Artúr van Balen | TOOLS FOR ACTION

Artúr van Balen (1983) is a visual artist, curator and educator with a focus on spatial and performative interventions in public space. Since 2012 he leads TOOLS FOR ACTION, an artist group and collaborative platform on the intesection between art and activism. He develops open source tools and realizes collective interventions. In 2016 he realized the project Mirror Barricade (2016) in collaboration with Theater Dortmund, 14 schools and the city of Dortmund. In this project an 80 meter long, three meter high inflatable barricade was built collectively and he led choreographic direct action training with more than 200 participants to take a stand against a neo-Nazi demonstration. In 2017, TOOLS FOR ACTION and the Theater Dortmund received the art education award from the German Ministry of Culture and Media for this. (BKM Preis kulturelle Bildung, 2017)
In Signals, Resonating Revolutions (2018), he developed together with Tomás Espinosa, a participatory performance with 80 light sculptures, which were worn by the participants and made emergent forms of self-organization possible. It was in collaboration with Kulturprojekte Berlin to commemorate the German Revolution of 1918|19. For RÆV Rehearsal he develops the concept together with Floor van Leeuwen and is responsible for the infrastructure of the assembly. In collaboration with Roberto Perez Gayo he designs the different Tools.

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