REACHING OUT TO THE MARGINS Once we start questioning the infrastructure of art, the first thing that stands out is the centralisation of institutional activity - be that geographical dislocation, distribution of finances and resources, and last but not least, the narrow focus on the actors and beneficiaries of the ‘art machine’. Peripheral city districts, vulnerable social groups, ecologically fragile and otherwise problematic areas - are generally at the bottom of the list. Although art can be the tool to highlight and empower particular discourses, the discourse of the ‘marginal’ still stays on the margin, and is of interest to few artists and institutions. In this section we propose to look away from the center, step outside the institutional walls and frameworks, and go exploring the periphery. This block is curated by Anastasia Albokrinova, artist, researcher and curator. BLOCK 5.1 Intro REACHING OUT TO THE MARGINS: A GLANCE AROUND Let us first define the notion of ‘margin’. This simple exercise is not only a question of understanding, but also a tool to situate yourself in the center-periphery model and a possible key to reinvent it. How do you define what is marginal/peripheral? Is ‘margin’ a place/ a social group/ a practice? Are you part of a margin/what margin you belong to? What is a margin? Make a list ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Task Reaching out to the margins can be something outstanding to your daily experience and arouses a number of questions. How to act? What to pay attention to? How to talk with people? How to not just gather information, but build action based on reciprocity? You can continue the list. Think of a margin you can reach. Choose a time to visit it. Make this first encounter open-ended. Try to gather maximum information and welcome any experience, but don’t forget to take care of yourself and be careful towards others. Remember: your margin visit might be only for this exercise, but what we actually need is establishing a long-term relationship. So you will need to find a way to come back. And this coming back should be with purpose. During your journey you will need to discover what is your purpose other than the visitor. Take this set of words as a departure point to tell about your ‘margin’ experience. Navigate through them, stopping and expanding those that were of use to you in your journey. Add new notions that you find important. intuition improvisation limitation risk trust autonomy collaboration confrontation curiosity exchange exhaustion affective labor Use visual + text format to document and reflect on your journey. You can be free in the choice of visual approach - it can be a photographic image, a drawing, a collage, etc. Additional materials In this journey we will draw inspiration from the practice of Skart, an art collective founded in 1990 by two students at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade - Dragan Protic and Dorde Balmazovic, also known as Prota and Zole. Their story throughout 3 decades is told by Sea Yildiz in a book “Building Human Relations Through Art. Skart collective (Belgrade) > from 1990 to present” published by ONOMATOPEE 224 IN 2022. SKART_Error as a trace of humanity Self-feedback At this point you can stop and reflect on what was done. Here are some questions that may help: What were your spontaneous impulses? Where were you driven? What scared you away? Did you surprise yourself? Did you face your limitations? What will you do the next time you come back? BLOCK 5.2 Intro REACHING OUT TO THE MARGINS: A GESTURE You’ve found your ‘margin’. First time you went with an empty head and empty hands, now you can come back having something in both. But what is this ‘something’? It lies in the narrow gap between the ‘possible’ and the ‘visionary’, the ‘banal’ and the ‘weird’, the ‘caring’ and ‘cautious’. Task Draw a line. On the left end write the smallest, simplest or funniest gesture you could do at your margin. Now turn to the right end of the line and dream big: what could you do if you had unlimited resources? Now start filling the line on its sequence. What would be your gesture if you had ‘this’ or ‘that’? What could you do if you united forces, found allies? What could be done if you partnered with an institution? Select a point on this line that sounds doable. Make a ‘to-do’ list to make this gesture happen. Now think of your gesture in the paradigm of time. Is it a one-time intervention or a structural approach? Is it spectacular or non-spectacular? What change it may bring, how may it impact the established infrastructure? May it hurt? May it heal? Being aware and prepared, reach out to the margin again and make your gesture. Additional materials SKART_The beauty of working together Self-feedback Now is time to estimate your actions: What went as planned, where you had to improvise, what appeared to be unrealistic? What would you change if you did it again? Finally, how could you implement this exercise in your structural thinking about profession? Let’s also zoom out and think institution-wise: What would you propose to do for the institutions to be more sensitive / aware of the margins? Would that be a program/ a structural change, a staff member proposal? What resources would that require?

WHAT COULD SHOULD CURATING DO I would like to start this session with question What Could/Should Curating Do We propose this question in order to engage with practices and encourage curating to stay dynamic and responsive in the world around me, anchored in caring with . We understand curatorial practice as walking with . We mean walking not as a way of getting somewhere, but walking with , as sharing time and creating space for unevenness to co-exist. When writing about walking, Canadian geographer Juanita Sundberg separates this into two steps. The first step is positioning that i believe you already did in first part, which is locating my body-knowledge in relation to the existing paths I know and walk. Sundberg defines the second step as walking with . “Walking with means ‘reciprocal respect for the autonomy and independence of organizations’ involved in the struggle; in other words, respect for the multiplicity of life worlds. Step two, then, involves learning to learn about multiplicity.” BLOCK 2.1 An input for this task is provided by Biljana Ciric, WSCSD program initiator. Intro We understand curating as caring with or walking with. It doesn't only reflect curatorial work. These prompts may help you to approach the topic: Can you define how you care through your practice? Caring with / caring for/ caring below? how does you care influence the future Whose vision of the future you are living in? What could you do? Thinking about deep time? How? What would you like to have as your legacy? Task Through this exercise try to build connections of your practice of care and relationships you are entangled with. You can use your own writing format or you can use the format that we propose. Make your first steps by finishing sentences "I care for/ with/ about/ beyond _______" Try to think of your life but also your practice as part of your everyday through writing. If writing is not your format of expression then use another format of comfort for 10 minutes. Additional materials Listen to “Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung” podcast by AHALI Conversations w/ Can Altay https://www.ahali.space/episodes/episode-15-bonaventure Read the “Dispatch” conceptual score by Candice Hopkins and Raven Chacon https://disclaimer.org.au/contents/unsettling-scores/dispatch Self-feedback Did the notion of ‘care’ change or unfold in an unexpected way during this exercise? What appeared to be most problematic to formulate? Why? BLOCK 2.2 Intro How care is performed through the institutional structure you are entangled with? What are possible practices of care through institutions? What could you do within these structures? How can an institution perform deep time in its practice of care? We continue this exercise on care asking you to map some of your aspects reflected in personal writing in relation to care and the way it could be affecting larger social/political contexts. Task We would like to invite you to do this as a collective exercise with other peers in the program. Below is the link to a collective Miro board. We propose you to start filling it. Put main tags you came up with during individual exercise. Take some time and see what others add. If the map is not empty - initially place your tags in relation to others. Connect the tags, add questions and comments that occur during their juxtaposition. Access collective Miro map Self-feedback Did the inputs of other participants open new ways for thinking/ questioning for you? What were the hardest parts in mapping? What do you feel is still most problematic?

< Back THE CULTURAL INTERWEAVING OF CHINA AND THE BALKANS 15 Feb 2021 Marija Glavaš This text is the first in a series of close studies examining the cultural exchanges between China and the Balkan region under the BRI, taking art [events and exchanges] as its main focal point. In this introductory text I will explain my research process for mapping these activities . I will then present both the ambitions and challenges of intercultural exchanges, using Slovenia as an example. In future texts I will analyse some of these exhibitions I have investigated, with the hope of creating a dialogue around whether these exchanges are living up to their full potential of shifting away from classical national narratives and providing a common ground for different identities. Before I began this project with As you go… the roads under your feet, towards a new future, I only had a basic understanding of what the BRI was. Like many others here in the Balkan region, I have also heard of the ongoing Chinese investments – investments which initially appeared to only occur within the infrastructural sphere. What I have found, however, is that the BRI promised more than that. It promised cultural bonding above mere economic cooperation. Yet, whenever the BRI is mentioned, other spheres, such as culture and art, seem to remain of very little note. As I began my investigation, I realized there was an absence of any systematic research on these topics – gathering data and developing a concise method of collating it, presented itself as the greater concern before even beginning to open up [a] discourse on cultural exchange and interconnection. To begin this dialogue of cultural interweaving, I have decided to focus on cross-institutional artistic exchanges to identify both the frequency and motives of these relationships. For this purpose, I used two methods: the primary method was directly addressing art institutions by sending them a questionnaire, while the other was manually collecting data from the internet for any additional exhibitions. The questionnaire included identifying whether any exhibitions and exchanges were currently underway, what kind of art was being exhibited or exchanged, the motivations behind these collaborations, and if there were any abnormalities across audience engagement and reception. For institutions that did not have any such exchanges, I asked why that was – did they decline them for any reason or were there simply no opportunities (perhaps due to a lack of funding, governmental or structural support, amongst other institutional roadblocks)? This questionnaire was sent to thirty-six [36] institutions from Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Kosovo. Some of the institutions were nationally owned museums and galleries (of both artistic and historical content), while others were privately owned galleries. Of the thirty-six museums and galleries I reached out to, twenty have replied. Following this, I started documenting all available data that was brought to my attention. I encountered several problems during this stage. Firstly, I did not receive responses from all institutions – most notably I received none from privately owned galleries. This could, however, also be due to many things: the ongoing pandemic that has shut down galleries and museums in many places and – as I later came to notice – the fact that most of these exchanges were primarily happening through state owned institutions. The second problem I encountered was that for many of these events and cultural exchanges, I was only provided with sparse data. Thirdly, I was unable to gather any data on audience reception. This last problem proved the most difficult as I was most interested in examining how local audiences perceive not only the Chinese art being exhibited, but also in a broader sense, the cultural interweaving of China within these regions. In the future it would be interesting to focus further on this aspect since there are a lot of discrepancies in opinions on other aspects (such as on the infrastructural and economic investments) of the BRI. While the West seems to be very suspicious of China becoming a global superpower, the Balkan region – which is heavily influenced both by the West and the East – doesn’t have such a narrow perception. Together with other partner cells and the editorial team, we decided it would be interesting to present this collected data on a map . This map provides details on both local cultural events and its connections to China. All exhibitions are also described, accompanied by some images from the exhibitions. The map is intended to be alive and continuously growing – the biggest ambition is currently to expand the scope of this map to encompass Central Asia and other localities participating in the BRI. I approached my research this way to systematically examine the ways in which art under the BRI ought to, on the one hand, deepen the bonds amongst participating countries and on the other, shape their perceptions of one another. Art, besides being a tool of expression, greatly impacts cultures and societies; it is continuously shaping our realities, while also allowing us to more deeply understand the past and the present. This understanding is not only constructed through artistic content at any given time in any specific space, but also through cultural policies and curating. Cultural policies and curatorship prescribes the limits and protocols [within] which art can shape the future, and how the past and present can be understood. Intercultural collaborations within this sphere have a great potential to move away from classical national narratives, which too often look for an enemy – within or outside – as a common denominator, consequently weaponizing audiences against this predetermined opposition. Whether these intercultural collaborations are even possible however, remains in the hands of individual governments and private bureaucracies who choose if, how, and when they will collaborate. For instance, let us look at the current state of art in Slovenia. Ever since Slovenia became a capitalist state, it left art partially in the domain of the government and partially in the domain of the free market. Art in the domain of the predatory free market has its own problems: subjected to competitiveness, artistic objects and practices are placed at the mercy of the logic of profit-driven, capitalist motivations – left to die as soon as its monetary value drops too low. However, since BRI projects are mostly funded and held by state institutions, for now, this stage of the research will focus on this particular domain. Let me preface this by saying that all curating is some form of narrating and mediating meaning(s), though this example will focus on cultural policies which determine in whose hands the curating will be. In Slovenia, state-owned art institutions enjoyed relative autonomy albeit with insufficient financial support – particularly in specific fields – being their main problem. Aside from the prevalent nepotism in funding (and the subsequent responsibility that would attach itself to the beneficiaries), there was not much state intervention into the curating itself. However, this drastically began to change since the undemocratic rise of the 14th government of independent Slovenia, right before the pandemic of 2020. The undemocratically established government is using tactics that have proven detrimental to Poland, Hungary, and Russia. In addition to drastic funding and budget cuts (alongside overall rhetoric and the replacement of leadership roles), [the government] has taken to directly attacking media outlets, research institutions, and museums. Academics who specialize in the fields of Central and South East Europe pointed out in an Open Letter to Janez Janša, Prime Minister of Slovenia in 2020: “The frequency of such interventions and the many clear signals that [are only] more are to come further prove that these are not normal personnel decisions, but rather the first steps in an attempt to curtail the independence of scholars and to place narratives about the past under government control.” [1] This becomes even more evident when we look at which institutions are being attacked: the National Museum of Contemporary History, which holds a permanent exhibition of Slovenia in the 20th century, directly addressing our past as a member state of former Yugoslavia and our gain of independence; [2] the National Gallery, and the Modern Gallery – both some of the most prominent and well-known art institutions in Slovenia. [3] In addition, the government is planning to open the Research Institute of the Venetic theory, [4] which suggests that the origins of Slovenians do not begin with Slav settlements but rather, reach back to ancient times. This theory is widely considered a pseudoscience and has been rejected by scholars. Our prime minister, however, holds yearly meetings for supporters of this theory, and when considering how they like to rewrite our history, it should also raise alarms that they are planning to open the Museum of Independence of Slovenia. [5] The current enemy threat being constructed is our history as a member state of Yugoslavia, the Yugonostalgia many people still feel, non-catholic nations, and anyone who lies left to the [government] on the political compass. Clearly, these are attempts to not only shift the cultural sphere towards a more patriotic and nationalistic narrative, but a narrative that is directly in support of our current prime minister – his role in the battle for independence and his personal beliefs. I would like to argue that these current changes within the cultural and art spheres in Slovenia are what could be considered some of the worst approaches possible. Art in this scenario is not being mobilized, in a romantic sense, to enable a peaceful coexistence of identities, but rather, is being used to annihilate some to push others forward. In the context of intercultural interweaving this could mean a step backwards, since focusing on enemies and weaponizing audiences does not leave much space for a friendly co-existence. In terms of the BRI, we are yet to see where this will place Slovenia. Our prime minister has, in American fashion, began engaging in conspiracy theories about China, where he points to the supposed political interference of China with his opposition. [6] At a fundamental political level, this paranoia doesn’t bring much optimism in relation to the potential of future cultural interweaving and exchanges. Even the connection between Slovenia and Hungary, which our current government considers of utmost importance, is only happening directly through the military, and a mutual support of hate-driven, local news-media. On the other hand, the BRI greatly emphasizes a peaceful coexistence of identities. From what I have gathered in this first phase of my research, it appears that these exchanges are an effort to bring cultures closer together through mutual and empathetic understanding, which has been overtly stated on most of the observed exhibitions. This understanding is being created through a bilateral exchange of artefacts, meanings, technical knowledge, and human resources. In conclusion, intercultural interweaving has a great potential of shifting away from classical national narratives that forge bonds as a response to the presence of a threat. National identity itself is constructed through these mechanisms (ie. the search for a common enemy), so a greater understanding and knowledge of different cultures is needed to look beyond this. Participating countries have already agreed to these processes of interweaving, and as politics and culture remain ever changing, the consideration of current cultural policies and their changes is always necessary. And when considering that to curate is to narrate, another analysis will be needed to betterfully understand exactly what narratives are being told and how much positive potential they actually hold. In the future, I will attempt to do such an analysis of the exhibitions presented on the map. This will, I hope, allow for a deeper discourse and engagement on whether these projects are living up to their full potential of being used as a force for cultural harmony than separation. Marija Glavaš , student of Culturology at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana [1] A Letter to Janez Janša, Prime Minister of Slovenia. (2020). Available at: https://publiclettertoslovenia.wordpress.com/ [2] Exhibition can be seen here: http://www.muzej-nz.si/si/razstave/stalne-razstave/849-Slovenci-v-XX-stoletju [3] Marshall, A. (2021). A Populist Leader Kicks Off a Culture War, Starting in Museums. The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/arts/design/slovenia-Janez-Jansa-culture.html [4] Jager, V. (2020). Janša ustanavlja inštitut, ki bo na novo napisal zgodovino izvora Slovencev. Mladina. Available at: https://www.mladina.si/200605/jansa-ustanavlja-institut-ki-bo-na-novo-napisal-zgodovino-izvora-slovencev/ [5] Marshall, A. (2021). A Populist Leader Kicks Off a Culture War, Starting in Museums. The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/arts/design/slovenia-Janez-Jansa-culture.html [6] Janša, J. (2021). [@JJansaSDS]. #KUL neposredno financiran kar od Kitajske komunistične partije? [Tweet]. Twitter. Available at: https://twitter.com/JJansaSDS/status/1354022974685409281 ; Janša, J. (2021). [@JJansaSDS]. Agentura #CCPChina ? [Tweet]. Twitter. Available at: https://twitter.com/JJansaSDS/status/1355831337819762689 Previous Next

Open Call | The Unlearning Curriculum 2024 Application deadline: June 20, 2024 Inform of selected participants: July 10-15, 2024 Intensive dates: August 17-23, 2024 The Unlearning Curriculum in 2024 is a five-day intensive conceived for cultural workers, artists, curators, writers and researchers who share interest in practicing different methodologies of working within art and culture. It aims at exploring methodologies based on decolonial principles, and ways of knowing that engage not only mind but also our whole body and a variety of senses. It is a process of co-learning and un-learning, and of challenging the divide of culture, nature and human. By “staying with the trouble”, as Donna Haraway states, we may recuperate alternative literacy, tools and relations to cultivate an ecology oriented to the future. We will spend days and nights together by sharing common space and time through learning, reflecting, making, listening led mentors but also all the participants. During these five days we will decentralize our position as urban dwellers, and address the eco-social crisis from the perspectives of practical hope, to recover the collective input of local community and knowledge. The intensive is situated in an old village nearby Taishan in Guangdong province of China. The building has been renovated and sustained by Huan Jiajun, who is an activist of conserving the local culture. Taishan is historically home for a lot of overseas Chinese, who emigrated to north America to work as indentured workers in plantations, mines and railways in late 19th century and early 20th century. The architecture of the village preserves such diasporic history in its synthetic style. * The intensive is conceived and initiated by Biljana Ciric and Nikita Yingqian Cai; organized by Guangdong Times Museum and “What Should/Could Curating do?”; and generously supported by De Ying Foundation. This intensive is a greate opportunity, if you are: Interested in learning from others and from nature, and generous in sharing; Willing to engage in disciplines and conversations beyond your educational or academic training; Willing to share your insights and specialties with others, including but not restricted to yoga, knowledge of nature, craft-making, cooking etc. Requirements: A short bio including your educational background and recent experiences in cultural or social projects; A short intention letter (less than 500 words) which states what you would like to learn and unlearn with others; Your contact info including email, mobile and social media account. Fee: 3800 RMB or 490 EUR (The fee includes meals and accommodation of the five days; transportation from your city of residence to Taishan/China is not included） Please be noted: The Unearning Curriculum is open for local and international participants; The intensive will take place at Tosen’s Garden, Paobu Village, Taishan City, Guangdong, P.R. of China ; The working language is English; All participants are expected to arrive no later than August 17th and to commit to the whole duration; Further information about international or domestic travel will be provided after your enrollment is confirmed; Detailed information on day-by-day activities will be notified once all participants are confirmed. Tasks for preparations will be shared and discussed by zoom meeting in July; After the intensive in Taishan, additional visits to independent spaces, studios and institutions in Guangzhou will be organized in the following 2 days. The visits are not part of the curriculum, and you need to plan your stay and cover your own expences in Guangzhou. Please apply by submitting the following materials to contact@timesmuseum.org by June 20, 2024 and visit www.timesmuseum.org for further information. About mentors Amelie Aranguren (she/her) has been a member of Inland since 2011. Campo Adentro/Inland is an association and collaborative project that approaches rural issues from an artistic perspective while addressing significant social issues and advocating for the reconnection between rural areas and cities as a basis for sustainable development strategies. She is currently the director of the Center for the Approach to the Rural, a space in Madrid where creators, curators, researchers, and rural agents can engage in production and investigative residencies, and experiment with art forms linked to social contexts and ecological perspectives. Aranguren, along with a team of nine other collaborators, has recently initiated a new association, Paisanaje Project , which explores the capacity of artistic practices in order to address the eco-social crises and inequalities generated from these issues. Aranguren has worked before in institutions as Museo Reina Sofía Madrid, Federico García Lorca Foundation, Madrid and Jeu de Paume, Paris. Nikita Yingqian Cai lives and works in Guangzhou, where she is Deputy Director and Chief Curator of Guangdong Times Museum. She has curated such exhibitions as Times Heterotopia Trilogy (2011, 2014, 2017), Jiang Zhi: If This is a Man (2012), Roman Ondák: Storyboard (2015), Big Tail Elephants: One Hour, No Room, Five Shows (2016) , Pan Yuliang: A Journey to Silence (Villa Vassilieff in Paris and Guangdong Times Museum, 2017), Omer Fast: The Invisible Hand (2018), Neither Black/Red/Yellow Nor Woman (Times Art Center Belin, 2019), Zhou Tao: The Ridge in the Bronze Mirror (2019) and Candice Lin: Pigs and Poison (2021). She initiated the para-curatorial series in 2012 as a paratactic mode of thinking and working, which connects the curated contents of art and culture with pop-up modules of critical inquiry and field curriculum. She has maintained and expanded the research network of “All the Way South” and is the co-editor of On Our Times. She was the participant of de Appel Curatorial Programme (2009-2010) and was awarded the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in 2019. Her writings have been published by Bard College and the MIT Press, Sternberg Press, Black Dog Publishing, Yishu, Artforum and e-flux. She is the co-editor of Active Withdrawals: Life and Death of Institutional Critique and No Ground Underneath; Curating on the Nexus of Changes. Biljana Ciric is an interdependent curator. She is curator of the Pavilion of Republic of Serbia at 59th Venice Biennale in 2022 presenting with Walking with Water Solo exhibition of Vladimir Nikolic. She is conceiving inquiry for first Trans- Southeast Asian Triennial in Guangzhou Repetition as a Gesture Towards Deep Listening (2021/2022). She was the co-curator of the 3rd Ural Industrial Biennale for Contemporary Art (Yekaterinburg, 2015), curator in residency at Kadist Art Foundation (Paris, 2015), and a research fellow at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Høvikodden, 2016). Her recent exhibitions include An Inquiry: Modes of Encounter presented by Times Museum, Guangzhou (2019); When the Other Meets the Other Other presented by Cultural Center Belgrade (2017); Proposals for Surrender presented by McAM in Shanghai (2016/2017); and This exhibition Will Tell You Everything About FY Art Foundations in FY Art Foundation space in Shenzhen (2017). In 2013, Ciric initiated the seminar platform From a History of Exhibitions Towards a Future of Exhibition Making with focus on China and Southeast Asia. The assembly platform was hosted by St Paul St Gallery, AUT, New Zealand (2013), Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2018), Times Museum, Guangzhou (2019). The book with the same name was published by Sternberg Press in 2019 and was awarded best art publication in China in 2020. Her research on artists organized exhibitions in Shanghai was published in the book History in Making; Shanghai: 1979-2006 published by CFCCA; and Life and Deaths of Institutional Critique , co-edited by Nikita Yingqian Cai and published by Black Dog Publishing, among others. In 2018 she established the educational platform What Could/Should Curating Do? where different formats of instituting are tested and imagined through collective processes. Since 2023 WCSCD entered transition merging rural and urban taking over custodianship of the piece of land in rural Serbia. She was nominated for the ICI Independent Vision Curatorial Award (2012). Ciric initiated a long-term project reflecting on China’s Belt and Road Initiative titled As you go . . . the roads under your feet, towards a new future . She is undertaking practice based PhD in Curatorial Practice at Monash University, Melbourne. She is currently developing retrospective of Vietnamese artist Tran Luong that will open in Jameel Art Center, Dubai in 2024 and tour to AGWA(Perth), Govett Brewster Art Gallery (New Plymouth, NZ), Guang Zhou Fine Arts Academy Contemporary Art Museum among others. About Tosen's Garden The project is located in Taishan City, Guangdong Province, which is known as the hometown of overseas Chinese. This is an ancient historical village built a hundred years ago by overseas Chinese in Myanmar. There are woods behind the village and fish ponds in front of the village, which preserves good natural ecology. There are seven residential houses built by overseas Chinese in the village, all of which are well preserved. In the first phase of the project, a 400-square-meter historic property was restored. Visitors can stay in the historic house and experience the local life more than a hundred years ago. There is an organic vegetable garden and orchard which provide local specialties. About De Ying Foundation De Ying Foundation (DYF) is a charitable organisation that supports contemporary art in China and internationally. We believe that contemporary art has an essential place in today’s China, and are committed to widening access to the highest standards of arts programming. We take a patient, long-term approach that is collaborative and open-minded, supporting and learning from other organisations that share our aims and values, as well as launching our own initiatives when we feel there is a need. Arts education is especially important to us, since we believe both in its inherent value and in its potential for transformative impact. While our core focus as a foundation is on greater China, we also work with international partners whose work inspires us, and hope to engender and to be part of a genuine artistic dialogue between China and the rest of the world. De Ying Foundation has provided long-term sponsorship for the De Ying Associate Curator, Visual Arts, at M+. The foundation is Founding Patron of the Shanghai Centre of Photography and a key sponsor of the Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art at China Academy of Art. De Ying was a sponsor of the Beijing-based artist Cao Fei’s first major solo exhibition in China, “Staging the Era”, 2021, presented at UCCA, Beijing, as well as, the UCCA leg of “Who is He?”, the historical retrospective of Geng Jianyi, one of China’s pioneering conceptual artists in 2023. De Ying is the main supporter for Glen Ligon’s first UK solo exhibition “All Over the Place”, 2024, at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. In 2018, we were also particularly excited to be early supporters of Steve McQueen’s Year 3 Project at Tate Britain. De Ying Foundation also provided support in 2019 for the production of the catalogue accompanying Cecily Brown's acclaimed survey exhibition “Where, When, How Often and With Whom” at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark. Village in Taishan, Guangdong Province of China.

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Open call: What Could Should Curating Do educational program 2023/2024 Duration of the program: two months in 2023 and one month in 2024 Applications for 2023/24 are open now Deadline for submission: April 7th 2023 We will reach shortlisted candidates for interviews between April 10th and April 15th 2023 From 2023/24, we are inviting you to collectively research, think, practice and imagine a format of and art institution that is ethically and economically sustainable. We invite you to discover with us what it means when an art institution becomes the custodian of the land. Canadian indigenous scholar Donald Dwayne reminds us that issues of climate change and sustainability are not problems that science and technology can solve. They are problems of cultural and spiritual origin. We change things not by telling people what they should do but by changing the way they live. The way we live. What Could Should Curating Do from 2023 is starting a self-reflective process developing a model of institution between urban and rural ecologies connected to the plot of land in central Serbia with the question: What does it mean for an art institution to become the custodian of the land? What are the sustainable practices that reflect the practice of caring for the land and caring for culture? These questions will be at the core of this educational program. This self-reflective process will be realised through an educational program and the long-term engagement of the program’s mentors, invited collaborators, educational program participants, local communities, WCSCD and alumni. Our partners and mentors are INLAND (Madrid, Spain), Casa delle Agriculture (Puglia region, Italy), Green Network of Activist groups (ZMAG) [Zagreb, Croatia], Zoma Museum (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), Madeleine Collie (Food Art Research Network), Manuel Borja-Villel (Museo Reina Sofia), Škart Collective (Belgrade, Serbia), among others. We will be accompanied by Milica Bilatovic (artist, currently based in Tuzla), Jelica Jovanovic (architect, based in Belgrade) and Sergio Montero Bravo (architect, based in Stockholm). The program is designed to explore different ways of inhabiting and interacting with the biosphere and territory, through mechanisms of education, commissions, and community engagement with artists, curators, local youths, and farmers in the process. The first stage of the program will include historical research and mapping practices of cultural workers, who have been developing relationships with the rural as an integral part of their practice, which will later take the form of a publication. The first stage of the program also includes a number of workshops with mentors, community and collaborators. The second stage will focus on practicing situated and embodied knowledge that the place has given to us and creating collective orientations towards the future. We will practice, fail, learn from failures and try again. More info: Serbia after the Second World witnessed a decline in agricultural activities from 3/4 of the population engaged in agriculture to 1/6 nowadays. Central Serbia, which was known as a fertile region for agriculture and where the plot of land is situated, witnessed a decline in farming activities due to the depopulation of villages caused by the land’s devaluation and subsequent activities on it, as well as the climate change that in recent years caused long droughts and lack of food supplies for animals. Political right-wing parties have been using these ecological crises for their own political purposes, further alienating village communities from the rest of the country, while using them for their political causes in their fabrication of nationalistic narratives. Artists, curators, cultural workers, and people with different knowledge backgrounds are welcome to apply. Practical information No prior degrees in art or art history are required in order to apply –The course fee is charged according to your country income (you need to be a passport holder of that country). For lower income countries, the 2023/2024 program fee is 400 euros. For lower and middle-income countries, the 2023/2024 program fee is 700 euros. For middle and upper-income countries, the 2023/2024 program fee is 1.200 euros. For high income countries program fee is 2000 euros Please use this reference for your country income: https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups Payments should be done in advance and in instalments if needed. We encourage individuals and institutions to support cultural workers’ education through this program. About your stay: The program fee doesn’t include costs of travel to Belgrade and research trip costs. A part of accommodation will be covered. For the two-month stay in 2023, one third of the program will take place in the countryside on land, while the rest in Belgrade. The accommodation in the village will be covered by WCSCD, while participants will need to cover costs of accommodation in Belgrade, as well as costs of the research trip. In 2024, we will we will spend half of the time in the village (covered by WCSCD) and the rest of time in Belgrade. How to apply Applications should include the following items as a single Word or PDF document, sent by email to what.could.curating.do [at] gmail.com with the subject line: Educational program -WCSCD 2023/24 Please send a letter of interest stating the reasons you apply for the program and your biography CV and portfolio.

< Back The Election Conundrum: Ethiopia’s Determination to hold the 6th National Election and its Ramifications 20 June 2021 Naol Befkadu The official NEBE logo of the 6th National Election with the hashtag “Via Election Only” It was Abraham Lincoln, the US president during the civil war, who famously said, “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision.” However, Abraham Lincoln did not consider at least two things. One is that the case for Africa is different, and the other is that when a pandemic hits the world, it changes a lot of things. Ethiopia was not the only nation to postpone its election in 2020. In fact it is among 78 countries around the world that should have undertaken elections in 2020 but were forced to postpone due to the pandemic. The 6th Ethiopian national election was expected to be held on August 29, 2020, but due to the pandemic it was indefinitely postponed until further notice from the Ministry of Health regarding the course of the pandemic. In December 2020, the Ministry of Health announced that the election could take place with necessary COVID-19 related precautions. Hence, the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) planned for the polls to open on June 5th 2021. In early May the NEBE claimed that facilities were not ready for the election to take place on time, and rescheduled for June 21, 2021. There are many sides to the story of the election. Some believe that the election is a sham and should not take place while others adamantly support it. By now the situation in Ethiopia has been internationalized with so many spectators now accustomed to inserting their feet into it. The true picture of the country is yet to be unveiled to the international community who seem to be concerned with the recent situation in Ethiopia. Before I go deep into the opinions surrounding the 6th national election and the situation in the country in the general, it is necessary to have a sense of the background; hence, I will try to briefly paint the main events in the life of the country in the 20th and 21st centuries. Brief Background to the Story: From the Student Movement to the Qerroo Revolution Most scholars agree that the 20th century was the bloodiest and the most revolutionary century in Ethiopia’s history, politically speaking. The country endured an invasion by Italy (1930-35); a student movement that in 1974, brought down the monarchical government of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie Ⅰ, the longest reigning emperor of Ethiopia; the ‘Red Terror’ massacre that took the lives of hundreds of thousands; the civil war that resulted in the downfall of the Derg regime (1974-1991); and the devastating Ethiopian-Eritrean war of 1998-2000. While all those events are thought to have left a significant blueprint on the course of the country, there are three events that take the lion’s share in shaping political ideology, government structure and the economic model of the country. They are the 1970s student movement that took the voice of the peasants to the streets and to academia; the establishment of a communist government by a leading military junta (post-1974); and the downfall of the Derg regime by the joint force of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary and Democratic Front (EPRDF). Photo taken during a rally of Addis Ababa University students in the 1970s holding a banner that reads “Popular Government Must Be Established.” The 1970s student movement brought down the centuries-old Abyssinian monarchical system. The goal of the movement was twofold. Firstly, to bring an end to the feudalistic system that abused peasants all over the country. This feudalistic system had been in operation in the country for many centuries. With the dominant ruling Amhars tribe operating all over the country collecting unfair taxes from the peasants, the country was led by monarchs and autocrats who claim to have descended from the line of Judah. The student movement stood against such irrational notions. Secondly, beside the class struggle, the student movement also had another goal which was a national struggle. Although the country was made up of 87 nations, only the Abyssinians—comprising the Amharas and Tigres, who are historically the northern highland settlers—were dominant politically, culturally and economically. Hence, the student movement also brought to the fore the question of nations and nationalities and different ethnic and religious groups. A great example of these questions was the paper titled, “On the Questions of Nations and Nationalities of Ethiopia” by Wallelign Mekonnen, at the time a student at Haile Selassie I University. This paper is thought to be groundbreaking with its pioneering introduction of equality and recognition of nations and nationalities for different groups in the country. In light of this student-led movement in the 1970s, we assumed what the course of the country in the following decades would look like. Contrary to our expectation, the road to the fulfillment of the voices and cries of the 1970s generation (it is usually regarded as ‘The Then Generation’) was not smooth and easy. Many lives were taken and many are still sacrificing for their rights at the time of writing this article. Following the 1970s revolution, the military acted out and the last emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I, was overthrown in 1974. A transient military junta was created with Mengistu Hailemariam as president of the transitional government also known as “Derg”. Though the Derg was a military junta, it had a political manifesto and acted as a political entity. Most of the early 1970s elites also directly supported the regime. With a growing communist trend in the world, the military government of Ethiopia had been associated with communism and became one of the foremost advocates of communist ideology. Church and state were separated and the government officially declared itself atheist. This was in direct contradiction to the history of the country, mostly that of the Abyssinians who, for centuries had anointed Kings and Queens with an ordination of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The Derg, although initially supported by the 1970s elites, gradually lost credibility from the enlightened groups in the country when the military government became totalitarian and started attacking those who opposed its ideology. Mengistu Hailemariam, the president of the communist regime, became another dictator that Africa had to witness. However, Mengistu also faced many challenges. From the East, the Western Somalia Liberation Front (WSLF) under Siad Barre tried to invade Ethiopia’s Ogaden region. In the North, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had been waging war to declare their freedom. And in the West, the Oromo Liberation Front had already started conquering land. While the Ogaden war of 1978-79 ended with Ethiopia claiming victory, the Northern war continued for more than a decade. The war in the North between the communist regime and the liberation forces took on the nature of a civil war. Many ethnic forces also joined the liberationist camps and jointly fought the communist regime. Eventually, the communist military junta also known as Derg, gave up and the EPRDF took power in 1991. The Derg military junta that ruled the country from 1974 to 1991 was overthrown by the joint forces of EPRDF, EPLF and OLF. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) dominated the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary and Democratic Front (EPRDF), which took power on the famous day of May 28, 1991. EPRDF expelled OLF of Oromia and eventually separated with the EPLF of Eritrea. EPRDF was then a party comprised of four big chapters, namely: the aforementioned Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), and the Southern People’s Democratic Movement (SPDM). The coming to power of EPRDF was another dramatic change that took place in 20th century Ethiopia, because EPRDF made several changes to the nature of the country. Regarding the economy, the country started following a free-market system in principle and a mixed system in practice. Following the revolution the country also changed its structure from unitary to a federal state that was divided into nine (now ten) self-administering regional states. This was in line with the demands of the student movement in the 1970s. Hence, many ethinc groups were recognized and their languages and cultures were appreciated under the EPRDF system. This was mainly made possible through the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’s 1995 constitution. The revolution handed the people a constitution that guaranteed human rights and religious freedom and promised free and fair elections. It was ratified in December 1995. It was the first of its kind in Ethiopia, which has had three constitutions. Of the three, the 1995 constitution was different with its liberal, democratic and inclusive nature. However, some still critiqued it saying the constitution gives undue attention to collective rights such as the rights of nations, nationalities and people, while focusing less on the individual rights of citizens. For an outsider it seems EPRDF had already answered the two big questions of the 1970s generation. Not so fast. In practice, there were many shortcomings of EPRDF’s system. The TPLF, the dominant party in the EPRDF, although representing the Tigray region that comprised only 6% of the total population, ruled the country with an iron fist for two decades, through its longtime leader and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia the late Meles Zenawi. The Oromia and Amhara regions, which comprise the two largest ethnic communities in the country, who go by the same name respectively, were sidelined by the TPLF. Their organizations OPDO and ANDM were also nothing more than puppets that followed their master TPLF even though they represented a huge constituency compared to TPLF. It is worth remembering here that the TPLF dominated the EPRDF and had expelled the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) who moved military operations outside Ethiopia, mainly from Eritrea, Sudan and Kenya’s jungles into central Ethiopia. The TPLF-led regime faced many challenges after taking power in 1991. Among them was the 2005 election where post-election riots resulted in many deaths in the capital Addis Ababa. Moreover, with its longstanding leader and longtime Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Melese Zenawi dying in 2012, the EPRDF faced huge challenges especially with regards to replacing the longtime leader. Eventually, Hailemariam Dessalegn of SPDM succeeded the late prime minister. It has been said that Hailemariam Desselegn did not really act as a prime minster, but rather was a marionette, a puppet, to say the least. It was the TPLFites who, behind the curtain, held the leading role. Hailemariam Dessalegn faced a huge popular protest especially after the announcement of the Addis Ababa Integrated Master Plan (AAIMP) in 2014. The AAIMP was a project intended to expand Addis Ababa’s border into the surrounding Oromia cities. This created a huge backlash from the young Oromos also called Qerroo (‘young man’ in Oromo language). Oromo youths also known as Qerroos crossing their hands in public to display their discontent The Qerroos became the anthem of another popular revolution in the country. They became the motor of the 21st century revolution, perhaps the largest by constituency and scale,that the country has ever seen. The protests engulfed the universities of the country and the Hailemariam government tried to silence the protests using force, which resulted in the death of more than 5,000 Qerroos in four years. Here it is also worth mentioning the role of diaspora media and influential people like Jawar Mohammed, the notable activist and director of the frontline media of the protest, the Oromia Media Network (OMN). The protests that erupted in Oromia later spread to the whole country, with other protests and long silenced voices being heard across many regions and towns. The protests cost too much, however, after four years they bore fruit with the resignation of Hailemariam Desalegn as Prime Minister of Ethiopia. The protests were also supported by the OPDO and ANDM authorities because of the visible problems that were occurring in the country. The OPDO and ANDM officials secretly formed a resistance team named after Lemma Megersa, the then president of the Oromia region. ‘Team Lemma’ as it was later called, operated in communication with the protestors to bring an end to TPLF’s hegemony. It should also be noted that cooperation between Amhara and Oromo was not expected by the TPLF because of the nature of the dominant political ideologies of the two camps. The Amharas favored a Unitarian set-up in the country, while the Oromos were adamant with regards to an ethno-linguistic federal structure. While the Amharas were regarded as assimilationists, the Oromos were often called “separationists”. It is through this historical discourse that the TPLF managed to lead the country as a diluting and a neutralizing agent in relation to the tensions between the Amhara and Oromo factions. However, Team Lemma proved the TPLFites wrong. The experiment to unite the Amhara and the Oromo forces was successful under Team Lemma, or at least it seemed to be. After the resignation of Hailemariam Dessalegn, there was a huge contest between TPLF and Team Lemma over who would take over the premiership. Team Lemma, being from the Oromo chapter had the dominant hand and was favored to take the position of the prime minister. However, Lemma Megersa, the leader of Team Lemma was not a member of the House of People’s Representatives (HPR) and so couldn’t become prime minister. His deputy, Abiy Ahmed (PhD) was elected in place of Lemma to represent the Oromo faction of EPRDF (the OPDO) in the urgent meeting to replace the departing prime minister. Abiy Ahmed won the majority of votes in the EPRDF executive meeting to become the president of the party and two days later, in April 2018 Abiy Ahmed (PhD) became the first Oromo Prime Minister of Ethiopia. Abiy Ahmed: the Voice of Synergy (Medemer) Abiy Ahmed sounded a voice of freedom, unity and love from the first day he became prime minister. From his first day in office, he made many big moves. He released more than 40,000 prisoners and prisoners of conscience. He traveled across every region in the country and preached love and unity and promised peace, stability and freedom. His philosophy is “medemer” roughly translated as synergy. According to Abiy Ahmed himself, medemer is nothing but a collective effort to fulfill a shared vision. He shook the country with this idea. But by far, the most extraordinary measure the prime minister took, was his reconciliation with Eritrea. Hailemariam Dessalegn handing the Constitution to Abiy Ahmed, the incoming Prime Minister of FDRE, on the day Abiy was inaugurated. As stated earlier, Ethiopia and Eritrea went to war over border disputes from 1998-2000, a conflict which was resolved by an intervention from the UN. In this conflict, which is regarded as one of Africa’s deadliest wars, no less than 100,000 people were killed from both sides. Since June 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea had been in a no-war no-peace state. Abiy Ahmed was able to break this silence and extended a welcoming hand to the Eritrea’s longtime president Isaias Afewerki, after 18 years! Long story short, Ethiopia and Eritrea resolved their issues under the leadership of Abiy Ahmed which was the reason he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019. Abiy also invited many of the exiled political figures and forces back into the country. Many of them returned to huge celebrations. Some of the most well-known returned political personalities included, Berhanu Nega (who had been expelled after the 2005 riot), Dawud Ibsa (exiled OLF leader), Jawar Mohammed and many others. While their admission to the country was a sign of democracy that was cheered and celebrated, it wasn’t without its consequences. They represented not only different popular segments of society, but also polarized political ideologies. Abiy Ahmed inherited a severely divided country with unresolved issues. His job was to heal the division and bring the various polarized ideologies in the country to the table. However, this wasn’t without its own challenges. Primarily, the polarized politics could not help his vision of a unified country. The term ‘unity’ has been associated with a specific political side in the country, just as ‘secessionist’ has also been tied to a specific political ideology. Every speech and action of the prime minister was critically observed and interpreted by different bodies in the country. Secondary to this was the issue with the TPLFites, which was not resolved. Since the ascension of the new prime minister, the TPLFites felt betrayed by the OPDO and ANDM who were already seen as siding with the people during the protest years. Hence, most of the TPLF members left their positions at federal level to focus on, and were limited to, their region, Tigray. Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray region became the center of opposition to Abiy Ahmed’s government. Furthermore, Abiy Ahmed’s government had also received challenges related to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that was being built in the Bennishangul region of Ethiopia on the Abbay River (Blue Nile). When finished, GERD is going to be Africa’s largest hydroelectric power station. However, Ethiopia had to convince the lower Nile basin countries, particularly Egypt and Sudan, regarding the impact of the dam with regards to the content of the Nile water. Ethiopia had faced a huge challenge from the two countries prior to Abiy’s ascension to power, but was able to manage the challenges, as far as convincing Sudan to stand beside Ethiopia. However, following Abiy’s coming to power, the dynamics of the geo-politics of the horn of Africa, and East Africa in general, were yet to be unveiled. It is with those fierce challenges in play, that Abiy Ahmed’s government decided to undergo the 6th national election in 2020. The 6th National Election: the Postponement and its Consequences If the reader were to travel to the countryside in Ethiopia and ask how the 6th national election is being perceived, they might get very different perspectives. Some think that the election would have significant impact in the country, while others say that the election is nothing but the usual drama of the EPRDF (now the Prosperity Party). However, no matter how many different perspectives there are surrounding the election, there is a universal desire in the Ethiopian people that this election takes place peacefully. This is because the country has been on the verge of failure ever since the postponement of the election in 2020 was announced. While the postponement was due to the pandemic, what were the results of the election’s postponement? There are, I believe, five consequences of the postponement of the election that was supposed to take place in 2020. These consequences are the reason why the country is currently in an internationalized mess and why Abiy Ahmed went from a Nobel Laureate in 2019 to a suspected war monger and genocidal leader by the end of 2020. The first consequence of the postponement of the election, is the sentiment it created among different political parties in the country. The Oromo opposition parties saw the decision as the government’s way of illegitimately prolonging its term. Added to this was the already growing tension between TPLF and the government. They saw the decision by the government as a pretext to lead the country for a longer period. Secondly, the postponement also resulted in the TPLF defying the federal order and organizing its own regional election in Tigray. The TPLF badly wanted the election because they knew if the election were to take place in August 2020, Abiy Ahmed’s party would not win because of the huge contest it would face in the Oromia region. Hence, they saw the election as the easiest way of getting rid of Abiy Ahmed’s federal government. Seeing this from afar, the federal government seemed to use the pandemic to postpone the election. In June 2020, the TPLF executive committee decided to hold the election in Tigray region, defying the federal order. The constitution was silent about the issue of organizing a regional election and the TPLFites used this loophole to establish their own election committee. The tensions between the federal government and the Tigray region grew by the day. The Late Oromo singer and activist Hachalu Hundessa Thirdly, the postponed election already created discontent among Oromo parties, popular figures and supporters. This eventually grew into another round of protests by the Qerroos, the Oromo youths, who had been silent for a while since the ascension of the prime minister. The Qerroos demanded change in the Oromia and the opposition parties promised huge measures if they won the election. To the contrary, the Oromia chapter of the ruling party, PP, was dormant regarding popular questions. Gradually, pressure grew on the government, resulting in popular Oromo figures finally coming out in public denouncing the government’s actions. One of the popular Oromos was Hachalu Hundessa, a musician and an activist for Oromo rights who fought with music during the Oromo Protest of 2014-2016. Hachalu Hundessa was interviewed on OMN, a media outlet dominated by opposition narratives, and he made firm claims against the prime minister and his ideologies. Two weeks after his interview was aired on OMN, Hachalu Hundessa was assassinated. The government immediately blamed TPLF and Shene (the governments’ term for the Oromo Liberation Army that is the military wing of the now returned Oromo Liberation Front). Opposition parties and political figures accused the government of assassinating Hachalu and on the same day as his death, the government initiated a crackdown on major political figures in the country. Jawar Mohammed, Bekele Gerba, Hamza Borana and Dejene Tafa of the Oromo Federalist Congress party were arrested. Eskinder Nega from the Balderas party was also arrested. OLF’s party offices were also raided and major members of the party’s executive committee were thrown in jail. But it is also wise to ask how the Oromo youths grew discontented with Abiy Ahmed, an Oromo. There are several reasons, minor and major. However, the main reason relates to Abiy’s vision of a more unitary state, which would mean dismantling the current federal system. For many, this was demonstrated by Abiy’s dissolution of the EPRDF into a new merged party named Prosperity Party (PP) in October 2019. This was a huge decision for many because Abiy dissolved the EPRDF, which had ruled the country for nearly three decades. Prosperity Party, the newly merged party, had a Unitarian outlook rather than a federalist one. This was not welcomed by the Oromo youths and the Oromo parties. In fact even Lemma Megersa, the former Oromia president, did not welcome the merger. However, Abiy pressed on with his idea of a merged party. It is onto this dissatisfaction of the Oromo youths that the government added the indefinite postponement of the election. The fourth consequence of the postponement of the election was the growing armed resistance in Western Ethiopia. One of the Abiy Ahmed administration’s initial decisions was to welcome exiled political figures and fronts. OLF resisted returning home even after Abiy Ahmed went to invite them back. For this reason, the then Oromia president Lemma Megersa and the then Foreign Minister of Ethiopia Workneh Gebeyehu, went to Eritrea to discuss with Dawud Ibsa, OLF’s president. They reached a verbal agreement for OLF to return to the country. Dawud Ibsa was welcomed by millions of his supporters at Addis Ababa on that historic day in September 2018, six months after PM Abiy took office. However, OLF had an army—the Oromia Liberation Army (OLA), the majority of which was stationed in Eritrea, with some in Kenya and others in Western Oromia. While those OLA soldiers returning from Eritrea were disarmed and were assimilated into the government’s training program, the Western and Southern OLA commanders did not give up their armies and the trials to disarm those fronts failed a number of times following OLF’s admission into the country. This created an increased rivalry between Abiy Ahmed’s government and OLF’s Dawud Ibsa which finally forced OLF to separate itself from OLA in April 2019. The government undertook heavy military operations to eradicate OLA from Western and Southern Oromia in 2019, 2020 and 2021 and yet they did not manage to defeat them. OLA soldiers controlled a good part of the Western and Southern Oromia in 2019 alone. However, they returned to their guerrilla warfare against the government, which continues to this day. Following the postponement of the election, OLA released a press statement saying that the government would be illegitimate after September 2020. In the meantime, the other dangerous zone beside Western Oromia had been the Bennishangul region where Bennishangual Liberation Armies had been fighting with the federal government and the Amhara militias, resulting in the death of several civilians in the region. The Bennishangul fighters’ demands were very difficult to diagnose. However, the government linked them with the TPLF. The killings in Western Oromia and Bennishangul resulted in the last, but not the least consequence of the election’s postponement. The last but not least consequence of the postponement of the election has been the now internationalized war in Northern Ethiopia. It was expected by many that the TPLF and federal government would go to war. TPLF became a great threat to Abiy’s administration after they held their own election in September 2020. TPLF won the election by far, after competing with some parties based in the Tigray. The federal government did not recognize the election. The TPLF then started their propaganda saying that the federal government is illegitimate. As the tension between the federal government and the Tigray region grew, both parties began holding military parades in public, week after week. Abiy made several visits to Eritrea as a warning to the TPLF, since the TPLF-led EPRDF had gone to war with Eritrea in 1998-2000 and Isaias Afewerki, president of Eritrea, wanted revenge for the losses his government suffered during the war. On November 4, 2020, Abiy Ahmed appeared on national television to declare a state of emergency in the Tigray region, saying that the TPLF militias had attacked the Northern Command base of the Ethiopian Defense Force (EDF). Abiy labeled this war ‘law enforcement’ and invited Amhara militia, Eritrea and Somalian forces to side with him. Even though many local and international organizations warned both parties before the onset of this war, nothing seemed to have been able to stop the war from happening. Day after day, both sides declared victories in their media. Three weeks into the war, Abiy Ahmed declared the ‘final’ victory on national television, after conquering Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, saying that no civilian had been injured and Eritrean forces were not involved. However, the TPLF had chosen to scatter to the remote regions of Tigray to take up guerilla warfare. In the meantime President Isaias got his longtime desire of winning over the TPLF. Today, the simple ‘law enforcement’ that was started in November has reached its seven month, resulting in an incalculable number of deaths and a humanitarian crisis. The atrocities committed by the EDF, Amhara and Eritrean forces have been documented by major world news outlets. The issue has become a topic for the G7 and UN. Now, it is wise to pause and remember how the postponement of the election played a huge role in this devastating, and to this day, ongoing war. Despite what is happening in the country however, by the time of the writing of this article, the government is weeks away from undergoing the 6th national election. The 6th National Election: The Expectations By now the first question that would come to the reader’s mind might be, ‘What are Ethiopians expecting from this election?’ Well, to answer this question in short, there is not much expectation among the majority of Ethiopians in this election. Contests are expected in the Amhara region and Addis Ababa particularly. The election is not even going to take place in Somali. NEBE’s data shows that the election is not going to take place in many places including Western Oromia, parts of Bennishangul Gumuz region, the entire Somali and Tigray regions and so on. The European Union decided not to send a committee to watch the election process after the standard EU requirements were not met by the Ethiopian government. The Biden government of the United States of America urged for a national dialogue. This came after the US decision to restrict visas for Ethiopian and Eritrean officials following the atrocities committed in the Tigray war. The case for the Oromia region is a very different one. The Oromo people are not going to be represented in this election by any of the dominant parties since the leaders of the parties are imprisoned. Hence, only the ruling party is running for the election in Oromia, the largest region of the country. In the Amhara region, the second largest region, there are several parties besides the Prosperity Party (PP), such as the National Movement of the Amhara (NAMA), the Enat party, EZEMA and others. The results are yet to be predicted, let alone known in the Amhara region. A huge contest is expected. However, what would this bring to Ethiopians in general? It is yet to be known. Amhara politics is at its most complex, climactic stage. There are ethno-nationalists such as NAMA and partly the Amhara chapter of PP (APP) who advocate for a stronger Amhara region and the respect of Amhara rights, and there are Ethio-nationalists such as EZEMA and Enat. The Ethio-nationalists seem to be losing to the ethno-nationalists based on the campaigns we see. However, the result is yet to be known. One thing both the Ethio-nationalists and the Amhara ethno-nationalists have in common is that they both plan to change the 1995 FDRE constitution. The same is true in Addis Ababa. There are several parties running for office. EZEMA, Balderas and Prosperity Party are the three parties to have a huge contest in the city. EZEMA led by Birhanu Nega, PhD, is favored, if we can predict based on the 2005 election results where the majority of seats in Addis Ababa were won by CUD, Birhanu Nega’s party at the time. However, things have changed. Abiy Ahmed also has a huge constituency in Addis Ababa. Adanech Abebe, Addis Ababa’s mayor and a PP candidate, had a very successful campaign where many turned out en masse to support her. The Balderas Party, although younger than the above two, also has good support from the younger generation. Balderas’ campaign motto is to save Addis Ababa and to make Addis Ababa a self-governing region. Even if the election goes well, total results cannot be known and a new government cannot be formed since there are places and regions that will not go to the polls for security and other reasons. NEBE issued a press release saying that the second part of this election will be carried out on September 6, 2021. Until then, no one can know the exact result of the election. Hence, a new government will not be formed in June. The 6th national election of Ethiopia is then, an experiment that is going to take place with mixed feelings among Ethiopians. It will take place when Tigray is in the midst of a huge humanitarian crisis; Western Oromia is under command post; the world is watching the developments in Ethiopia closely; and a possible disintegration of the state is in the air. Naol Befkadu , MD, is a physician based in Addis Ababa. Previous Next

< Back The Sustainable Museum Ljubljana 12 Apr 2020 Zdenka Badovinac Drawing by Nika Ham In September 2018, I wrote “My Post-Catastrophic Glossary” ( [ My Post-catastrophic Glossary , 305–326]), which was in essence a kind of glossary of memory relating to my professional work. At the time, I never dreamed that, a year or so later, a pandemic would force museums into a situation not unlike what I was describing in my glossary. The key questions that stand behind the entries in the glossary, which were illustrated by the artist (and Moderna galerija museum guard) Nika Ham, are: How should museums function in times of extreme limitations? and, How can we create fairer and more equal cultural exchanges on the global scale? The impact of the pandemic is already apparent: museums all over the world are reporting enormous losses. The world’s major museums are facing huge drops in revenues, in some cases as much as several hundred thousand euros a week. Big international exhibitions are being cancelled, because, given insurance issues, the redistribution of public funds, and scheduling conflicts, preparations are too risky for these times. A museum’s revenue losses are nominally proportional to its financial strength: institutions with an annual budget of €10 million or more are seeing losses of several millions, while the Moderna galerija, which receives €2 million annually, foresees in one month “only” some €18,000 less than in “normal” times. Despite these numbers, institutions with smaller budgets will draw the short straw. Not only are museum activities affected, but, everywhere, so are the people who work at museums, both salaried employees and, most severely, their external co-workers, who almost overnight are finding themselves out of work. Small-budget institutions, which themselves are barely able to breathe, cannot do very much to help such workers. But at the Moderna galerija, we are at least drawing attention to the ever more precarious position of our external co-workers through the project Several Flies at One Blow , in which we have continued to employ a number of our museum guards/students for a while longer by having them deliver food and other necessities to artists infected with the coronavirus and our pensioners. Also, like many other museums, we quickly developed several online projects, most of which link to our collections and archives but there are some that also respond to the current situation. Of course, everyone is wondering how long the pandemic will last and what its long-term consequences will be. Museums will undoubtedly have to operate under greatly altered conditions. It will be probably be some time before we are again able to go to openings, greet each other with friendly hugs, and exchange our impressions face to face. And almost certainly, we will be working under worse conditions than we did before; even now our funders are advising us to focus primarily on our collections and archives, in other words, what we have under our own roof. And what about artists? How in the future will we be able to support them and other threatened groups – not only professionals such as writers, translators, and designers, but also refugees, the homeless, and other marginalized communities? For a long time now, museums have been more than just places for housing and presenting art; they have become important sites for critical discourse, social sensitivity and solidarity, and the imagining of a better future. Certainly, the catastrophe in which we now find ourselves is also an opportunity to think about an even stronger social role for the museum. At a time when public space is reduced to balconies and windows and we are increasingly becoming captives of the virtual world, museums should be contemplating an even more active social role for themselves. The fact that the economic aspect of our work will only become more difficult obliges us to think about and propose an alternative economy, an economy of solidarity, one that is based not primarily on a market economy but on the direct exchange of services and the results of work, as well as donations. Museum associations throughout the world are warning governments that funds must be made available for the revitalization of museums after the present crisis. Italy’s museums, for example, have recently asked the Italian government to establish a National Fund for Culture. It is also incumbent on us to refocus the priorities within our existing programmes. Living artists must come first; we must develop acquisition funds intended primarily for working artists and in this way help them to survive. It is necessary to respect our resources, not just in terms of our collections and archives but also in terms of people – everyone with whom we collaborate and together produce meaning for our work. For the most part, these are people from our own environment, from the environment in which our museum is situated, but also from the environments of our “trans-situatedness”, by which I mean all the spaces where people work with whom we join in the effort to respond to the dilemmas of the global world. Through our “trans-situatedness” we can develop more equitable exchanges of ideas on the global level. All these things are conditions of the “sustainable museum”, which, indeed, is one of the entries in “My Post-Catastrophic Glossary”. But I first wrote about the sustainable museum in connection with the exhibition Low-Budget Utopias , which was drawn from the Moderna galerija’s own collections. Among other things, I presented a diagram showing four museum models (besides the sustainable museum, there was also the universal museum, the global museum, and the meta-museum). The essence of the sustainable museum is that it actively operates within the framework of a certain community and does this by working with others – with artists, various kinds of stakeholders, and socially engaged groups, individuals, and organizations – people who, in the L’Internationale confederation of museums, we refer to as “constituencies”. The constituencies of a museum are those resources without whom the museum, as a museum of its time, could no longer survive today. It goes without saying that the sustainable museum is also a “green” museum, but more than this, it is first and foremost a museum of its constituencies, for whom and with whom it is continually transforming. The sustainable museum, therefore, lives the same life as its community, who are shaped by a multitude of constantly changing relationships and interests. The sustainable museum is grounded in the resources of its environment, in people and their work, and in nature, and as such it connects with other environments. It does not address its public from any exalted position of expertise with only the “weapons” of its collections and archives; on the contrary, it is open to interaction. In “My Post-Catastrophic Glossary” I describe a situation in which all museums have been destroyed, along with their collections and archives. Only people and their memories remain. And these are not just the memories of the experts, but also those of museum guards, visitors, and everyone else. Maybe one of the priorities of the post-pandemic museum should be work on developing a future collective memory that will include all of the museum’s constituencies. Translated by Rawley Grau Click to read Slovenian version Zdenka Badovinac is a curator and writer, who has served since 1993 as Director of the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana. Previous Next

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities What Could/Should the Institution Do by Ares Shporta Venue: Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art (14 Pariska Street) Date: October 5th 2019 18:00 Opened in 1952, Lumbardhi Cinema has been one of the two key cultural institutions in Prizren for the rest of the 20th century. A public space with an attendance of over 400,000 visitors for four decades, it was also known as a birthplace of festivals, most notably DokuFest. Following two attempts for demolition and privatisation in the following millennia, it was saved by civic initiatives and registered as a protected cultural landmark in 2015. Lumbardhi Foundation was established thereafter to continue the civic initiative, with the aim of managing and reviving the former cinema through an open process that included research, diverse programs, debates, friendships and alliances. Designed in a slow manner determined by the limited means of shaping an institution from a bottom-up initiative, the process has enabled an alternative form of institution-building. In his talk, Ares Shporta will present and discuss about the process that allowed the time and opportunity to put into questions issues like the function of public service institutions in the 21st century, the possibility of mission-driven structure in conditions of normalised instability and tailoring an institution in relation to its surrounding ecology. About Speaker: Ares Shporta is a cultural worker based in Kosovo. He completed his studies at the graduate program for Cultural Management at the Istanbul Bilgi University with a focus on cultural institutions and local cultural policy. Since 2015 he is the co-founding director of Lumbardhi Foundation where his work ranges from research and programming, to advocacy, infrastructure and institutional development within the framework of the revival of the former Lumbardhi Cinema. Shporta is also the chairman of the Network of Cultural Organisations in Prizren and the President of Kooperativa – Regional Platform for Culture. The event is free and open to the public. The WCSCD curatorial course and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. The lecture by Ares Shporta is generously supported by Heinrich Boll Stiftung < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Lumbung | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series The curatorial program What Could/Should Curating Do is proud to be continued in 2021 with public program through lecture series The seventh talk in the 2020/21 series is titled: Lumbung by farid rakun Date: March 16, 2021 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 ruangrupa, photo Gudskul/Jin Panji ruangrupa , a Jakarta-based artists’ collective, is in the middle of launching lumbung—a planetary network initiated to put particular values into practice, such as sharing, humour, generosity, independence and locally-anchored, to name a few. This process is also largely made possible by the collective’s mandate as the artistic directors of documenta fifteen (Kassel, DE, 2022), for which ruangrupa’s approach can be considered as finding ways to exercise our way of institutional practice—as opposed to mere critique. This session is a relaxed one (as much as a platform like Zoom would allow) where (at least) a member of ruangrupa, farid rakun , will be present and explain more about the processes described above. Hopefully, you will not only be able and interested to attend, but also take something out of the session and realised the possibility of practicing those very values in your own ways under your particular conditions afterwards. farid rakun, photo Gudskul/Jin Panji About Speaker Trained as an architect (B.Arch from Universitas Indonesia and M.Arch from Cranbrook Academy of Art), farid rakun wears different hats, dependent on who is asking. A visiting lecturer in the Architecture Department of Universitas Indonesia, he is also a part of the artists’ collective ruangrupa, with whom he co-curated TRANSaction: Sonsbeek 2016 in Arnhem, NL. As an instigator, he has permeated various global institutions such as Centre Pompidou, La Biennale di Venezia, MMCA Seoul, Sharjah Biennial, Bienal de Sao Paulo, Harun Farocki Institut, Dutch Art Institute (DAI), Creative Time, Haute école d’art et de design (HEAD) Genève, and basis voor actuele kunst (BAK). He has worked for Jakarta Biennale in different capacities since 2013 and currently serves as its advisor. ruangrupa is a Jakarta-based collective established in 2000. It is a non-profit organization that strives to support the idea of art within urban and cultural context by involving artists and other disciplines such as social sciences, politics, technology, media, etc, to give critical observation and views towards Indonesian urban contemporary issues. ruangrupa also produce collaborative works in the form of art projects such as exhibition, festival, art lab, workshop, research, as well as book, magazine and online-journal publication. As an artists’ collective, ruangrupa has been involved in many collaborative and exchange projects, including participating in big exhibitions such as Gwangju Biennale (2002 & 2018), Istanbul Biennial (2005), Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (Brisbane, 2012), Singapore Biennale (2011), São Paulo Biennial (2014), Aichi Triennale (Nagoya, 2016) and Cosmopolis at Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2017). In 2016, ruangrupa curated TRANSaction: Sonsbeek 2016 in Arnhem, NL. From 2015-18, ruangrupa co-developed a cultural platform Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem together with several artists’ collectives in Jakarta, located at Gudang Sarinah warehouse, Pancoran, South Jakarta. It is a cross-disciplinary space that aims to maintain, cultivate and establish an integrated support system for creative talents, diverse communities, and various institutions. It also aspires to be able to make connections and collaborate, to share knowledge and ideas, as well as to encourage critical thinking, creativity, and innovations. The results of these joint collaborations are open for public access—and presented with various exhibitions, festivals, workshops, discussions, film screenings, music concerts, and publications of journals. In 2018, learning from their experience establishing Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem and together with Serrum and Grafis Huru Hara, ruangrupa co-initiated GUDSKUL: contemporary art collective and ecosystem studies (or Gudskul, in short, pronounced similarly like “good school” in English). It is a public learning space established to practice an expanded understanding of collective values, such as equality, sharing, solidarity, friendship and togetherness. 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 >