Maider López, ‘Football Field 1’, Sharjah Art Museum, United Arab Emirates (2007)
As part of the Sharjah Biennial, artist Maider López painted the lines of a soccer field red in a public square of Sharjah, adding goals on either end. Because pre-existing features such as benches and streetlamps were not altered, the square became a strange new site for football matches where spectators relaxed on benches inside the pitch at all hours.
Last Saturday the art-/soccer-event Polder Cup was held in the ‘polders’ of Ottoland, near Rotterdam. Ottoland was an open event conceived by Spanish artist Maider Lopez, on invitation of Witte de With and SKOR.
Polder Cup was a soccer tournament in the middle of the polders of Ottoland, which meant that the (bumpy) field was crossed by trenches with water that the players were not allowed to cross. This made the game a little more unpredictable than usual.
It was a nice day, reminiscing of high school sporting day events and village-parties…
Ataskoa was a public announcement, made in the newspapers, over the radio, with flyers, posters, etc. to create a traffic jam in the hills.
On 18th September 2005, 160 cars (approximately 425 people) gathered at Intza, Navarre, on the sides of Mount Aralar. The jam started at 11am. and ended at 15pm.
Maider Lopez, ‘Ataskoa’ (2005)
