SELF - POSITIONING Self-positioning starts not during a conference or a business handshake. It is rooted in your personality and shaped by the many contexts in which you exist. Self-positioning is also framed by the notions of ‘normative’ deriving from colonial, gender and a multitude of sociopolitical frameworks. To be able to liberate ourselves from predominant discourses and find our unique ways to act in the world we need first to discover and question our core attitudes - to ourselves, to the art system, to the global ‘other’. BLOCK 1.1 An input for this task is provided by Biljana Ciric, WSCSD program initiator. To start with, we offer you a set of questions. They may seem quite abstract, but can act as a trigger for a more in-depth analysis of self and further expand on your professional identity. What moves you? What has you? What is your position in relation to colonial difference? Who are you in relation to others? Task Position yourself within the world. Tell about your practice, but try to avoid showcasing your works. Think and understand who do you cite. Through citation you create relation and history. Revise your vocabulary. Who are you citing? By which terms do you define yourself and your practice? How can you overcome the colonial vocabulary? Put this into a text or a text+images format An advice: before staring each session we propose you to devote your practice to someone. Additional materials Listen to Hicham Khalidi, Director of the Jan van Eyck Academie, and Rolando Vázquez, Associate Professor of Sociology, University College Roosevelt speaking in “Transforming Institutions: On Social and Climate Justice ” Podcast. Self-feedback Did you discover something about yourself? What is your main trigger/ question? BLOCK 1.2 Together with artist and curator Anastasia Albokrinova we will focus on communication and creative approach. I am an impostor i imitate i play i squeeze in others’ skin i sign fake papers i make void agreements i take peoples’ money and give them to others i pretend i don’t know what’s curating and thus i own the freedom to reinvent it i fool those who want the truth i do things nobody notices i nourish useless processes i intervene in the order of things i ask why this should be that way and not the other i ask who said that i feel sometimes my game has gone too far i fear i have no legal right but somehow i’m where i should be Anastasia Albokrinova, 2022 Let's start with What are the alternatives for direct speech or image+text presentations? Thinks about the fears do you face while trying to step out of the pattern. Is it being vulnerable, shy, ignorant, insecure or else? Think of ways to embrace and face these fears. Make a list with three columns: Fears / Ways to face them / Means to transform fear into action. Task Relying on the content you developed before, try to experiment with the ways you deliver it. Can you use drawing, gestures, sound, movement, multilinguility, gamification? Develop an alternative way for self-presentation. Deliver it to other people. Additional materials Listen to Hicham Khalidi, Director of the Jan van Eyck Academie, and Rolando Vázquez, Associate Professor of Sociology, University College Roosevelt speaking in “Transforming Institutions: On Social and Climate Justice ” Podcast. Self-feedback What are your expectations when communicating yourself to others? What limitations did you face? What is your authenticity you can play with? Did a self-positioning process help you better understand why you do things that you do, the way you do? Online sharing session We invite you to share your self-positioning presentations with a group of fellow students of the WCSCD online course. We will focus on giving and receiving critique, discuss what is a good and bad experience in communication. The meeting is a recurring event with a limitation of 10 participants. Estimated duration: around 1.5 hrs. To take part subscribe for a proposed time in the table below. During the session you will have 10 to 15 minutes to present and receive feedback. Form: Date/ Time (GMT)/ Number of places left/ (organizer provides nearest time/date options and limits the number of attendants) Enter your email to receive a zoom link for the meeting. Email Book Session (user receives a zoom link for a set time) Modules

< Back Behind Ethiopia’s Civil War: From Guerrilla to Secessionist 25 Dec 2020 Berhanu The state formation through the alliance of ethnicity-based parties since 1991 is fragile. The simmering ethno-nationalism within Ethiopia has become clear and leads to the faltering of Ethiopian politics this year. Tigray region of Ethiopia. source: made from google map. On November 4, which coincided with the polling day of the US general election, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, announced on Facebook that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) attacked the Northern Command of Ethiopian Defense Force stationed in Mekele, the capital city of Tigray kilil (region). Merkley airport was immediately bombed by the Ethiopian federal army as punishment. Within a few days, the confrontation between the federal government and TPLF escalated rapidly. On November 7, U.N. Secretary-General Gutierrez spoke with Abiy and asked the Sudanese Prime Minister, who holds the rotating presidency of the International Development Organization (IGAD), and the African Union to intervene in negotiations between the warring parties. However, Abiy tweeted on the 9th saying: “Concerns that Ethiopia will descend into chaos are unfounded and a result of not understanding our context deeply. Our rule of law enforcement operation, as a sovereign state with the capacity to manage its own internal affairs, will wrap up soon by ending the prevailing impunity.” Getachew Reda, an adviser to the president of Tigray state and a key member of the DPA, took a back-and-forth, tweeting that Abiy was a poor soldier and had started the war first, and that Tigray was merely acting self-defensively. Subsequently, traffic in Tigray was cut off by the TPLF, outward communications were cut off by the federal Government, commercial banks were closed, and the Government of Ethiopia took control of all social media. From the outside, the two sides are almost fighting in a huge black box, with little contradictory news only managing to make it out. According to a report by Amnesty International on November 12, the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (NDF) and Amharic Special Forces attacked the People’s Front in Lugdi on the Sudan-Ethiop border on November 9. On the night of the 9th, hundreds of people were found dead with machete wounds near the Ethiopian Commercial Bank, close to the center of Mai-Kadra town and on the road leading to Himora on the northern border, most of whom were said to be Amharans who came here to work. The survivors identified the perpetrators as the police and the armed forces of Tigray State, but Debretsion Gebremichael, the acting governor and chairman of Tigray State, denounced these accusations. On November 10, Federal Government Spokesperson, Redwan Hussein, announced that the NDF had retaken Mekele’s Northern Command. On the 13th, Abiy changed his generals and the ministers of federal intelligence, security, and police, amongst other departments. Mulu Nega was appointed as the chief executive of the interim government of Tigray State. Tigray State thus entered a situation where two heads coexisted. At 10 o’clock in the evening on the 13th, the Amhara State in the southern part of Tigray State was attacked by an air raid. The local residents said that the gunfire lasted 15 minutes. The fighting has intensified, apparently beyond PM Abiy’s initial call of “an issue of law and order”, to the regional crisis in East Africa. At least 25,000 refugees have fled Tigray state and poured into neighbouring Sudan. The UNHCR has urged neighbouring countries to open their borders to facilitate people fleeing and has asked Ethiopian authorities to allow international aid agencies to enter the country to help an approximately 100,000 displaced people in Tigray state. On the 14th, the NDF claimed to have moved south of Tigray towards Mekele, taking control of several towns along the road, with the spokesman saying the rebellion would end quickly, and the head of the TPLF would be punished. However, on the same day, TPLF warned its northern neighbour Eritrea not to go to war and fired at least three rockets at the airport in Asmara, the Eritrean capital, hours later. It is just one year after PM Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Prize for ending the two-decade confrontation between Ethiopia and Eritrea – so how did a war break out? Is this war, as Abiy claimed, a military operation to maintain the rule of law? Or was it the starting point of a melee in East Africa? Why did the TPLF, once the core of the Ethiopian ruling coalition ERPDF, recede to northern Ethiopia in only five years after Prime Minister Abiy took office? TPLF: From Hoxhaism Guerrilla to the ruling party Without reviewing the rise and fall of TPLF, one would not be able understand its historical memory and current position. Dr Aregawi Berhe, one of the founders and the early military commander of TPLF, has by far the most in-depth and critical accounts in this regard. In 1974, Major Mengistu Haile Mariam staged a coup in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, toppling Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I and establishing a military junta, DERGUE, which then sided with the Soviet Union. But there were rebel groups in the north, one of which was TPLF. It was from the 1970s to 1991 that the TPLF was transformed from a national liberation organization in a remote area, into the heart of Ethiopia’s ruling party: the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). From a military point of view, the rise of the TPLF was quite unexpected. In 1978, after DERGUE had cleared the eastern Somali rebellion, it sent troops northward and planned to quell two rebel groups: the TPLF in Tigray and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) in today’s Eritrea. In March 1988, with one of the largest military forces in Africa, the DERGUE was defeated in Eritrea’s Af-abet in just 48 hours by TPLF and EPLF. Next, the TPLF launched the Shire-Enda Selassie campaign in the mountains of the central state of Tigray. In April 1988, DERGUE regrouped its forces in Mekele. TPLF fought back in rapid movements, eliminating small groups of enemy forces and occupying commanding heights to cut off the enemy’s links with their base battalions, before then regrouping and annihilating the enemy. In early 1989, having had seen the dawn of victory, TPLF formed the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front in coalition with other national movements. In April 1990, negotiations coordinated by Italy broke down because Meles Zenawi, the leader of TPLF/EPRDF, felt that the opposition was on the verge of collapse. On 19 February 1991, Major Mengistu began his exile and the DERGUE faltered. In April, EPRDF entered Addis Ababa, the capital city, signaling the start of its three-decade rule of Ethiopia. What’s behind TPLF’s military achievement is its capacity to mobilize, which is inextricable to the Marxism-Leninism that emerged in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. Ideologically, TPLF follows Hoxhaism, holding that both the Post-Stalin Soviet Union and Mao Zedong’s China were revisionist, and that only Enver Hoxha and the Albania he led were the true socialists. But such hair-splitting divergence could have [also] been the work of ethnic boundary making. The mode of mobilization, as Aregawi Berhe argues, was also highly dependent on Tigray nationalism, which ultimately sowed the seeds of separatism in the process of nation-building later on. As early as the 1970s, in the Haile Selassie I University (now Addis Ababa University) established by the last Emperor of Ethiopia for the cause of modernization, a group of students from the Tigray region in their early 20s formed the Tigray National Organization (TNO) – the predecessor of the TPLF. Back then, the Ethiopian monarchy was already in crisis. In the context of the African independence movement, Marxist-Leninist classics were widely circulated among young students. The Marxist revelation that the imperialist oppression was the reason behind the poverty and backwardness of third-world nations, as well as the victories of the socialist revolution and developments in socialist countries, attracted young students. Indeed, Tigray has suffered multiple hardships in modern history. This area is the origin of Ethiopian civilization. Historically, elevated plateaus with rivers cutting deep among them were geographically apt for rule by scattered feudal lords. In modern times, Tigray became war-trodden, not only because of the War of the Princes (1769-1885), but also because European colonists needed to enter Ethiopia from here. It was with Lord Kasa Mercha’s permission that the British Napier Expedition was able to pass Tigray and defeat Emperor Tewodros II. Kasa Mercha was later crowned as Yohannes IV. In 1889, he was seriously wounded in battle by Mahandist Sudanese, passing the throne to Menilik II, the powerful leader of Addis Ababa. This marked the shift of power of Abyssinia from the Tigrays to the Amharas. After WWII, Emperor Haile Selassie I strengthened centrality and appointed officials to replace the old nobles in the Tigray region. But heavy taxes imposed on local governments by these officials, coupled with corruption, provoked the revolution of Tigranian farmers. Many wars have caused the people’s livelihood in this area to decline. Bandits prevailed in Tigray. Those who went out for a living were often looked down upon by locals. In general, Tigray people had little liking towards the colonists and Ethiopian emperors. In the 1970s, students who fell under the influence of Marxism returned to their hometowns from Addis Ababa, setting out to transform the traditional rural society in Tigray while resisting DERGUE, whose rule was even worse than Emperor Selassie. Under the leadership of the legendary Gessesew Ayele (Sihul) – who had participated in the opposition to Emperor Haile Selassie in the 1940s and served in the DERGUE government – these students intended to follow China’s revolutionary path from their armed resistance in the countryside, before eventually engulfing the cities. It was with this intention that they went to Shire, Ayele’s hometown in the central mountainous area. The students’ organization, Tigray National Organization (TNO), was revamped as TPLF, claiming itself as the “Second Revolution” (Kalai Woyyane) to invoke the history of [the] “first revolution” of 1943, which pursued national self-determination from imperial oppression. In the beginning, farmers simply regarded these young men as educated yet unsophisticated radicals. However, TPLF went on to effectively reform the traditional Tigray society, and under the guidance of its ally, Eritrea People’s Liberation Front (EPLF, when Eritrea was still part of Ethiopia), consciously recruited farmers to participate in its armed struggle. These reforms include the following four aspects: the establishment of farmers’ associations and a people’s assembly to replace traditional rural governance land reform youth and women’s organizations and religion. First, the establishment of farmers’ associations and [the] People’s Assembly to replace traditional rural governance by the village elderly (shimagile). In the beginning, TPLF members went to churches, funerals, markets, and neighborhood meetings to explain the goals of the revolutionary movement, encouraging farmers to join the peasant associations and prepare for land reform. Nevertheless, the elderly approved of TPLF’s conduct and discipline, but cautioned their sons and daughters against its propaganda. In response, TPLF resorted to national sentiments, presenting itself as the “sons and daughters of Tigray” to legitimize their roots and exclude other competing fronts in Tigray. It also managed to achieve consensus among the people through the apparatus of cadres ( kifli hizbi ) and meetings ( gämgams ). In the propaganda meetings convened by the cadres, differing opinions were eliminated under group pressure, thereby strengthening their internal cohesion. Under collective pressure, many people who were sympathetic to the forces outside of TPLF were required to show loyalty through “self-criticism” or else silence themselves. Through this, the TPLF turned all farmers into members of [the] farmer’s association. Second, the implementation of land reform. Traditionally, the land was divided into risti land (inherited from the previous generation), the communal deisaa land (which was redistributed every seven years to immigrants and new couples), and the gulti land (allocated by emperors to officials, lords, and churches. This included himsho land (or “rim” land) owned by the parish, with 20% of its farm produce used in the services of parish priests and laymen). On the eve of the revolution, it was estimated that 25% of farmers had little to no land, 45% of farmers had less than 1 hectare, 23% owned between ½ – 1 hectare, and 21% owned 1 – 2 hectares (Tekeste Agazi 1983). The purpose of TPLF, then, was to crush the highly disproportionate land system. At the same time, the socialist DERGUE was also promoting land reform through abandoning guiti lands. However, it did not consider the working class, craftsmen, and small businessmen in the city. TPLF took the lead to divide land among these groups, consolidating its political base both in the city and the countryside. Third, youth and women’s organizations. In order to arm rural youth, TPLF raised the age of marriage to 26 for men and to 22 for women through the decision of baitos , the transformed people’s assembly. In traditional agricultural societies, only married couples could obtain land as their means of production. As a result of the postponement of marriage, young people were delayed access to land ownership but were freed from obligations to land and family. TPLF then organized the youth, who participated in logistics and other activities, becoming reserves of the armed struggle. Cadres trained the youth to shout, “I want to fight for Tigray!” “I’m going to join the TPLF army!” Young people who were reluctant to join the army were seen as “opportunists” and consequently marginalized. In the meantime, TPLF also trained radio station staff and barefoot doctors who had international aid and financial resources provided by the Tigrainian diaspora. It closed state schools in towns and cities and set up its own schools to mobilize more of the youth. In addition, TPLF male fighters were known for their monkish behavior to abstain from sex. TPLF criminalized sexual violence and even imposed the death penalty to discipline its army. This won the approval of local husbands and fathers, who were rest assured when their wives and daughters were encouraged by female TPLF fighters to join the army. As a result, approximately one third of the TPLF fighters were women. Fourth, the use of religion. Ethiopia traditionally has a strong religious atmosphere. The Tewahedo Orthodox Church, on the one hand had close ties with the community and the family, but on the other hand supported the imperial power. TPLF strategically supported DERGUE’s policy of confiscating gulti land, but it permitted the parish land system without damaging the church’s grassroots economic base. The TPLF also placed religious and social activities under the control of the People’s Assembly ( baitos ). They severed ties between the Tigranian Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and at the same time showed tolerance for Muslims as a minority group. Participants holding photos of the martyrs in the parade of TPLF 45-year anniversary, which dates back to 18 February 1975 when the armed struggle began in Tigray. Bottom right is the TPLF logo. It has a hammer, a torch, and the national symbol Axum obelisk encircled by the wheat ear of injera, the traditional crop of Ethiopia. Source: www.Tigrayonline.com To an extent, the TPLF borrowed from China [and] Vietnam’s revolutionary experience. They transformed traditional rural society and gained a high degree of control over Tigray through [their] movements. Administratively, the old governance in Tigray’s rural society, baitos , was transformed into the People’s Assembly under the leadership of TPLF. The People’s Revolutionary Assembly had armed forces at a national level, and the families of cadres and fighters were taken care by the village. The legal power was shared by the elderly ( shimagle ) and cadres – but the cadres, elevated as “torchbearers of the revolution”, often had the decision-making power. In this way, TPLF successfully mobilized the society of Tigray and became the sole spokesperson for the Tigray people. This is what Dr Aregawi Berhe calls the “mobilization hegemony” with a nationalist predilection. Separatism in the 1994 Ethiopian Constitution When overthrowing the once powerful Military Junta became imminent, the TPLF found itself standing at a historical crossroad for establishing a transitional government. In 1989, before entering Addis Ababa, the TPLF formed the ruling coalition EPRDF (Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front) and in 1991, the EPRDF began to draft the new constitution for the liberated Ethiopia. However, these two milestones bore the markings of separatism once they were laid out by TPLF and its allies. EPRDF is composed of four major national political groups: the TPLF, ADP (Amhara Democratic Party, formerly known as ANDM, Amhara National Democratic Movement), OPDO (Oromo People’s Democratic Organization), and SEPDM (Southern Ethiopian’s People’s Democratic Movements). Although the establishment of the EPRDF created an image of Ethiopian solidarity, for the TPLF, it was also the solution to two emerging challenges. Firstly, as a political group that only accounts for 6% of the population of Ethiopia, the Tigranians had to unite with other national forces. Secondly, they had to formally meet demands from the West to achieve democracy (at the time, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Herman Cohen, warned that TPLF had “no democracy, no cooperation.”). The unification of the political forces in Ethiopia through the party apparatus seemed beneficial for the TPLF, who chose to collaborate with like-minded political organizations. The ANDM, an ally of the TPLF, was considered to merely be the “Amhara mouthpiece” of the EPRDF, while the OPDO, composed of political prisoners released by the EPRDF, was seen as its “Oromo mouthpiece”. Given the earlier fall of the communist junta, the United States was willing to accept an authoritative government. In July 1991, under the diplomatic coordination of the United States, TPLF/ EPRDF held the “Peace and Democracy Transitional Conference of Ethiopia” in Addis Ababa and invited representatives of 27 national movement organizations to participate (Aregawi 2008: 335). Of the 27 organizations, 19 were based on ethnic politics, 5 on national political organizations, and the remaining 3 were civic or professional groups. The draft of the constitution discussed in the transitional meeting was prepared by the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), who also dominated the negotiating table alongside heavy involvement from the EPLF (according to OLF), who were preparing for the Eritrea transitional government. Being the product of ethnic oppression in the past, these three parties naturally took the option of secession into account. Notably, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and the All-Ethiopian Socialist Movement (MEISON) were not invited to this meeting. In the absence of these organizations, who would advocate for a pan-Ethiopia unity, the participants could easily reach an agreement for the Eritrean Transitional Government (led by the EPLF) to conduct a referendum for secession from Ethiopia in three years. Some participating organizations, such as the ENDO (Ethiopian National Democratic Organization), initiated discussions on the separation of ethnic groups and the separation of Eritrea, but the representatives of the EPRDF believed that these reservations would damage the foundation of the constitution. In the end, the provisional Ethiopian Constitution stipulates that the regional assembly shall be based on the nation and that “every Nation, Nationality and People in Ethiopia has an unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to secession.” (article 39.1). Moreover, the EPRDF only recognizes the individual ethnic identity of citizens, and not the dual or multiple ethnic identities that were a result of historical integration. This is the design of the national federalism currently implemented in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Parliament which was consequently established composed of 27 ethnic organization representatives, who would form the Council of Representatives. It is a legislative body with a total of 87 seats: 32 of which belong to the EPRDF, with the remaining 55 seats belonging to 23 non-EPRDF organizations. As the highest administrative body, the Council of Ministers is headed by Meles Zenawi. As the president of the transitional government, he appointed 17 of the cabinet ministers, most of whom were held by candidates from the TPLF and the OLF. In just a few years, Meles Zenawi controlled the power of the state through the coalition of political parties. In the meantime, the ethnic and national political parties in Ethiopia rapidly increased. Today, of the 81 political parties registered in the Federation of Ethiopia, 73 are based on ethnicities. Since ethnic politics has been legitimized, some leaders of ethnic political groups often antagonize ethnical sentiments to strengthen their power, further worsening the state of Ethiopian politics. A war between secessionists and Ethiopianists? Ethiopia has long been a country with a low level of development. However, after Meles Zenawi came to power, especially since 2005, the average annual GDP growth of >10% attracted the world’s attention, while foreign direct investment (FDI) also increased significantly during this period. Economically, Meles Zenawi pursued an authoritarian mode in developing the country, prioritizing industrial and infrastructural investments, and establishing several industrial parks in different regions. Nonetheless, such modes of development are not without precedents. The successful trajectory of East Asian economies (such as China, Taiwan, South Korea, etc.) since the 1980s became a model to emulate for some African countries, especially when IMF’s structural adjustment failed in many African countries. Nevertheless, the Tigrainians, thanks to their ethnicity and connections with the ruling party, are widely believed to hold a monopoly on Ethiopia’s economic power and accumulative wealth. The growing civil discontent towards political and economic inequality, and democratization on an ethnic basis, has brought imminent risks both to state failure within Ethiopia and the decline of TPLF. The first serious indicator was as early as 1992 when OLF, the party who co-drafted the constitution with TPLF, withdrew from the Ethiopian government because it was marginalized by the ally of the EPRDF, the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO). The Oromo people account for 40% of the Ethiopian population, and the split within Oromo is further complicated by its diaspora in the Gulf countries and the United States. After 2016, the problem of land acquisition in the Oromo region, especially in the development around Addis Ababa, triggered political protests against the EPRDF/TPLF, bringing the country into state of emergency on many occasions. Other emerging democratic voices were silenced by the ruling coalition, owing to its authoritarian nature. In the 2005 Ethiopian general election, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) claimed to have won 49% of the votes, outnumbering the 34% held by the EPRDF. However, it was suppressed by EPRDF, and the leader of the CUD was placed under house arrest. CUD’s party guidelines have already pointed out that the primary task of contemporary Ethiopia’s development is to achieve national reconciliation. The sudden death of Meles Zenawi in 2012 left a power vacuum in Ethiopia, which is a common problem with all authoritarian governments. In 2018, the successive prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, believed to be a puppet of TPLF, resigned because the country once again fell into a state of emergency caused by intensified ethnic conflicts. According to election procedures, the four major parties will elect the chairman of EPRDF, who will also become the next prime minister. Lemma Megers, the chairman of OPDO at the time, was unable to serve as prime minister because he was not a member of the parliament, so an emergency meeting was held to elect the next candidate within the party, Abiy Ahmed, as chairman. This crucial step successfully catapulted Abiy to the supreme position he now holds in Ethiopia. Dr Abiy Ahamed was born in 1976. He joined the army led by TPLF where he learned Tigrinya as a teenager and served for many years in the army’s security intelligence department. In the 2010s, he was appointed as director of the Urban Development Planning Department of Oromia. Thanks to his peace-making talents, Abiy solved many land and religious disputes, and established a bridge of communication between the Oromo and Amhara peoples. The two ethnic groups alone account for 2/3 of the total population of Ethiopia. Therefore, in addition to his Oromo origin and recognition from the TPLF, Abiy became ideal for the unification of the major nations and parties. In the 2018 election, the Amhara leader withdrew at the last minute, paving way for Abiy to become chairman of the EDPRF and subsequently, Prime Minister of Ethiopia. After taking office, however, Abiy steered Ethiopia towards market liberalism – a stark contrast from the policies EDPRF had adopted. Previously, although the Ethiopian government attached great importance to the introduction of foreign capital, their domestic retail, logistics, and financial industries had not been opened to such. Meles Zenawi even rejected the IMF’s request to open up banking arrangements. In contrast, Abiy plans to privatize state-owned enterprises in the communication, sugar, energy, and aviation industries; and liquidate the party assets controlled by TPLF. In this process, the Metal Engineering Group (METEC), Ethiopia’s largest military industrial complex, collapsed. METEC was established in 2010 to undertake the construction of the Renaissance Dam and the sugar factory on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, both of which are national megaprojects. In June 2018, the parliamentary committee found that the company’s US$330 million machinery and equipment had no marketvalue, and the US$3 billion sugar plant project failed to reach completion (Ethiopia’s GDP in 2018 was about 84.4 billion USD). Abiy’s administration soon terminated METEC’s contract for the Renaissance Dam and Sugar Factory, and had their CEO, Kinfe Dagnew, who was about to flee Sudan, escorted back to Ethiopia for trial. In 2018, Abiy dissolved EDPRF and established the new Prosperity Party, underscoring a new narrative of harmony and Ethiopian unity. TPLF was among the dissidents against the Prosperity party, but its efforts to bring Ethiopia to a “federal coalition” failed in 2020. [1] Having declined in power and without a strongman like Meles Zenawi, the TPLF is said to have split from within, wavering between the option to either to remain in Addis or withdraw to Tigray. In fact, although the TPLF was the initiator of ethnic politics in Ethiopia, as a minority group the Tigray people remain susceptible to antipathy from the Amharic and Oromo people. Nevertheless, the antagonism towards the TPLF and Tigray people is to some extent unjustifiable, a Tigrainian friend told me, because they sacrificed enormously fighting against DERGUE for the sake of a new Ethiopia. When asked about corruption, another Tigrainian businessman said, “as long as you put the corrupted officials in jail, you can move forward for development!” Their adamant positions reveal how history and ideology have shaped the mentality of a proud nation. In recent years, Tigray has become further isolated geopolitically. Tigray is sandwiched between Sudan to its west and Eritrea to its northeast. In 2019, Prime Minister Abiy and Prime Minister Isaias Afevolki of Eritrea reached a settlement on the 20-year border standoff, which provoked discontent between the TPLF and Abiy. At its inception, TPLF had received military assistance from EPLF. The latter even sent a fighter, Mussa, to the TPLF in the early days, who served as the TPLF’s military commander. However, during the joint resistance against the military government, EPLF oscillated between the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP), another political organization in Tigray, and TPLF. From the EPLF’s viewpoint, if it were to support a separatist movement, it would only give Ethiopia an excuse to expand its arms, thereby posing a threat to itself. Only when the DERGUE threatened its own survival would the EPLF tolerate ideological and strategic differences to fight alongside the TPLF (EPLF advocates the socialism of Soviet Union and positional warfare). The Ethiopia-Eritrea war from 1998 to 2000 pushed the two into a heightened confrontation. Eritrea was in a state of emergency for a long time after the war, and semi-openly supported the armed activities of the anti-government OLF in Ethiopia. The reconciliation between Abiy and Eritrea in 2019 included a plan to transfer the disputed Badme region to Eritrea. This olive branch gesture was applauded by the international community and Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize that year. However, as far as the TPLF is concerned, Abiy’s move was really a deal at the cost of Tigray’s interests. The global pandemic has exacerbated the rival between the federal government and Tigray. Ethiopia was one of the first countries in Africa to take active action against the virus, thanks to its favorable relationship with China and the Secretary-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom, who served in Tigray State and the Ethiopian government. In March 2020, while experts from around the world were still debating the effectiveness of a lockdown, Tigray declared a state emergency, banning travel within the state for 14 days and canceling all social activities. The move was two weeks in advance of the federal declaration of a state of emergency on April 8. It caused debates among constitutionalists, and the move was criticized as illegal by the Prosperity Party. On April 2, Tigray State claimed to have virus detection capabilities, almost at the same time as the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, seemingly aiming for political legitimacy by way of epidemic prevention and control. In September, Tigray State held elections, despite Abiy Ahmed’s announcement that the national election would be postponed due to the pandemic. This open defiance sparked the war between the secessionist TPLF and the federal government. Abiy called the election in Tigray a “shanty election”, for it is illegal to build a house on an illegal foundation, no matter how high it is. Since claiming a domestic and international reputation of maintaining national harmony, and with the support of Eritrea, Prime Minister Abiy now seems to have the upper hand. Framing the war as an internal affair of “law and order” and the military action as “punishment of the criminals” thus serves to diminish the constitutional crisis. A massive campaign harvest to protect possible locust attack in Tigray region in October, just before the war broke out. Source: https://twitter.com/ProfKindeya/status/1318510358915665922 Whether it is an issue of “law and order” as declared by the federal government, or the “civil war” as recognized by the outside world, this conflict has been ongoing for several weeks; meanwhile Ethiopian social media prohibits discussing political and war-related information. From a military standpoint, it is hard to rule out the possibility of prolonged warfare – the length of which would depend on the mobilization capability of TPLF and the position of Tigranian people towards the war. The war seems to have subsided in scale recently, but the antagonizing ethnic groups in Tigray and Ethiopia; and critically, the tens of thousands of displaced men, women, and children to Sudan, are the biggest victims. Part of the points of view in this article are from the doctoral thesis of Aregawi Berhe (2008), “A Political History of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (1975-1991): Revolt, Ideology and Mobilisation in Ethiopia” and Zhou Jin Yan (2019), “The Experience from Ethiopia – a Democratic Development State as an African Approach”. Culture Review, No. 3. Dr Aregawi Berhe had served as the early military commander of TPLF but was expelled by TPLF in 1986. After over three decades of exile in Europe, he returned to Ethiopia at Abiy’s invitation for the sake of the political reconciliation between parties. Chinese version of this text has been published by Initium Media, Hong Kong in November 2020https:// theinitium.com/ Berhanu is an anthropologist in African Studies. [1] https://borkena.com/2019/08/26/tigray-organized-a-conference-to-save-constitution-and-the-federal-system/ Previous Next

< Back Mask making and coffee drinking in Addis Addis Ababa 18 May 2020 Sarah Bushra Making masks in Temesgen studio “The idea of abundance and scarcity takes a constant shift. What seemed to be scarce has forced itself to become an abundance”, writes Robel Temesgen on his Instagram post announcing his communal mask making adventures. In a conversation over the phone, Robel relates he finds the confinement to his home studio stifling with consequent strains on his creative practice. In addition to escapades to favourite coffee spots around the city, a regular habit prior to the pandemic, in the past 7 weeks since the Corona lock-down he has taken up several new pastimes, one of which is making beautiful face masks. The collective mask making began organically. Tsedenya Abayneh, Robel’s close friend attempted to make a mask for herself and shared her process with Robel, who’s then reminded to call on Leayne Telahun, a friend with a sewing machine, to give their endeavour a fighting chance to succeed. Between the malfunctioning of said machine and the hunt for a new one, the task force grew to seven people in total. Kasahun Hailu, a regular at Robel’s studio, who also happens to be an industrial design graduate, took over the streamlining of the production and earned himself the name ‘Supé’ short for a supervisor. Shimeles Tadesse and Tesfaye Bekele, along with Robel, fill in the necessary gaps in the production line, while Naod Lemma, documents the process through pictures. Now, the collective makes an average of 60 masks in one afternoon and staggers their distribution rippling from their closest relations to members of their communities in need of a shield. Many pharmacies around town hiked the price for a single-use face mask by upwards of 200% on the day the first case of Corona was confirmed in Addis. What used to be available at 25 ETB (75 cents) suddenly started to be sold for 150 ETB (4,50 USD), way beyond what a majority of Addis Ababans can afford. When the fear of contracting the virus increased with the rising number of cases, unable to afford to buy masks, many invented make-shift solutions, covering their faces with the shawls they’re wearing or repurposing discarded Ethiopian airlines sleeping eye shields to cover their mouths. On the 16th of March, quickly after the breakout of Corona in Africa, Jack Ma, Chinese Billionaire, and founder of e-commerce multinational Alibaba announced his donation of 100,000 face masks and other PPE to each one of the 54 countries in the continent. [1] This donation was followed by a second batch containing 200,000 face masks and other PPE to be distributed among 54 countries [2] , and the third batch including 4.6 million masks and other PPE donated immediately to African Union, and Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) [3] . The Ethiopian government has also received facemasks form UAE, Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture, Korean Business Association and other local and international organizations [4] . Although it is generally assumed these donated masks go to, or are reserved for health workers in the country, there’s no system in place to track whether the distribution is indeed being made towards the right recipients. According to a doctor working at St. Paul Hospital in Addis Ababa, a hospital anticipated to become a treatment centre for confirmed cases when the current centre, Eko Kotebe Hospital, reaches its capacity, thus far she has to buy her own PPE from private pharmacies. Although, at the beginning of the pandemic many were lax about wearing a mask, in recent times members of the community have started to hold each other accountable. Now a person not wearing a mask is not allowed entry to the blue and white minibus taxis, the most common mode of private transportation in Addis. When entering public service areas like banks, security guards ask people without a mask to put one on. Ride, one of the most popular taxi-hailing platforms has distributed face masks and hand sanitizers to the majority of their drivers. Other mask making endeavours in Addis that stem from organizing like-minded individuals include a collaboration between Doctors in Action (DIA), an enterprise empowering doctors for social change, and Sabegn, a concept store for lifestyle products. They started Debo project that works to spread awareness about Corona, recognize and support the work of front-line health workers and spread videos on how to make DIY masks and distribute the masks they’ve produced. Many good-hearted business-inspired communities have also mobilized to make face masks available for sale on the streets of Addis, standing close by taxi lines and other relatively crowded spaces for a price of 10 ETB (30 cents). The price for surgical masks sold at pharmacies has also plummeted to 30 ETB (90 cents) from its sudden climb 7 weeks ago. With continued improvement in access to masks, many still walk the streets of Addis without a shield on their faces. Robel admits buying a 10 ETB mask from the streets is an easier way of providing protection for himself and many around him. It is not just the lack of masks on the streets that motivated the collective to gather at his studio. He speaks about the boredom that brought this group of people together, an interest in shared conversations that made them stay, the satisfaction in simple acts of generosity that entices them to come back. This impromptu artist’ collective is beyond a manufacturing line, they’re a conduit transforming what is scarce towards a perception of abundance. For many Ethiopians, the stay at home period for this pandemic is frequented with power cuts and water shortages. The severity of this problem varies in different parts of town. While the cuts are intermittent in some areas varying between one to two days per week, other areas have no power for days on end. The longer power cuts are caused by the malfunctioning problem rather than rationing tact. Although this may appear unbearable for an outsider, for a majority of Addis dwellers it is, unfortunately, business as usual. The understanding of abundance and scarcity is versatile in Addis society, its flow is seamless and uninterrupted. When there’s no electricity at Robel’s studio, for example, to power the sewing machine used to make masks, the group simply shifts towards activities done only by hand or simply playing cards, relishing in the sudden abundance of time to be filled with enjoying each other’s company. In these times, the productivity aspect of time is scarce, says Robel, while the idle and reflective space remain abundant. “Is it worth it to be an artist?” – he asks. “I am in my studio – suddenly forced to gauge my capacity: what is my actual reach, how vastly does my network extend, and how wide are the margins circumscribing the works I produce?” Although an avid consumer of art through virtual media, Robel expresses his hesitancy towards creating work for an online audience, he says he’s not interested in that capital right now. This sentiment refreshingly centres Ethiopian audiences as spectators of contemporary art that are coming from the country. Considering the very limited access to the internet, a work of art with output on a digital platform has little to no local reach. The resistance from Addis Ababans towards staying at home is not primarily a question of the economy, Robel says. Although the economy is a crucial factor, people defy stay at home sanctions from the government, unable to placate their needs to socialize. Long before the pandemic, Robel has been investigating the nature of communities around coffee drinking culture in Ethiopia, describing the resulting spaces as heavens for uncensored dialogue and fertile soil for growing deep-rooted connections. In a conversation with the Corpus Podcast about his exhibition RE:PUBLIC held at Circle Art Gallery [5] , Robel describes ‘jebena’ as a symbol of society. For his series, Floating Jebenas he has been looking at the disruption of social structures formed around coffee drinking culture due to rapid urbanization of the city. He notes the shift from neighbourly socials that were dismantled by aggressive construction to the emergence of informal small businesses that serve coffee at the many curves and crevices of the city. He iterates the way Ethiopians function as social fabric, and points at the various means we evade threats to our coffee gatherings. Robel’s creative practice continually probes at the nature of communities, the strands that form them, the bedrocks they stand on. His meditation with ‘jebena’ as a holding space for Ethiopian culture and identity has resonance in the space his studio has recently become, a host for labour of passion in the form of mask making. Within the folding, stitching, and pressing of fabric, there’s a strain of alchemy at play, morphing superfluous substances into one of the most valuable items of the times. Sarah Bushra is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, working primarily with a hybrid of text and images. [1] https://twitter.com/jackma/status/1239581509125726210?s=21 [2] https://twitter.com/jackma/status/1247014237303537664?s=21 [3] https://twitter.com/jackma/status/1252136657672790016?s=21 [4] https://www.trackethiogov.com/in-kind-donations-tracker [5] https://circleartagency.com/online-gallery/exhibitions/recent-exhibition/re-public/ Previous Next

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Celebrating Resilience and Solidarity Moba Produkcija image by Luigi Coppola 2024 Culminating event date: June 23, 2024 Location: Gornja Gorevnica Participants: Asida Butba, Anna Ilchenko, Andrey Parshikov (curators of WCSCD 2023/24 educational program), Bojana Popović, Luigi Coppola, Petra Pavleka, and Gornja Gorevnica community members. Coordinators: Sofija Bošković and Cheng Xiangmin. Organized by WCSCD and the local community of Gornja Gorevnica. Project supported by the Italian Cultural Institute and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia. WCSCD 2023/24 program participants, together with mentor and artist Luigi Coppola, artist Bojana Popović, and cultural worker Petra Pavleka, invite you to a community action in the village of Gornja Gorevnica to celebrate and foster communal life, resilience, and local knowledge in agricultural production. Since 2023, WCSCD has established a pedagogical center in Gornja Gorevnica and initiated various encounters and meetings to engage with local communities. Through this engagement, we are encouraged to think and practice culture beyond the dualisms of rural/urban, culture/nature, and man/woman, embracing more entangled and interdependent ways of being. This effort is also our attempt to decentralize the production of knowledge and culture as city dwellers. The series of upcoming gatherings on June 23 aims to rethink the production of culture and knowledge through actions in rural areas. This approach seeks to explore different solutions for building more resilient communities. During the culminating event day, we invite you to experience a number of artistic projects presented in Gornja Gorevnica. These projects represent long-term commitments to rethinking ways of working with communities and fostering a more resilient society. What you can experience during the culminating days: Italian artist and activist Luigi Coppola has been collaborating with village families for over six months to launch the long-term project Unity as Strength through Moba Production. This initiative draws inspiration from the ritualistic aspects of collective labor, focusing on the gathering and transformation of local fruits. In our capitalist and extractivist society, individualism is often promoted, driven by the myth of relentless productivity. But is this truly the only viable model of production? Should we reject collaborative and relational models, favoring solitude and sacrifice over collective effort? In rural areas, there remains a poetic sense of working together—songs and celebrations tied to the harvest and its transformation. We invite you to rekindle this spirit through acts that blend labor and festivity. As the climate crisis exacerbates the already challenging economic conditions for those who choose to farm, coming together becomes even more crucial. The Moba Production , with artistic input from Luigi Coppola, will feature two main components. The first includes workshops that share practical knowledge on fruit processing, culminating in a communal dinner prepared by the village, followed by celebratory music and dance. On June 23, as part of Moba Production, a Knowledge Assembly will be held, focusing on climate change and strategies for building strong community support structures. This event will foster vital discussions among community members. Bojana Popović , a young artist residing in the village, has crafted a performative walk. This walk offers a unique mapping of Gornja Gorevnica from a feminist perspective, blending walking and storytelling into a rich, experiential tapestry. Through this journey, participants will uncover marginalized histories, such as the ancient tree's legacy, poignant love stories, and other narratives that reside outside the mainstream historical discourse. Another important aspect of Celebrating Resilience and Solidarity is food. The stomach holds profound significance for us, serving as a central element in our system. Esteemed artists and scholars, such as Vanessa Machado de Oliveira and Trinh T. Minh-ha, state that the stomach is the core through which neural changes and chemistry occur, influencing the heart's will and directly affecting the mind. This concept proposes an engagement with embodied knowledge that transcends mere visual experience. In collaboration with the women of the Gornja Gorevnica village, we have gathered ancestral recipes to craft a menu for our guests, offering a rich, sensory connection to our shared heritage and traditions. Further exploring the practices of food-making, Petra Pavleka , a distinguished cultural worker from Zagreb, will be sharing traditional bread-making techniques. This workshop, in collaboration with a historic, functioning mill within the village, will provide a unique blend of cultural heritage and artisanal craftsmanship. June 23, culminating event schedule: 12:30 pm – arrival to Gornja Gorevnica 1:00 pm – refreshments/ snacks and welcoming ritual 1:30 - 4:00 pm – launch of Moba Production through series of workshops with community elders and bread-making workshop with Petra Pavleka 4:00 - 5:30 pm – a performative walk with young artist Bojana Popović around Gornja Gorevnica 5:30 - 6:30 pm – dinner 6:30 - 8:00 pm – Knowledge assembly moderated by Luigi Coppola 8:30 pm – departure from Gornja Gorevnica to Belgrade Admission fee This public, family-friendly event embraces intergenerational learning and joy. All workshops are free of charge. Refreshments and snacks upon arrival, along with a dinner, are available for 1,500 dinars per person (coffee and soft drinks included). Children up to 12 years old can attend for half price at 750 dinars, and children under 5 years old attend for free. Registration is essential. Please email us at what.could.curating.do@gmail.com or message us on Instagram @whatcouldshouldcuratingdo to secure your spot. How to get to Gornja Gorevnica village: You can arrive by car on your own. Free parking is available. Instructions on how to reach us will be sent after registration. You can also hop on an organized bus from Belgrade on the morning of June 23rd, returning the same evening. The round trip price is 1,500 dinars. Limited capacity; pre-booking is essential. If you have camping gear and want to stay a few days with us, we have free space for your tent. Please contact us to arrange this. Bios of WCSCD program contributors: Petra Pavleka is project manager of the Community seed bank and food program at ZMAG As a student, this landscape architect traveled Europe with Erasmus and Grundtvig projects in search for green knowledge and good sustainable practices. She learned her trade by collaborating with several architectural firms, and in recent years has been intensely interested in the production of her own food and the growing potential of public areas. Since 2020, she has been a member of ZMAG’s Social Seed Bank, and currently works at ZMAG as the project manager of that project and the manager of the food program. Luigi Coppola is an Italian artist and activist, member of Casa Della Agricultura, a community founded in the south of Italy in Castiglione d'Otranto, which aims to revive abandoned land and repopulate villages, generate an economy based on solidarity, and strengthening community ties through new cultural, social and economic models of common life based on agriculture. About WCSCD: The WCSCD is a civic association, established in 2018, and its fundamental activity is an educational program for artists, curators, researchers and cultural workers with focus on different ways of learning and working in the arts. In 2022 WCSCD started working within the rural area in Sumadija (Serbia) and taking custodianship of the piece of land with long-term commitment. For all further information on this and all WCSCD projects, please contact: Biljana Ćirić what.could.curating.do@gmail.com https://www.wcscd.com/ < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

Past Programs 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2018 Program Archive WCSCD 2018 Call for Applications March 26, 2018

Sultan Mussakhan < Back The roar, which never vanished Sultan Mussakhan The image of tigers and lions hunting their prey is solid in our memories due to their distinctive representation in the culture of modern-day humans. They are charismatic and murderous. They are indeed hypostasis for what we call as good and evil. So far, history says that they were understood as more evil than the good, which led to their total extinction in Central Asia in XX century, still echoing their majestic influence on people until today. This article mainly focuses on the role of tigers in the new cultural dynamics of modern Kazakhs as their role never vanished and with a further deeper understanding of them generating the new ideas of what is good, to begin with. This article will also combine one of their unique habitats – the shores of Lake Balkhash – as they can have a common destiny: to extinct or to rehabilitate. The history and formation of the modern landscape of Lake Balkhash can be traced back to the Early Pleistocene with evidence of the first colonization by Homo erectus . Epoch after epoch the people habiting the shores and lakesides by Balkhash were replaced and ended up by the rooting of Homo sapiens sapiens – or modern-day humans – generating pastoralist communities with their unique vertical migrations from deserts to alpine mountains as we can still observe today [1] . The Late Pleistocene was the period when large felines as lions and tigers started to vastly expand in Central Asia including the shores of Lake Balkhash. As it follows, it is not a big surprise that the charismatic felines of Central Asia were in close interaction with many human species creating a nexus for the further firm image of them as beautiful, powerful, but dangerous beings. If the archaeological and paleontological evidence is scarce on felines’ representation and their influence on first humans, we have plenty of evidence of how felines had their specific place in Bronze Age cultures as Andronovo people . We believe that these are the people who learned how to work with bronze, were the first nomads to colonize the whole of Central Asia, and had trading patterns with the adjacent other cultures. Besides, they were the first ones who depicted the large felines in petroglyphs. Today, we can map almost 170 different petroglyphs of different periods in Kazakhstan (Bronze age, Iron Age, and Turkic period) with various images of large felines and 30 petroglyphs are identified as lions ( Panthera leo persica ) and 18 as tigers ( Panthera tigris ) ( see fig. 1 and 2) [2] . Figure 1. A tiger petroglyph at Eshkiolmes, Kazakhstan. Belongs to the Iron age [2]. Figure 2. Tiger petroglyph Southern Balkhash region and the Khantau mountains, the Bronze Age, researched by A.G. Medoev [3] Lake Balkhash and deltas of various rivers enriching its waters were the natural habitats for the Caspian tiger or how we like to call it today as the Turanian tiger. Its Latin name comes as Panthera tigris virgata what also means in Kazakh as “zholbarys” – the striped feline. Even though the extinction of the last known tiger is recent, there is an attempt to reintroduce the closely related tiger subspecies Panthera tigris altaica from the Russian Far East to the shores of Lake Balkhash by WWF [4] . At first glance, a person who has never seen the Turanian tigers would believe that this is another ambitious yet indoctrinated project where the human takes over nature with an indulgent hand of help, albeit the best gaze would be to look at it as we are asking sorry that we brought so much pain to Lake Balkhash and disastrously treated it. So, who are those tigers and what would they bring to us? Once they inhabited from Turkey to Northwestern China, and their geographical range included almost all of the Central Asian countries. However, with the sedentarization and colonial attitude of the Russian Empire and further with the Soviet Union, not only aboriginal people were endangered, but the flora and fauna too, disturbing the intimate co-existence and ecosystem. The tugay woodlands were reshaped as well as the riversides to grow various cultures of valuable plants. With the loss of natural habitat, the preys of tigers were endangered or completely extinct too, rapidly declining in their population. Previously flourishing tigers almost along all major rivers in Central Asia, went extinct until the 1950s due to systematic poisoning and haunting. Yet, the Ili river- the largest river enriching the waters of Lake Balkhash – was one of three predominant places that could support a dense population of Caspian tigers is under intense human colonization and threat [5] . The situation has several related current events with the Yellowstone National Park in the United States, where the landscape was damaged due to the lack of large predators and the solution was to introduce wolves into the ecosystem [6] . There is one specific historical artwork by Said Atabekov “Way to Rome”, which is highly related to the extinction of Caspian tigers. The artwork represents a Kazakh-style carpet with a soldier’s hat on it (see fig. 3). Interestingly, both the style of the carpet and tiger have vanished for the modern days. The work symbolizes the homicidal policies towards the ethnicities of Central Asia. Probably, this is the only carpet left with the recent tiger representation in Kazakh traditional arts. Both Kazakhs and tigers shared a common destiny in the past. Figure 3. Said Atabekov, from the series of work “Way to Rome” (the last carpet with a portrait of the Turanian tiger). 2020, 70х105 cm. With the new project on the reintroduction of Caspian tigers to the Ili-Balkhash reservoir, it is another attempt to restore what was severely damaged in recent times. It is a hope to restore the actual ecosystem and give another chance for ourselves to co-exist and co-evolve. What is the value of reintroduction? There is a known species Panthera tigris altaica that is believed to be almost genetically identical to and descendants of Caspian tigers. As they are considered as the zenith of the food chain, the proper work on livestock management should be done. Thereby, the restoration of the ecosystem should be prepared from the lower ecological niches for reintroduction. So far, the Ili River delta can support almost 100-150 Amur tiger individuals and the first introduction will count up to 25 individuals [4]. There is a chance that the river delta would become a further National Park supporting the local socio-economic development as long as giving another hope that there will be more dialogue on human activity on Lake Balkhash and communication with Xinjiang (China) where the river takes place. This project can be classified as transboundary because yet it increases the interaction between the Asian countries and probably will be another bridge of cooperation. The introduction of the tiger is a part of decolonial optics too. It shows how the ecosystem depends on all components of the biodiversity including the dangerous predators and the sensitive ecosystem should be treated with more care. This optics bends towards the development of more ecocentric ideas, I believe. We also cannot defy that charismatic feline will be a bridge to personify Lake Balkhash and the Ili River delta with its gorgeous gaze and roar. Yet the appearance of tigers can become another appeal to save the waters of Lake Balkhash and the environment nearby. As we know, the tiger is a part of the national identity of both Turkic and Asian ethnicities. Once the endangered Kazakh people like the tiger itself could probably reflect their destiny to understand how close and co-existential they were as part of the fragile ecosystem teaching its lessons that there could be always a chance to survive, to flourish, and to respect where you live in. The introduction of the tiger and its value to the ecosystem, to the people, and the identity of Kazakhs can be only hypothesized and imagined, but it is another platform to synthesize, rethink, and re-evaluate what we are today. Personally, I think that biology and ecology narratives have to be decolonized by opening a wide window to the co-existence among all living species and the reintroduction of tigers is one step closer. References (apa style): [1] Deom, J. M., Aubekerov, B., Sala, R., & Nigmatova, S. (2012). Quaternary evolution of the human habitats in the Ili-Balkhash region from paleolithic to modern times. Toward a sustainable society in Central Asia: An historical perspective on the future , 49-58. [2] Schnitzler, A., & Hermann, L. (2019). Chronological distribution of the tiger Panthera tigris and the Asiatic lion Panthera leo persica in their common range in Asia. Mammal Review, 49 (4), 340-353. [3] https://edu.e-history.kz/ru/publications/view/1279 [4] https://wwf.ru/regions/central-asia/vosstanovlenie-turanskogo-tigra/ [5] Chestin, I. E., Paltsyn, M. Y., Pereladova, O. B., Iegorova, L. V., & Gibbs, J. P. (2017). Tiger re-establishment potential to former Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) range in Central Asia. Biological Conservation, 205 , 42-51. [6] Smith, D. W., Peterson, R. O., & Houston, D. B. (2003). Yellowstone after wolves. BioScience, 53 (4), 330-340. Sultan Mussakhan is a Ph.D candidate in Biological Science at Brock University ( Canada) as well as member of Art Collider. Previous Next

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities 2025 Lectures Public Moments WCSCD Educational program 2025/2026 at SKUP Lecture by Nina Möntmann | Decentring the Museum. Contemporary Art Institutions and Colonial Legacies Lecture by Marina Christodoulidou | Assembling Land: Rehearsals towards Placemaking Lecture by Toby Upson | A practice of Artwriting 2022 Lectures WCSCD Annual Lecture Series 2022 The educational program What Could/Should Curating Do is proud to announce lecture by Amelie Aranguren hosted by Kolarac The educational program What Could/Should Curating Do is proud to announce lecture by Massimiliano Mollona hosted by Kolarac The educational program What Could/Should Curating Do is proud to announce lecture by Aslıhan Demirtaş Hosted by Kolarac The educational program What Could/Should Curating Do is proud to announce lecture by Katalin Szekely Hosted by Kolarac 2020/21 Lectures Precarious Improvisation: The Past and The Present, maybe The Future | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series Lumbung | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series What is The Use? Needs and Means of Making Biennials Under Pandemic | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series Practices of Care: On Rehumanization and Curating | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series Where is the body of the curator? | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series From steirischer herbst to Paranoia TV: one festival reinventing itself | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series Kalokagathia: On the Possibility to Think Together the Aesthetical and Ethical in Curating | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series Reimagining the museum | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series 2019 Lectures Lecture by Patrick D. Flores and launch of the WCSCD book The first talk in the 2019 series is titled: Exhibition as language/space/agency for contradicting ideas, forms, and experiences By Luca Lo Pinto Lecture by Maria Lind / Future Light: or is A New Enlightenment Worth Considering? The Decolonial Possibility | Charles Esche Comradeship: Curating Art, and Politics in Post-Socialist Europe | Zdenka Badovinac What Could/Should the Institution Do? | Ares Shporta 2018 Lectures Only One Thing Worse Than Awkward Silence: Small Talk [i] The Walking Institution | Niels Van Tomme The Exhibition. A Lecture Demonstration | Dorothea von Hantelmann KUNCI Cultural Studies Center, Cross-disciplinary encounters | Antariksa Marcel Duchamp, the most influential curator of the 20th century? | Elena Filipovic EVA International | Matt Packer Reengaging a contemporary art institution with civic society | Hou Hanru My Sweet Little Lamb, (everything we see can also be otherwise) by Ivet Ćurlin < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

Online Learning This program is developed for artists, curators and cultural workers who want to look at themselves deep in the eye and ask: What is that I care? Why I do things the way I do? What is my relationship to colonial difference? How I relate to the world in most tangible way? Through mainstream education we rarely recognise importance of contact with what is actually within ourselves or to understanding structure from within ourselves out. We understand these questions as fundamental when thinking and practising education. Through this program we provide tools and enable processes to look at these questions and practice them. The program is developed as a set of prerecorded manuals and exercises leading you through number of questions we find crucial for our work: positioning, caring, vernacular gestures and embodied knowledge, slowing down and poetic thinking, acting from and with margins. Although the program is organised as set of prerecorded manuals, we are proposing two online sessions for sharing your thoughts and ideas. You can engage in the program at any time, and work through it on your own pace, whenever you need it. If you make effort devoting time as daily practice you will be able to finish it within 10 days. For a slower pace you can take a week for each topic. For specific exercises we have created platform to share your thoughts and ideas with other participants engaged in the program. Conceptually the course takes point of departure the WCSCD 2022 educational program and some of the exercises practiced during the offline-course. For occasion of making this program we have invited a friend and collaborator, writer Toby Upson (UK) and an artist collective Skart (Serbia) to create manuals for specific sections and we are really grateful to their contribution. Program and instructions are developed with a lot of care in collaboration with WCSCD founder Biljana Ciric and curator Anastasia Albokrinova, WCSCD 2022 program participant. Program Content The structure of BLOCKS 1-5 is mainly two-part. In the first, we are questioning and triggering the proposed topic. In the second, we explore authentic and creative ways to approach it. For each section, we have an introduction from the tutor, and an individual or collective task. To better merge with the topic, we also provide some additional materials (articles, videos, podcasts) and a set of questions for self-feedback. BLOCK 1 includes the option of sharing collectively personal presentations through Zoom platform in groups of 10 people maximum. BLOCK 6 is offered as a collective practice to wrap up the educational experience and is to be conducted in groups of 10 people maximum. Fee: The fee for the course is 110€ . We have considered the lowest possible rate, to make it accessible to as many people as possible, while still being able to pay our invited guests and people who produced the program. Register Sign in

About educational program Introduction of program 2018-2022 About educational program Introduction of program 2018-2022 Lecture Series Participant Activities < Mentors Educational Program Menu >

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Practices of Care: On Rehumanization and Curating | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series The curatorial program What Could/Should Curating Do 2020 is proud to continue in 2020 with public program through lecture series The fifth talk in the 2020/21 series is titled: “Practices of Care: On Rehumanization and Curating” By Natasa Petresin-Bachelez Date: January 12, 2020 Time: 12:00 pm Belgrade/ 10:00 pm Melbourne/ 07:00 pm Shanghai/ 6:00 am New York Venue: zoom link Meeting ID: 985 237 3109 Live stream/Facebook link Installation of Sensing Salon, part of the exhibition Not Fully Human, Not Human at All, Kunstverein in Hamburg, 2020, photo Natasa Petresin-Bachelez Natasa Petresin-Bachelez will speak about two of her recent curatorial projects, “Not Fully Human, Not Human at All” (KADIST and Kunstverein in Hamburg, 2020, co-curated with Bettina Steinbrügge) and the Initiative of Practices and Visions of Radical Care that she co-founded with Elena Sorokina in spring 2020. Through them she will trace the questions of (in)compatibility of curatorial and institutional methods with the produced content, and talk about her understanding of the concept of interdependence. photo by Ivana Kalvacheva, jewellery artist ismail Afghan About Speaker Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez is an independent curator, editor and writer, she lives and works in Paris. Among the projects and exhibitions she curated are: Contour Biennale 9: Coltan as Cotton (Mechelen, 2019), Defiant Muses. Delphine Seyrig and Feminist Video Collectives in France in 1970s-1980s at the Museum Reina Sofia, Madrid and museum LaM, Lille (with Giovanna Zapperi, 2019), Let’s Talk about the Weather. Art and Ecology in a Time of Crisis at the Sursock Museum in Beirut (with Nora Razian, 2016), Resilience. Triennial of Contemporary Art in Slovenia at Museum of Contemporary Art (Ljubljana, 2013), and in France Becoming Earthlings. Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge #18 at Musée de l’Homme (with Alexander Klose, Council and Mobile Academy, 2015), Tales of Empathy at Jeu de Paume (2014), The Promises of the Past at the Centre Pompidou (with Christine Macel and Joanna Mytkowska, 2010), Société anonyme at Le Plateau/FRAC Ile-de-France (with Thomas Boutoux and François Piron, 2007). Between 2010 and 2012, she was co-director of Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers and co-founder of the European network of small-scale art institutions Cluster. She is a co-organizer and co-founder of the seminar Something You Should Know at EHESS, Paris (with Elisabeth Lebovici and Patricia Falguières), and a member of the research group Travelling Féministe, at Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir, Paris. She is the chief editor of the publishing platform Versopolis Review, between 2014 and 2017 she was the chief editor of L’Internationale Online, the publishing platform of L’Internationale – the confederation of cultural institutions, and between 2012 and 2014 she was the chief editor of the Manifesta Journal. She contributed to various publications and held lectures and organized seminars in which she presents her ongoing research into situated curatorial practices, empathy and transnational feminism, slow institutions, performative practices in the former Eastern Europe, and engaged artistic practices in the era of the Anthropocene/Capitalocene. In the scholar year 2019-2020 she teaches at the Sint Lucas School of Arts, Antwerpen. WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) was initiated and funded in 2018 in Belgrade as an educational platform around notions of curatorial. From 2020 WCSCD started to initiate its own curatorial inquiries and projects that should unpack above -mentioned complexities keeping educational component as a core to the WCSCD. The WCSCD curatorial program and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. WCSCD 2020/2021 public program series has been done in collaboration with Division of Arts and Humanities, Duke Kunshan University and they co-stream all public lectures. Strategic media collaboration is done with Seecult and they will co-host all public lecture series. Project Partners Media Partner For more information about the program, please refer to www.wcscd.com Project contacts: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com Follow us: FB: @whatcscdo Instagram: @whatcouldshouldcuratingdo < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >