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Events Lecture Series Participant Activities WCSCD 2025/2026 educational program lecture series Lecture by Nina Möntmann Decentring the Museum. Contemporary Art Institutions and Colonial Legacies Time September 10th , 2025, 19:00 Venue: SKUP Novi Sad Nina Montmann lecture is taking point of departure of her recently published book Decentering the Museum: Contemporary Art Institutions and Colonial legacy. Montmann in the book acknowledges transition processes towards decolonization, de-elitiziation, giving emphasis on importance of moving away from collection, exhibition policies that are based on European colonial legacy of institutional rituals that will be also addressed at the lecture. To counter their dwindling relevance in a post-migrant society more and more modern and contemporary art museums are seeking approaches to decenter their collections, policies and infrastructures. In doing so, they can benefit from engaging with the discourses triggered by the restitution processes of the anthropological museum as well as the working methods of small art spaces. In this talk I will introduce the concept and practice of decentring as it can be applied to the museum. I will have a look at the example of the MASP/Museu de Arte São Paulo and the HKW in Berlin and focus on a series of exhibitions and projects that performed the interweaving of diverse colonial histories with imperial modernity that the art historian Ruth Iskin calls for. Nina Montmann is mentor of WCSCD educational program 2025/2026 and she the lecture is organized as part of educational program public encounters in collaboration with SKUP and Sok Cooperative Lecture will be in English Nina Möntmann is Professor of Art Theory at the University of Cologne, curator and writer as well as Principal Investigator at the Global South Study Center (GSSC) at the University of Cologne. Before she has been Professor of Art Theory and the History of Ideas at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm and curator at NIFCA, the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art in Helsinki. Curated projects include Naeem Mohaiemen: Langer Tag , Temporary Gallery, Cologne, 2023; Måns Wrange: Magic Bureaucracy , Tensta konsthall in Stockholm 2017; Fluidity , Kunstverein in Hamburg 2016; Harun Farocki A New Product (Deichtorhallen Hamburg, 2012); If we can't get it together. Artists rethinking the (mal)functions of community (The Power Plant, Toronto, 2008); The Jerusalem Show: Jerusalem Syndrome (together with Jack Persekian), 2009, Parallel Economies in India , (Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2006) and the Armenian Pavillion for the 52nd Venice Biennial. She participated in the long-term Israeli/Palestinian art and research project Liminal Spaces , and in 2010 was a research fellow at the Museo de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. She organized a number of symposia, such as Beyond Cynicism: Political Forms of Opposition, Protest and Provocation in Art , 2012, and New Communities , 2008 (both at Moderna Museet in Stockholm), We, Ourselves, and Us at the Power Plant in Toronto, 2009, and ReForming India - Artistic Collectives Bend International Art Practices at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School in New York, 2007. < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

Nikita Yingqian Cai < Back Manila shawl and “gold mountain uncles” and Protein demand and chicken farm blockchain Nikita Yingqian Cai Manila shawl and “gold mountain uncles” The Manila shawl was originally from Canton. The silk produced in Shunde – an affluent region since the Ming Dynasty due to its adjacency to water, abundance of agricultural land, and its robust mulberry and sericulture industry – was woven into the shawls hand-made by local embroidery artisans. They adapted designs principally of lotus flowers and dragons to depict flora that resonated better with an international audience, such as roses and carnations. Spanish and Latin American women became enamored with the intricate floral designs, while the shawl’s signature tassels, originating from Native American garments, contributed to the vibrancy of the flamenco dancer’s mellifluous performances. This was the time when Spain dominated the maritime trade route. A range of colonial luxuries including silk products, ceramics, and tea leaves would be loaded in Canton and transported via Manila and Acapulco before arriving in the southern port of Seville in Spain—the same route taken by the explorer Magellan. It would, however, go on to lose its imperial advantages within Asia to the monopoly of [the] East Indian Companies in the 19th century. Travelling in the opposite direction, destined for the Philippines, were Spanish galleons transporting heavy loads of Mexican bullion from South America and devoted Catholic missionaries from Europe. The missionaries arriving early in Luzon had known for a long time that “Catholicizing” the traders ( sangley ) from the southern regions of Imperial China — particularly those from Guangdong, Fujian, and Taiwan — and fostering them as local intermediaries, would aid the Spanish colonial expansion in the area. To this day, there are still some Catholic relics in the region of Sze Yap . The region would later provide a large number of young and cheap laborers for the coolie trade that followed the opium wars. Coolies were deceived into signing up for jobs that had them setting sail from Macau, and drifting for months, before arriving in Peru, Cuba, or the British-controlled Caribbean to earn a pittance shoveling bird droppings, farming sugarcane, or digging the Panama Canal. Some would later travel to the west coast of North America where they provided labor for mines, the construction of transcontinental railways, and the California gold rush. Those who struck rich by panning for gold were referred to as “gold mountain uncles” upon their return home. Right after the peak of the coolie trade, the US signed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, and the racist rhetoric it legitimized would later be a contributing factor in the opening of the notorious immigration station on Angel Island (1910 – 1940). Protein demand and chicken farm blockchain A YouTube video “How to quickly destroy the world’s forests?” produced by PaperClip and WWF sparked accusations from Chinese internet commentators in early 2020 for its direct linking of China’s middle class growing protein demand with deforestation in Brazil. Some of the commentators claimed the “right to development” both for the Brazilians who wanted to do business with China and for the Chinese who could finally afford to consume more meat. It is a third-world developmentalist ghost in the shell of nationalism, and the current trade route of meat and soy between China and Brazil resonates with the long history of mercantile modernity. China’s food security based on pork supply and the Belt and Road Initiative are also connected to Brazil’s soybean chain and the ongoing construction of highway BR-163 in the state of Mato Grosso, which has a fundamental role in commerce, tourism, and the transport logistics of the agribusiness. However, the growing Chinese demand for protein does not have much to do with the CCP and state-owned enterprises as most western media would have depicted. On the contrary, it masks a socio-economic divide which is very much like what is happening around the world. Some people like beef, some people like pork, while some can afford neither but will surely want more. Some might prefer organic food or no meat because they live a cosmopolitan life and are more alert to the surrounding ecological crisis. In some poor villages of hinterland China, one would still have hard time finding beef dishes in home-run restaurants because farmers won’t kill cows for food – they raise the animal for agricultural labor. There are still plenty of small farm holders in rural areas of China, and when compared to industrial farming, have different ways of bonding with their lands and animals. Cows for them are like horses to cowboys (though less romantic). In recent years, some farmers have started raising high-tech chicken in their farms, in which chicken wear leg bands to track their movements as Fitbits for tech start-ups to record the data on a blockchain. That is how technology is transforming the lives of the human and nonhuman – neither the farmers nor the animals have any free choice when confronted by global capitalism. What we should continue to bear in mind is who sustains the flourishing of the world. Nikita Yingqian Cai lives and works in Guangzhou, where she is currently Associate Director and Chief Curator at Guangdong Times Museum. Previous Next

Hu Yun < Back “Topola” (Cottonwood trees) and “Breza” (birch trees) and Chinese wok Hu Yun Key words from Bor:Provided by The Hunter and Miss K (two friends from Bor who guided me during my first visit to Bor) http://old.wcscd.com/index.php/wcscd-curatorial-inquiries/as-you-go-journal/bor/ Collected by Hu Yun Disappearing: “Topola” (Cottonwood trees) A towering native, a cottonwood tree soars and spreads, growing more than 30m tall and almost as wide. It’s a cherished shade tree, often planted in parks. In the wild, cottonwood grows along rivers, ponds and other bodies of water. It also thrives in floodplains and dry riverbeds, where infrequent rains transform dry land into waterways. Historically, cottonwood earned its place as a landscape tree because it grows rapidly, cumulatively up to 1.5m a year. It’s also a favorite for shade, with the large spread helping to cast cooling shade over homes and streets. There’s a cottonwood for nearly any region, with different hardy types in Zones 2 through 9. (Brandt, Wilhelm; Gürke, M.; Köhler, F. E.; Pabst, G.; Schellenberg, G.; Vogtherr, Max., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen in naturgetreuen Abbildungen mit kurz erläuterndem Texte : Gera-Untermhaus :Fr. Eugen Köhler,[1883-1914]. www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/303674 ) “Breza” (birch trees) Birch trees belong to the genus Betula and are classified as part of the Betulaceae family of plants. They are typically small to medium-sized trees and shrubs found in temperate zones in the Northern Hemisphere. Some varieties grow in shrubby clusters. Others are trees that clump with multiple trunks. And others grow as classic single-trunk trees. Most birches are characterized by distinctive bark with papery plates; the appearance of the bark often is the feature that gives the species its common names. Birches often form even-aged stands on light, well-drained, particularly acidic soils. They are regarded as pioneer species, rapidly colonizing open ground especially in secondary successional sequences following a disturbance or fire. Mycorrhizal fungi, including sheathing (ecto) mycorrhizas, are found in some cases to be beneficial to tree growth. A large number of lepidopteran insects feed on birch foliage. (Betula pendula Roth, syn. Betula verrucosa Ehrh. Original book source: Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz 1885, Gera, Germany. Source: www.biolib.de ) Appearing: Chinese wok Being the first Chinese person to open a Chinese restaurant in Bor, Chef Qiu’s wok is one of his everyday’s essentials. Image courtesy Chef Qiu, Bor, Serbia Hu Yun is an artist currently based in Melbourne. Previous Next

Anne Bourrassé < Back Art as barrier gestures Anne Bourrassé Early mornings collide with long evenings. Tuesday is like Friday, and Saturday runs without sleep. News are so often repeated that it falls into the norm. The days pass by. Without natural light in the apartment my shadow disappear. It appears behind my back, twice a week, on my way to buy basic necessities. All that remains to be done then is to reconquer the “infra-ordinary”, as Georges Perec calls it, to enchant the usual. There is nothing usual about the crisis. It does, however, impose new attitudes on us, by freezing the binary rhythm. It defines a space for our movements and its choreography of useful gestures. Locked up, the right foot more rarely exceeds the left foot, and vice versa. Big is the magnitude of the situation, small is the space of our condition. How can we extract ourselves from it and apprehend it in new forms? See this crisis as an object in its own right, understanding its language and the tone of its appearances, deducing from it the means of artistic action, even ephemeral and solid. How can we propose an image for the invisible ? How can we lend a material to the impalpable? Artists, curators, critics, operate at a distance to make the sensation of reality take off and allow creation to emit new frequencies. Geographically isolated, but united in the experience of the environment. The studio moved to the home, in a context that constrains us in our possibilities and tools. At the same time, the situation delivers its own atmosphere, it defines its point of view, its materials, its sonorities, and its colours. Resource of inspiration, it sets the tone of time. Art thus becomes a rampart to agitation with its own barrier gestures. Respect the distance with your subject. Listen to your environment. Favour the tools at your disposal. Use your hands regularly. Anne Bourrassé is an independent curator, fostering the interactions between visual arts and humanities. Previous Next

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities On WCSCD educational programme Collective reflections This conversation with What Could Should Curating Do (WCSCD) education programme participants happened in June 2024, during the final part of the 2023/24 education programme. The conversation took place in the rural (the village of Gornja Gorevnica, in central Serbia), as we spent one of the last weeks of the programme together in the WCSCD pedagogical centre.The heat challenged our abilities to focus and to be present during this discussion — the conversation was recorded as temperatures reached 35 degrees celsius in the shade. Writer Toby Üpson, who has been following the programme during its transition over the year, initiated the conversation with questions. Program participants Anna Ilchenko, Asida Butba, Andrey Parshikov, mentor Luigi Coppola and intern Min Chengxiang were present and took part in this conversation. Program participant Laura Rositani wasn't with us during the last visit to the rural. Her responses were introduced to this text later, as the conversation was being transcribed. Overall the conversation tries to reflect on the programme's focus and the embodiment of knowledge. WCSCD’s educational programme was established in 2018, mostly situated in Belgrade. It is an international programme for artists and curators. Having these two positions, curatorial and artistic, in close proximity is very important for WCSCD; in many places that lack an art infrastructure, these positions constantly merge, complement and support one another. The WCSCD educational programme has been a testing ground for creating a collective learning site, a space to think about how to institute differently. The central place of the educational programme in WCSCD’s activities has been vital to the institution; the programme has helped guide us, creating a space to collectively consider many practical questions as well as to think about our future. Biljana Ciric (BC): It’s the 21st of June 2024. Toby, Asida, Andrey, Anna, Luigi, Min, and myself are present. I think it's a good moment to reflect. Toby has some questions which I found interesting and I felt we could think about these together. Toby Üpson (TU): To start off, my first question is really broad and very subjective. The premise of the education programme this year, and its leading question was, what does it mean for an arts institution to become the custodian of land? So, that guiding question automatically implies that the programme is focused around the arts institution and its organisation beyond the programme. In that sense, as participants, I was wondering what and how have you ‘gained’ from the programme — to use a word I don't like —, or at least how have you experienced this process? Asida Butba (AB): You mean in relation to how through knowing our background, what sort of meaning we put into custodianship as a practice, as a way of thinking? TÜ: I think more generally. You signed up and applied to an education programme which is very, very specific. How do you think this process has formed you, if it has formed you, and what have you learned, if anything at all? Anna Ilchenko (AI): Or unlearned. TÜ: Indeed. AI: I was curious about the idea of custodianship, carrying in a larger sense, because of how this word operates in different contexts, in relation to Australian Indigenous communities for example. And how to practise different cultural strategies in order to have a more inclusive society, that sort of thing. I was curious to see whether this situation could somehow be applicable to other contexts. I mean as an experiment, an experimental educational, not practise per se but a condition. It was interesting not just to see but also to practise it [— custodianship]. Of course, I'm oversimplifying because it was purely a kind of artificial, I would say, laboratory situation. But I was curious to see how it could work. Do I know whether it works or if it can be universal, that sort of a strategy? I wouldn't say that I have a clear understanding of how this could be, these ideas come from engaging with knowledges from indigenous communities from other parts of the world. So this is still an open question for me. AB: My motivation to apply was more related to a question of alternative ways of instituting, since I’m organising a space myself that's something that I've been curious about. What are these methods, you know, especially when starting something from scratch with no infrastructural backing, where there’s not a lot of resources to build either or you have to inherit the resources. To me, that was what I found interesting. I'm not sure that the things I learned have anything to do with custodianship of the land. TÜ: How do you think you could apply what you have experienced with the programme to your daily practice? AI: I think that my experience of the programme has been very different. I would say that it fluctuated between inspiration and thoughts you apply to your work directly, but which also have a kind of vagueness or intuitiveness where it's not clear what's going on, where it's not clear how or what the result is going to be. It is an open process. And that's a huge thing. I can go on forever about this and what I can take from this. Andrey Parshikov (AP): After documenta14 I was interested in how and what the connection is between cultural production and the production of goods or food or something like that. I had never thought about that. Second, I never thought about these groups, those who are going into the woods and making something there, who are connected to the land and so on. ‘Land’ was not in my vocabulary as a contemporary practitioner. So it was out of this curiosity that I applied. I learned a lot from the tutors about how artistic value could add something to the production of food and now I understand better all these artists from documenta14, like what their artistic practice is, where their art is and how it works. Laura Rositani (LR): I can certainly relate to Asida's response. My initial motivation for applying was driven by a desire to reconsider my approach to curating, especially in light of my recent learnings. I was and still am particularly interested in exploring more ecological and caring methods of curating. This experience has prompted me to ask many questions: how can I curate a show without artworks? One of the most valuable lessons I've learned is the importance of the process over the material object. The programme made me rethink the methodologies and phenomenologies of new spaces, developing a critical eye and embracing failure sometimes. This was a new experience for me: I've come to realise that the current ‘likes culture’ may not be conducive to learning. This experience has pushed me to think outside of the box and challenge my assumptions. The opportunity to interact with such a diverse and talented group of people from around the world has made me realise how often I limit my view to my own bubble; being with the WCSCD group was enriching. TÜ: It sounds like you all approached the programme with a level of curiosity, an interest you wanted to learn more about. Is it right to say that you've become more knowledgeable about these things? AI: I have implemented the things I learned through the programme in a recent show. Not everything worked but at least this is just something that I felt I could naturally implement both as a curatorial strategy and also as a way to challenge the idea of how to engage with Indigenous context in Russia because these have their own layers of complexity, much more twisted than could be imagined. The exhibition talks about the earth as a political, economic and spiritual agent; we worked with a group of researchers from Yakutia, because of their relationship with the land and their understanding of its purpose as a support system. TÜ: Sounds like there was a knowledge transfer at a simple level taking place. AI: Yeah, I've never done anything before like that. AB: I’ll say there has been an expansion of how I understand what I want to do and what I want to do in the near future. Some of the issues we've discussed here, regarding the land, and some of the readings, give me a sense of the possibilities of what I could do in the environment I work in. Thinking about where I work, I was asking myself what is this? I don't quite understand because I was born in Russia; there are some things I really don't grasp enough and that I have no clue why they work like this. For example, there are activist groups uniting around land-based issues and they are really strong. Young people in their early 20ies have this gut feeling that this is our land, we're not giving it to anybody and so on. I can relate to that. I also work with an indigenous population, in a place where half of the population lives in the rural, it's basically a Caucasus tribe, one living in an unrecognised state [— Abhazia], and I’m actually working with some of these people now, on future programmes for the space I organise. TÜ: How useful was it to have the programme so focused on the rural, and not just in terms of curiosity, in terms of the reality of the situation? In other words, why choose an education programme with no aircon! when you could have been in a library? AP: I didn't want to read books. I wanted to be in dialogue with others and this was a good opportunity for that, an opportunity to learn from other professionals and not from the books, it's always better that way. BC: An embodied experience? AP: Yes, yes, an embodied experience, exactly! AB: It is also all those conversations had beyond the workshops, beyond the presentations and the lectures. For me, these were the spaces for the most fruitful discussions. They were also part of that educational process, for me anyway, and that's why it's important for everybody to be together in a situation like this. Luigi Coppola (LC): After this year, do you think there is a specific category that you can confine to the rural? Is it a specific category for curators or art context to engage with? Do you think there is a specific way of working in this context? AP: Of course, you need to be brave enough to do that. I mean doing an exhibition is one thing and creating the space for rural within contemporary production is another, that’s very different from a traditional art institution. LC: I don't think there is this categorisation. I think it's more a methodology or way to engage with an issue. I don't see the distinction because I don't find a big difference in terms of how the society is built. If we say we have the institution in the city or that an urban area is more educated to the art context what does it mean? Because there are so many rurals; I ema we talk about marginal places, peripheric places, indigenous places, and we categorise everything as a rural place. What we think of as rural is the space for the production of food but it's much more than this. Urban contexts are now also producing food maybe, more than you know. I live in a place where nobody is cultivating anymore there is no attachment to the land, and the people are living exactly with the same trauma, the same mechanism in the city, maybe missing some things in the city, but there is no difference in the way they are educated, they create society, they create a relation. In every context that I've been in, I'm not able to create a category and I don't feel I fit in this idea of rural art, rural artist. I feel all this construction around contemporary art is completely fake, and I don't find this categorisation worth the discussion to be honest, so I try when it's possible to destroy this because I don't feel it's for me. There are so many things that it's more interesting for me to talk about: methodology, engagement, connecting, the way to connect, the way to create, the way to act, the way to practise. We need to talk about situated practice and every time we are in a place we need to discover a methodology for this. AP: It's not about the context. It's very raw. I mean here there is no audience. There is no nothing. There is no… LC: And it is rural? AP: Of course. LC: But it's not part of urban-rural. We can go to many places in the city that are rawer than this. We can go into favelas and we can find people who are very raw. I can show you some raw context in the city. AP: Of course. I'm sorry, but I'm working in a museum. In a museum there is an audience, there is an infrastructure, there is everything. LC: Yeah, but this is an art institution. It's not rural. It's not a question of rural and not rural. AP: But we're building institutions, right? Or alternative institutions. So that's why I'm comparing it to. TÜ: I think it might be useful to reframe a way of thinking. You're in the programme, you're researching, how useful is it to have a specific, project-based, situation like this? To have this institutional project alongside the education programme’s research and the conversations? AI: I think it's very useful. Actually, I really loved this experience here in the village. Also all the rawness that Andrey mentions. Because you're trying to do something and you see the reality of what is really happening. You ask yourself and everyone else more questions, and I think that this is an extremely useful process. The first aspect of the programme was more of a scenery, like all the workshops and so on framed our thinking. I felt that the second part, engaging with this rural context, really required closer engagement with the people who have an understanding of how this place functions, maybe knowing the language. BC: I think that it's interesting that you mentioned this because it's something that I’m thinking deeply about. The majority of the physical programme happened in Belgrade, in a very urban setting. But it's fascinating that when we talk about the programme, we talk about the rural experience. It's very sensorial being together here, living together, eating together, cooking together… AP: Taking showers together… BC: Taking showers together… This experience creates a different bond within the group. This compliments the notion of learning as everyday practice. Figuring out these dynamics interests me; so too, hearing about how our experiences together, in the rural, has left an impression on you. Before moving to the rural we did a methodological preparation. For that we thought about positioning: how do you position yourself as a practitioner, etc., etc. We focused our research with case studies on rural practices from across the Balkans, undertaking a number of field trips to understand these histories and contexts. It was very important that you understood that there were practitioners before us and, like us, that they tried to decenter artistic work. Through this historical research, we learnt where the problems with these practices were, what the struggles were. Indeed, Whilst on our research trips we could actually taste the bitterness of these practices as we encountered their ruins, deepening our thinking about what and how we could learn from these practitioners. So yes, for me it's really interesting to hear how powerful our stay in this rural context was for you, I mean for me as well. AP: We keep forgetting about the part of the programme dedicated to the margins, to the people who went out of the system. This was very important for me as well. When I was living in Moscow I was researching different types of secs, all the case studies and communes we visited resonated with this research, especially in relation to spirituality. LR: To me the situation we experienced in the rural was not that new but still it was challenging. I am not used to sharing the same space with several people for ten days but I believe this brought me to new awareness of myself as a person and as curator. It made me think about the importance of time and slowness: it takes time to get in touch with a community, to take care of it and to come up with something valuable created together. TÜ: Do you think you've gone through a process of unlearning? AI: I wouldn't say ‘what have you unlearned’ is the best question. On a very practical level, I had this knowledge in me already. It's been there since I was a child, I would wash the dishes the same way as you, but I have forgotten all this knowledge after living most of my life in cities. So here the unlearning was more of a case of going backwards, mentally, and unpacking some of the things already embedded within me but which lie latent and unused, like riding a bicycle essentially. TÜ: When I say unlearning I don't just mean bookish knowledge, I mean body-knowledge too. AB: Yes and learning how your body's being socialised. AI: I felt this when we were working with Petra [Pavleka], physically thinking about biodiversity and how to implement this; you took a shovel and your body already knew what to do because you've done it so many times, so this is what I’m saying, it's like riding a bicycle. Growing up I was much more experienced living in the countryside — even though it's a very complex relationship for me because I grew up in the 90s — we had to know how to grow vegetables so we could have food on the table. Being a child you don’t want to go through with this labour, you want to be a kid not planting potatoes. So the rural can be a dark place in some way and that is why I hesitate to go back to something. There were moments of joy, of course, and moments of learning; my grandmother was so knowledgeable about countryside life and I would learn a lot from her. So, for me, an inter-generational relationship and knowledge also resurfaced here. And this is another thing that I asked Luigi when we were having discussion in the autumn; coming from a post-socialist context, for me, it's going back to the countryside and means going back to its models of producing food. I can remember after school or during the summer we would cultivate potatoes for free. Obviously, it was not ‘common wealth for god's sake’ , this was essentially exploitation. For me, this experience surfaces all those complexities. It makes me question the means of labour, its distribution across a labour force as well as all the power dynamics in place or that were in place. TU: I'm very interested in bodily knowledge. You've all grown up, gone down a specific route, normally followed an institutional pathway or a particular curatorial mode of thinking, becoming socialised to that way of working. I am interested to know if you have started thinking about and unthinking how you've been socialised. AB: I mean I can totally relate to Anna regarding the activation of forgotten parts of myself, like washing the dishes or taking a shower or enjoying the view from the window of the toilet. I know these things instinctively, some are active in my present life and others need to be reactivated. I was never really socialised in a... I mean, I do not come from an institution. BC: It's more grass roots. AB: Yeah, I'm not cultivated. I'm just grass root. Just grass. TÜ: Sorry to jump in and to directly ask about your artist space, is the logic you follow to organise this the same logic as the ‘big boy’ institutions? ie, applying for the same pots of funding. I would like to think about this experience in relation to alternative institutional models. AB: Despite my curiosity in alternative methodologies, to organise my space I currently apply to ‘normal’ funding streams. For me, this is the only thing that works honestly. I haven't figured out any other strategy and I don't think that looking at this programme I can see any other strategies that are immediately available to provide me with sustainability. To pursue an alternative system, in my context, I feel I would need to quit whatever I’m doing with my art space and spend two years or more researching alternative strategies. And this is not what I want to do. Our resources in Abhazia are scarce and I’m trying to learn how to do what I do better with these limitations. BC: Can I ask where you think the curatorial is here? AP: While you are creating you are cultivating something or are taking care of something probably. Trying to introduce alternative means of production into cultural institutions that have very traditional and conservative ways of working it's already something curatorial, even thinking about this and thinking about how to do this is curatorial. AB: I think there should be a certain sensitivity to the people we meet in rural areas. For me the curatorial would be to engage more, to try to enter from different angles, to experiment with different means of engagement and to see how people respond. AI: For me it's also about people first, finding people to have conversations with. But also, there is a necessity to care about this place. BC: I have a last question. If the field of curatorial is constituted by the questions we can ask, What is the one question that you would ask after experiencing all the hardship? LC: I'm not sure that the curatorial is constituted by the questions you ask. It's about the care that you put into things, be this an economic thought or the ecology of people. A question isn’t the starting point but a practice. AI: For me, the question, as a cultural practitioner, is about the idea of holistic unity. AB: Maybe my question would be how to create a space that could be productive for listening or how to create a space where everyone present could have a sense of the other or the unknown. LR: More than a question, mine is a thought and again it’s about time and what Luigi called the ecology of people. Working on margins and working on communities requires a lot of time spent on site and with people. < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

< Back WCSCD produces limited edition prints 1/9 WCSCD produces limited edition prints on the occasion of the program Walking as a Way of Knowing- Belgrade 2024 in collaboration with the artists Dunja Karanovic and Jelena Andzic. The Walking as a Way of Knowing- Belgrade is a series of walks imagined as an artist's interventions in the public space that reveal marginal histories, present and future of the place. Dunja Karanovic and Jelena Andzic's prints are inspired by the walks they created and shared in 2024. Prints by both artists formulate tangible and physical traces of these experiences of walking with different participants. The envelope contains seven signed prints by both artists Dunja Karanovic and Jelena Andzic. Edition of 100 Size: A5 (148x210mm) Price: 4300 dinars If you are participated in our walks special discount applies 3800 dinars. More about walks pls visit link here: Https://www.wcscd.com/participant-activities/walking-as-a-way-of-knowing-%E2%80%93-belgrade Statement by Dunja Karanovic: Starting from the Spring of 2024, we walked through Belgrade with the idea of Feminizing the City - looking at both visible and invisible traces left by women throughout history - feminists, freedom fighters, peace activists, but also painters, poets, and dancers. One of the most striking impressions was a monumental emptiness in our public spaces, one that should be filled by the names, faces, and legacies of women. Statement by Jelena Anzic With the increasing disappearance of public spaces in Belgrade, Cerak Vinogradi serves as a reminder of the importance of walking. This urban project was built in harmony with its natural surroundings, all the while glorifying it. When built in 1984, Cerak Vinogradi was built for the future, and we are sadly not there yet - as stated by one of our guides from The Little Town on Top of the Hill walk.

February 4th 2020 2pm – 8pm Guramayne Art Center Addis Ababa Organized in collaboration with Biljana Ciric & Guramayne Art Center < Back Preface 4 Feb 2020 We are pleased to present long term research project As you go… the roads under your feet, towards a new future (If you want to travel, build roads first) . This long term project reflects on the recent Belt and Road Initiative (OBOR), and how it will alter the aesthetics and practices of everyday life in different local contexts. The project invites collaborations with artists, activists, architects, agricultural researchers, and anthropologists in an effort to try and understand the impact of the OBOR on different locales, creating a critical analysis and reflection. The project will be developed in dialogue with different institutions in the parts of the world where OBOR has a great presence, such as in Central Asia, the Balkans, East Africa, who will act as hosts and facilitators of the research to be done in collaboration with local communities. Gathering of partner institutions in Addis Ababa close door sessions and public moment hosted by Guramayne Art Center marks the begging on the project. During this public moment hosted by Guramayne Art Center we publicly announce the project, as well present partner institution of the project WCSCD (Belgrade), Times Museum (Guangzhou), Guramayne Art Center (Addis Ababa), Moderna Galerija (Ljubljana), and ArtEast (Bishkek). For this special occasion few artists work related to topic will be presented. Na China (2019) recently produced film by Marie Voignier as well as A New Silk Road: Algorithm of Survival and Hope , 2007, by Gulnara Kasmaileva and Muratbek Djumaliev. Artist Robel Temesgen new work Addis Newspaper: The Chinese Issue – January 2050 initiated by the project will be also presented. First Phase of the project has been supported by Foundation for Arts InitiativesAdditional grant for first public presentations in Addis Ababa has been received from Soros Foundation – Kyrgyzstan Participants of project public moment in Addis Ababa Robel Temesgen – artist (Addis Ababa) Zdenka Badovinac – director of Moderna Galerija (Ljubljana, Slovenia) Nikita Yingqian Cai – chief curator of Times Museum (GuangZhou, China) Mifte Zeleke – director of Guramayne Art Center (Addis Ababa) Gulnara Kasmaileva and Muratbek Djumailev – artists and founders of ArtEast (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) Biljana Ciric – independent curator and founder of What Could Should Curating Do February 4th 2020 Location: Guramayne Art Center Format of public presentation 2:00pm – 2:20pm Introduction by Mifta Zeleke and introduction of Guramayne Art Center Introduction of the project by Biljana Ciric 2:20 – 3:00 Lecture performance by Robel Temesgen 3:00 – 3:20 Zdenka Badovinac 3:20 – 3:40 Nikita Yingqian Cai 3:40 – 4pm Gulnara and Muratbek 4:00 – 4:30 Moderated discussion with partner institutions 4:30 – 4:45 Q&A 4:45 break 5:00 Marie Voignier film screening 7:10-7:25 Q&A 7:30 – 7:45 Screening of the work by Gulnara Kasmaileva and Muratbek Djumaliev 7:45 Q&A 8:00 Closing remarks Previous Next

< Back Virtually Driving Back in Time? 10 Sept 2021 Sinkneh Eshetu In May 2021 I Joined the Astrobus Ethiopia, on a driving trip across different regions in the country, on a project aiming to empower and connect young learners with science, art, and technology. This marked the third trip for Astrobus Ethiopia, and we journeyed to my home town – giving me the opportunity to rediscover cultural landscapes and reconnect to my fond childhood memories. All the three places targeted were special to me: Konso is my birthplace, Jinka is where my early childhood memories were moulded, and Arbaminch is a place I spent my junior and high school times. screenshot, May 14 2021 This is southern Ethiopia. This is a place of natural and cultural diversity. It is called by some a mosaic of culture for housing about 25 of the 81 ethnic groups in Ethiopia. That implies so much diversity in the ways of exploring and knowing, perceiving and expressing, valuing and living our shared reality. Here, one feels, time is not flat but as ragged as its landscapes. Some live on the hilltops, others at the hill bottom, still others in the valleys, the forests, the prairies, or deserts of the landscape of time, where times past, present, and future are superimposed. See there? An earth-bound-looking bushman, apparently alien to the whims and fancies of modernity, is talking to someone with a mobile phone. Did this mobile influence the way he sees the world? Does he know how his voice travels in space and time to link him with his distant friend? Very unlikely. I read somewhere what an anthropologist did a few years back at this very place. He showed the community a picture of their late relative. Everyone was excited to find a ‘proof’ that their late father or friend is invisible but still in existence. ‘This is his shadow;’ they reasoned. ‘If the shadow exists, the person responsible for the appearance of the shadow must also exist.’ The technology only served to reinforce their traditional belief in the existence of the soul after death. With the mobile, they might have found a proof for the way a human spirit transcends space-time boundaries, who knows. Among the central objectives of Astrobus are fostering critical thinking and exchange of worldviews. What does that mean? I was wondering how each member of the Astrobus team might be seeing these people and places. These are favourite destinations of cultural tourists and anthropologists. That makes you wonder why tourists, most of whom are from technologically advanced societies, are attracted to these communities. Could it be that they consider their coming here as going back in time to their origins as homo sapiens? Probably they have read the works of the historian Yuval Harari and believe in his theories: Homo Sapiens, originating in this part of the world, succeeded in conquering and ruling the globe with the strength of their stories. They may then assume that these people of the so called the Land of Origins loved the stories that showed their compatriots of 70 000 years past conquering the giants of Eurasia, the Neanderthals. So, they did not see the point in changing that story, hence their archaic-looking way of life. They may also predict, taking for granted that the coming of Harari’s Homo Deus is going to be a global phenomenon, these people may then be riding straight from the Era of crop or animal husbandry to the Era of Cyborgs, without having to traverse, like them, the twisted and tangled paths of feudalism, capitalism, socialism or a cocktail of these isms. I would not be surprised if they think so. For here, it is easy to assume that these traditions, having come thus far apparently resisting change, may continue to do so for years to come only to eventually submit to the irresistible global force. What would become of their stories and their worldviews then? Astrobus has made it clear that it is here to foster exchange of worldviews and not to change any. Still, each member of the travelling team might have his or her own view of these target communities and the aspired exchange. I did not ask, but it would be interesting if anyone of them might be thinking this trip as a virtual journey to our collective past. Our first stop was Arbaminch, a place noted for its landscape beauty, traditional weaving and music. Though things seemed to be disorganized at first, because the local volunteers who promised to help us organize were busy mobilizing people for the 6thnational election, we eventually managed to reach three schools in a day. That was a very empowering first experience for the travelling team. Next, we drove to Konso, my birthplace. This is a community of industrious people known for their terrace-building and settlement patterns that reflected their social organization, registered as UNESCO’s Cultural Landscape World Heritage Site for that reason. My fascination with the folktale of the Konsos gave birth to my first anthropological novel, Searching for Ella: Crocodile College , that explores how folktales, indigenous belief systems, and rituals could help ensure the resilience of people at the face of disruptive changes. Here, some of the travelling team members were hoping to stop by one of the traditional villages to get a glimpse of the highly esteemed traditional culture. With the interest of time, however, that idea had to be dropped. Where the Astrobus team had its event, the school’s science club also demonstrated its works – some herbal medicine and models of machines. That was underlined as a form of the aspired give-and-take. screenshot on may 15, 2021 Our last stop was Jinka. It was here that I had a hilarious childhood experience about film. It was a dark countryside evening. There was no power then. Except probably for the flickering stars and the distant glows of moonlight, all was dark. Once in a while, a strong light is turned on and off from a truck standing with its rear end facing an eager crowd of kids like me and no-less-eager adults. Three or four people, carrying a feeble flashlight, were struggling with a strange object on the truck, which I later learned to be a film projector. I was 9 or 10. That day in school, we were told that a film would be shown at the town’s marketplace at night and we should all be there. A film! I had no idea what that was. I do not remember even hearing the word before that day. Being a loner, I did not ask anyone what was going on. I strained my eyes staring on the truck and on the wheeled machine the people were fumbling with, hoping to see something interesting. I now guess the people had difficulty making the projector run. But then I thought that object, the projector, was ‘the film’ we were supposed to enjoy. My interest faded away quickly and I returned home soon not to anger my mom by staying out too late watching that boring staff. Later that night, my siblings who stayed behind spoke excitedly about the amazing things they saw in the film. I was mad to have missed the opportunity by mistaking the projector for the film. When that same film, which was on wildlife, was shown again six or so months later, I was awestruck. I thought film was some kind of magic. That experience was so enduring that it found its way to my latest novel, Catch Your Thunder: Rendezvous with the End – the film as a modern miracle local magicians must beat in order to keep on holding the upper hand in the market of miracle-making. Jinka did not change much from those old days. Yes, a few modern-looking buildings have made their appearance in town. TV and mobiles have long been commonplace and the internet is accessible for those interested and are cyber-literate. Certainly, there is no magic in films and pictures anymore. Though the workings of the technology might still be mysterious for many, nearly everyone knows that one can make his or her own ‘film’ or picture with a mobile. Jinka even boasts its own university now. However, if one drives a few kilometres to any direction from the town, one will find people living the most natural way, some even walking naked, apparently keeping their promise to their ancestors who went away eons ago to conquer the globe. This is the background that formed the student body Astrobus engaged with in Jinka. I was thinking of my first experience with film in this very town when a group of students talked about the films they were trying to make at the booth the filmmaker among us made them try their hand on a professional film production. I can only imagine what an impression this engagement might have created on the young learners privileged to attend the event. Exchange of worldviews? I am not sure how much of that happened. Generally speaking, most of us, even artists, went there with thoughts and tools refined at the background of a worldview that compartmentalizes reality with its fast-changing knowledge system. And these indigenous cultures see reality holistically with the lens of their slowly accumulated, millennia-long experience. If worldviews were demonstrable like paintings or telescopes, the difference would have been stunning. This would have been especially so if we had the opportunity to go to local communities with our high-tech tools and arts, as many of the team members wished to do. Unfortunately, however, that was not possible mainly because of financial constraints. In our preliminary survey tour, we managed to visit half a dozen indigenous communities. After visiting the Dorze and the Konso villages well known for their art of weaving, construction, and social organization, one team member asked, ‘why did they stop here instead of pushing boundaries to propagate their amazing ways of life?’ And one of us answered, ‘maybe they didn’t see the need to do that.’ That may not be a choice in this era of rapid globalization. It seems every indigenous culture must strive to be heard telling its own stories in order to survive as a culture and identity. Otherwise, its age-old stories would be lost for good in the noisy tale of money, science, and technology. Sinkneh Eshetu (penname: O’Tam Pulto) is a published author and landscape architect. Previous Next

Ocean & Wavz < Back kaijū and The real Ocean & Wavz kaijū Ocean & Wavz 怪獣 For Ever Remain (PandeMix), 2021 Music, video, 8’12” Copyright©2021 Singapore WAVZ PTE LTD. All rights reserved. The Japanese word kaijū (litterally “strange beast”) originally refers to giant monsters and creatures from ancient Japanese legends, which are usually depicted attacking major cities and engaging the military, or other kaijū, in battle. It earlier appeared in the Chinese Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海经), a compilation of mythic geography and beasts. Versions of the text may have existed since as early as the 4th century BC, but the present form was not reached until the early Han dynasty a few centuries later. It is largely a fabulous geographical and cultural account of pre-Qin China as well as a collection of Chinese mythology. The book is divided into eighteen sections and describes over 550 mountains and 300 channels. After sakoku had ended (鎖国, “closed country”, isolationist foreign policy from 1633 to 1853 banning any travelling in/out Japan) and the country was opened to foreign relations, the term kaijū came to be used to express concepts from paleontology and legendary creatures from around the world. For example, in 1908 it was suggested that the extinct Cratosarus was alive in Alaska, and this was referred to as kaijū . However, there are no traditional depictions of kaiju or kaiju -like creatures in Japanese folklore. The kaijū genre is a subgenre of tokusatu (特撮, “special filming”) entertainment. The 1954 film Godzilla is commonly regarded as the first kaijū film. Kaijū characters are metaphorical in nature. Godzilla, for example, serves as a metaphor for nuclear weapons, reflecting the fears of post-war Japan following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Extracts from Wikipedia) The real Ocean & Wavz -ism , 2021 Music, video, 5’25” Copyright©2021 Singapore WAVZ PTE LTD. All rights reserved. What we call “reality” is actually already a re-presentationframed by fiction, narration, history, propaganda, lie, pretention of truth, memory, landscape, documentary. The figure has the ability to produce an effect of « the real » that consists of turning mimesis (imitation of reality) against itself by radical dissimilarity or literal operation. What we name “the real” is not synonym of reality, it is rarely a (human) construction or re-presentation through language and image. According to the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, “The real, or what is perceived as such, is absolutely resisting to symbolization (symbolic)” [1] . Thus, the real always escapes from/to language and reality, a kind of unspeakable, traumatic experience, beyond any truth. All the question is thus to observe how a figure can be created to open up the image to something that is out of any representation. Larys Frogier, curator and author of the exhibition/publication Arriscar O Real / Risk The Real , Lisbon: Museu Colecção Berardo, 8 June – 30 August 2009. [1] Jacques Lacan, Le Séminaire – Livre I – Les Ecrits techniques de Freud (1953-1954), Paris : Seuil, Coll. Champ Freudien, 1991, p.80 Ocean & Wavz , an artist duo engaged in the production of sound, text and image. Previous Next

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