Join us at Metal, Liverpool for the latest in our series of pop-up talks as artists Jeanne van Heeswijk, Fritz Haeg and artist/curator Gabi Ngcobo speak about their work.

Jeanne van Heeswijk (Lives and works in Rotterdam, the Netherlands). Guided by an overwhelming optimism about the relationship between art and society, Jeanne van Heeswijk seeks to permanently engage citizens in the enactment of social change within their own communities. Her confrontational projects transcend the traditional boundaries of art in duration, space, media, and stratification, while rejecting art’s autonomy by combining meetings, discussions, seminars, lectures, and other forms of communication to convey her message. Visualising a shared problem inspired by a particular current event, she integrates herself within the community, becomes an active citizen, and encourages neighbours and community members to participate in the planning and realisation of the project.

www.jeanneworks.net/

Fritz Haeg (Lives and works in Los Angeles, California) Architect, gardener and educator, Fritz Haeg’s recent projects include "Edible Estates" (2005 – ongoing), an agricultural project replacing suburban lawns with productive, consumable landscapes. Haeg’s edible gardens are developed in partnership with local residents, responding to the unique nature of each site and challenging preconceptions of land use and development patterns.

In 2008 Haeg debuted "Animal Estates" at the Whitney Biennial, the project proposes the reintroduction of native animals into cities through designs for urban dwellings.

www.fritzhaeg.com/

Gabi Ngcobo (lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa) A curator, educator, and artist, Gabi Ngcobo is also founder of the Johannesburg-based independent platform, the Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR) and a faculty member at the Wits School of Arts, division of visual arts.

CHR employs citations, transversal research processes, subversion, and mediation; approaches that seek to promote dialogue between artistic practices in order to reveal how certain histories are formed or formulated, repeated, universalized, and preserved within these practices. CHR recognizes historical reenactments as providing spaces for the politicization of histories within artistic contexts. CHR engages local (South African) and international practitioners through events, presentations, and seminars that critique presentation models, as well as raise questions about the political potentials in artistic interpretations of histories. Recent CHR projects include "PASS-AGES: references & footnotes" (2010) at the old Pass Office (Johannesburg) and the ongoing "Xenoglossia, a research project", which recently traveled to the 11th Lyon Biennale (2011), and projects conceptualized as Xenoglossia’s appendixes; "Na Ku Randza" a series of site specific public interventions in collaboration with the Goethe Institut, Johannesburg and "Rechewed", screenings and presentation of work in progress by a local artist.