of gift giving.
The school uses conversations, experimentation, creation, and contemplation. You can enjoy an introduction to this program with our lectures that reflect on modes of giving and their political, ethical, and magical effects. You can go deeper into the process of experiencing these principles in a weekend workshop. Or you can visit the library to discover performative media books that document true events of magical giving and its ripple effects.