From February till May 2013, TENT presents the first comprehensive solo exhibition in the Netherlands by the Rotterdam-Berlin based Spanish/Icelandic artists Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson. Their survey exhibition in TENT gathers video-based, installation, sound and sculptural projects from the last decade. The presentation is curated by Adam Budak.

A three-part symposium has been organised to accompanying the exhibition (9 February, 13 March, 17 April) and is concluded with the publication and distribution of a newspaper.

Asymmetry

The multimedia and interventionist work of Castro and Ólafsson can be considered as an on-going investigation into the way in which life, society, and the individual are influenced by socio-economic, cultural, and political factors. Asymmetry is a guiding principle in Castro and ... Ólafsson's work. They address injustice and inequality, and portray the rejected subject as well as the authoritative subject. On their journeys, the artists' research into the workings of inequality attempts to decipher laws on the distribution of power. In a quest for a universal vocabulary their installations bring together texts, languages, and traditions. 'Asymmetry' is a 10 year overview of their past installations, video works, photographs and objects, including the music videos Caregivers and Lobbyists, and the campaigns Il Tuo Paese Non Esiste (Your Country Does not Exist) and ThE riGHt tO RighT.

'ThE riGHt tO RighT' launched during the 7th Liverpool Biennial in 2012. A monumental neon sign reads alternately ThE riGHt tO RighT and ThE riGHt tO WrOnG, thus questioning the essence of the (human) right itself, its habit and rhetoric as well as its ownership and belonging. 'Right' and 'Wrong' blur as if producing yet another paradigm of political behaviour, discipline and ethics. Castro and Ólafsson's neonwork is a provocative gesture which points out paradoxes of law and freedom. The project's Liverpool iteration is accompanied by a free newspaper 'ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG which features an essay by British writer and philosopher Nina Power, who, in a dialogue with the artists, comments upon the current global political upheaval by deconstructing a 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' and replacing it with a philosophy of wrong and its brand new manifesto - 'The Partial Declaration of Human Wrongs'.

Symposium in three parts: 9 February, 13 March and 17 April

Alongside the exhibition is a three-part symposium with a film program related to the port of Rotterdam. The symposium concludes with the publication and national distribution of a newspaper (printed and digital) to accompany this new episode of 'ThE riGHt tO RighT' project. The symposium reflects on important themes in the artists' work. The speakers will discuss legal issues, protest, and unequal power relations. The first part of the symposium will be held on 9 February with a lecture by philosopher Nina Power followed by a roundtable discussion with curator Adam Budak and the artists. In her lecture, Power addresses the contemporary discourse around human rights from a philosophical perspective. Nina Power is a senior lecturer at Roehampton University and co-editor of Alain Badiou's On Beckett (Clinamen). She regularly writes opinion pieces for The Guardian and wrote the books One-Dimensional Woman (2009) and Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Women (2010).