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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 >

Open call: WCSCD Educational program 2025/2026 Drawing by Stefan Ilic Start of Open call: January 7th 2025 Deadline for submission: February 28th 2025 We will reach shortlisted candidates for interview by March 10th 2025 Final program participants list to be announced: March 20th 2025 Program starts: end of August 2025 (final date to be confirmed after participant selection). Duration of program: eight months on site: three months total (end of august to end of October 2025 + April 2026). In between onsite sessions there will be online workshops and gatherings twice a month from November 2025 until March 2026. The WCSCD educational program is open to artists, curators, and cultural workers seeking to develop different working methodologies that respond to urgent challenges facing cultural work today. Through collective learning and rooted in our shared realities we will explore and practice different methodologies, embracing failure as an essential part of the learning process. Our learning gestures are aimed towards deconstructing how, where and with whom knowledge is produced and made public, and who we cite in the process. The 2025/2026 educational project continues WCSCD’s self-reflective development of instituting through collective thinking and practicing. Together, we explore possible institutional models that transcend traditional binaries: rural/urban, culture/nature, and woman/man. This work builds on the foundations laid by previous program participants, creating bridges between different generations' methodologies and knowledge. While previous program participants looked at historical examples of artistic practices in rural areas of the Balkans, the focus of the upcoming program will be researching situated practices of instituting in the region that are still active and that offer different propositions on relationality and ways of instituting. Special emphasis throughout the program will be given to exploring ways of practicing in times of scarcity and ways to continue situated work in a meaningful way. We will question and practice responses to questions such as: What kind of exhibitions do we really need? Can we re-define the purpose of the exhibition? Can we practice the exhibition as a learning opportunity? How can we reinstall learning in exhibition making as Chus Martinez asks? The program is conceived by Biljana Ciric, founder of WCSCD, in collaboration with curator Laura Rositani, who participated in a previous WCSCD program. It is locally coordinated and situated in collaboration with The Shock Cooperative and S.K.U.P. The program mentors are: Chus Martinez (director of the Art Institute at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, where she also runs the Institute’s exhibition space Der Tank), Nina Montmann (Professor of Art Theory at the University of Cologne, curator, writer, and PI at the Global South Study Center (GSSC) at the University of Cologne), Sergio Montero Bravo (architect, designer, researcher, and member of Inland), Lara Khaldi (director of de Appel), Toby Upson (writer), Robida (collective that works at the intersection of written and spoken words – with Robida Magazine and Radio Robida – and spatial practices developed in relation to the village of Topolò/Topolove , where the collective is based). This edition of the program will be situated in Novi Sad city, 30min by train from Belgrade. WCSCD’s educational program was established in 2018 and is mostly situated in Belgrade. It is an international program for artists and curators. Having both curatorial and artistic positions 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 program has been a testing ground for creating a collective learning site and a space to think about how to institute differently. The central place of the educational program in WCSCD’s activities has been vital to the institution. The program has helped guide us, creating a space to collectively consider many practical questions as well as to think about our future. Practical information No prior degree in art or art history are required in order to apply. The program is organized through different sequences. Workshops are held four days a week with mentors and WCSCD colleagues. Selected participants will be provided reading material and instructions for preparation prior to the program. 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 2025/2026 program fee is 450 euros. For lower and middle-income countries, the 2025/2026 program fee is 750 euros. For middle and upper-income countries, the 2025/2026 program fee is 1300 euros. For high income countries the program fee is 2200 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 made in advance and in instalments if needed. We encourage individuals and institutions to support cultural workers’ education through supporting their participation in the program. About your stay: The program fee doesn’t include cost of travel to Serbia and Novi Sad, or research trip costs. For the two-month stay in 2025, seven days of the program will take place in the countryside on land that WCSCD has taken custodianship of, while the rest of the program will be in Novi Sad. Food and accommodation in the village will be covered by WCSCD, while participants will need to cover accommodation costs in Novi Sad as well as costs of the research trip. The research trip will be to Topolo Robia for a duration of four days in 2025. For the one month stay in 2026 the same conditions apply. How to apply Applications should include the following items as a single Word or PDF document: a letter of interest stating your reasons for applying to the program your biography and CV portfolio Send your application by email to what.could.curating.do [at] gmail.com with the subject line: Educational program -WCSCD 2025/26

< Back Open Call for Maritime Portal Residency 4 Jan 2021 Open Call for Maritime Portal Residency All the Way South x As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future Before the navigational expansion of European pilgrims and commerce in 16th century, maritime exchange of labor, goods and finances, movement of peoples and cultures had flourished along ancient port regions of the south, and have continued to shape contemporary agendas ranging from geopolitical relations, environment and climate change, international trade, to migration policies and forced displacement, food security, and global co-immunity. Yet models, cartographies and vocabularies available for reading these intersectional trajectories are largely oriented around the metropole-periphery coordinates and economic criteria. Indigenous relations of subjects, objects and places, and local schemes of cultural cosmopolitanism, are either erased or written into top-down registrations of colonial mindset, imperial struggles and competitiveness of nation states. In order to foster a knowledge field that intervenes within the conundrum of globalization, and to pursue connectivity across oceans and borders, we are pleased to announce the Open Call for Maritime Portal Residency , as a collaborative initiative of All the Way South x As you go…roads under your feet, towards the new future . It bridges many understandings of the south that only overlap partially with the geographical South and engages the histories and realities emerged from long lines of maritime mapping and entanglement. We are looking for artists, researchers, or cultural practitioners living in southern port cities or regions, to work remotely and digitally to explore alternative maritime historiographies and cartographies from various locales. We encourage mediatized readings, articulations and documentations that sink the abstracted mode of globalization into different forms of embodiment, be it foods and textiles, sounds and architectures, folk rituals and myths. The digital alliance of portal residency is not a temporary reaction to the obstacle of global mobility, but a long-term commitment to facilitating undisciplined practice and decentralized network in relation to the epistemologies of south (Boaventura de Sousa Santos) that share common struggle against colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, and the on-going process of southernization driven by transnational chain of capital, infrastructure and technology. Maritime Portal Residency provides: A podcast conversation about the collaborative development to be publicized on Times Museum’s “The Rolling Congee”; Presentation on the digital platforms of “On Our Times” and “As you go…”; RMB 15000 (about USD 2000) for the full project duration payable in three instalments + fees for contributing to the podcast and digital platform if appliable; Access to readers, workshops and webinars spanning curatorial and artistic research, creative writing, critical geography as well as to the network of All the Way South and As you go… ; Technical support and consultancy regarding the digital correspondence and representation Important Dates: – Application Deadline: Feb 5th 2021 Notification: Feb 22-26th 2021· Project Duration: 12 months· Digital Presentation: To be confirmed according to the project development Applications must include: Cover Letter (please detail the reasons of your interest in the position, how you would be able to contribute to the maritime network based on your previous work and/or interests, and how the presidency would benefit your own practice and development); CV, portfolio and significant samples of previous work; There is no restriction on the applicant’s nationality, but applicants are encouraged to carefully read the project outline before applying; Please submit your application to MPR@timesmuseum.org Scope of Work and Responsibilities include (but may not be limited to) Contribute to identify relevant data, records, bodies of knowledge, and expertise; Maintain digital correspondences and share materials with the exchange network of All the Way South and As you go… Participate in monthly meetings of As you go… project research clusters for update and feedback on project development; Commit on a part-time basis to access site-specific materials, objects, and to conduct archival and research-based work locally; Conduct interviews with relevant individuals and groups if necessary; Conduct fieldwork at local sites which might include audio-visual recording (photography, video, sound recordings, etc), measurements, sampling, etc. Participate in the public moments of As you go… project and its publishing activities All the Way South is an exchange network of research, residency and commission initiated by Times Museum. It is a relational response to the diverse processes of southernization and to the historical resonances between southern China and the Souths of the world. We collaborate with cultural makers and institutions to create new geographical trajectories around diasporic memories and experiences, and bridge artist observations of our transregional society with archival and academic practice. We prioritize initiatives that unfold overtime and cross disciplines, and provide funding and resources for the ones that are marginalized by the market. As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future is a long-term project and research inquiry that reflects on the Belt and Road Initiative and how it will alter the aesthetics and practices of everyday life in different local contexts. The project was conceived and initiated by Biljana Ciric in 2019 after conducting curatorial research in East Africa, Central Asia, and several Balkan countries. The inquiry is structured as a long-term research project over a period of three years through research cells of organizations, institutions and individuals: What Could Should Curating Do (Belgrade). Moderna Galerija (Ljubljana), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai), Guangdong Times Museum (Guangzhou), ArtCom (Astana), Robel Temesgen and Sinkneh Eshetu (Addis Ababa), and The Public Library (Bor). Please refer to http://old.wcscd.com/index.php/2020/01/07/as-you-go-the-roads-under-your-feet-towards-a-new-future/ * The selection will be undertaken by the partner cells of As you go… We regret that only shortlisted applicants will be notified. For further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us through MPR@timesmuseum.org Previous Next

< Back As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future | Symposium 2 Mar 2021 Main symposium presenters: What Could Should Curating Do and Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, Slovenia Organized by Biljana Ciric DATES: March 22nd – 31st 2021 TIME: 11am Ljubljana time / 9pm Melbourne time / Addis Ababa 1pm / Shanghai, Guangzhou 6pm / Astana 4pm Live stream via WCSCD / Moderna Galerija / Artcom platform / Rockbund Art Museum / facebook and YouTube www.wcscd.com http://www.mg-lj.si/ March 22nd Day 1 March 23rd Day 2 March 25th Day 3 March 26th day 4 March 30th Day 5 March 31ST Day 6 Participants: Zdenka Badovinac (curator, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana); Robel Temesgen ( artist, Addis Ababa); Larys Frogier (director, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai ); Sinkneh Eshetu (writer,Addis Ababa); Marija Glavas (sociologist, Ljubljana); Berhanu (anthropologist, Canberra); Aigerim Kapar (interdependent curator, Astana); Jelica Jovanovic (architect, Belgrade); Hu Yun (artist, Melbourne); Jasphy Zheng (artist, Xia Men); Dragan Stojmenovic (Public Library, Bor); Nikita Yingqian Cai (chief curator, Times Museum, Guangzhou); Robert Bobnic and Kaja Kraner (researchers, lecturers Ljubljana); Aziza Abdulfetah Busser (architect and academic, Addis Ababa); Alex Ulko (artist and researcher, Tashkent); Brett Neilson (professor Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University); Ash Moniz (artist, Cairo); Yabebal Fantaye (Astrophysicist and a data scientist, co-founder of the 10 Academy initiative, Addis Ababa), Salem Makuria (independent writer, producer, director, videographer, and retired professor or professor emerita from the Art Department, Wellesley College), Biljana Ciric (interdependent curator and founder of WCSCD) As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future symposium is the first public moment of sharing not only our research, but also our mode of working based on relationality and interdependence that we bring with us as we move forward. As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future is a long-term project and research inquiry that reflects on the Belt and Road Initiative and how it will alter the aesthetics and practices of everyday life in different local contexts of Ethiopia, Serbia, Slovenia, Uzbekistan, China, Kazakhstan. Many of these localities situated on the margins of the global economy re-gained a momentum of visibility through geo-political conflicts when the BRI entered a sphere of interest of other global powers. Could a new visibility and set of geo-politics create alternatives to our existence, or will it uphold the extractivist capital logic done for so many years by Western European modernity are some of the questions that we try to unpack through research case studies. BRI defined as a major infrastructural project through out 2020 has proven to be very dynamic. Since the pandemic started BRI is slowly transforming defining new direction focusing on digital services and public health and these transformations we will continue to research and understand in the year to come. The project started in February 2020 just before the pandemic was announced, and since then, we have continued to work, learning how to co-exist under our new living conditions. The current conditions transformed the project into much more than just examining the BRI. It became an examination of our own existence, the way we walk with in the world, how we practice inter-dependence, and stretch existing institutional structures through which we as practitioners navigate. Our walk opens up the question of whether this new cold war slowly unfolding in front of us – caused by pandemic – can create and foster connections that no state can control, but which we need and are truly ours. Throughout 2020 we needed time and space to practice intimacy between cells and create a safe zone for sharing. What we learned is that rather than visibility, what is needed is opacity. The intimacy that arose from this defines how ideas are shared with others and to what extent what we create together stays within the cells or is shared further. Being in project for a year, together we have experienced civil unrest in most of the localities, researchers falling ill due to covid (and thankfully, recovering), civil war in Ethiopia that escalated in November 2020, our colleagues losing their positions, our partners’ funding being taken away. This project stretches out our emotional capacity, and our endurance is challenged on a daily basis. Still, we continue to walk together. Research quietly continues, acknowledging the importance of being together and creating some things during this separation being imposed on us. Throughout the year we have practiced our right to opacity, and only gave visibility to the research happening through our online journal which follows works and research in progress. This journal has served as a tool in responding to crises within the contexts we are caring with. Since April 2020 due to pandemic we have employed strategy dig where you stand and we have working with fifteen researchers across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ethiopia, Serbia, Slovenia, and China. The research inquiry has been developed trying to listen local urgencies and learn from them. They are writers, anthropologists, artists, architects, and activists, and we will continue to work into this year as well. Acknowledging and reflecting on our previous way of working, we have employed a dig where you stand strategy, where a number of case studies had been formulated and from here, local research has been conducted. This symposium will share thinking with and walking with or partners cells, as well as researchers through six days symposium that will be available through live stream. A tool kit created together with researchers and cells that would allow for deep listening with all five senses, challenging visual aspects and presence through Zoom. Researchers and cells were invited to provide tools for listening, seeing, smelling, touching, and tasting that could overcome our physical distance. Please experience tool kit through this link . Tool Kit should allow us to grasp physicality of places we will be sharing research from. — What Could/Should Curating Do and Moderna galerija also extend their thanks to the efforts of their technical and support team, who have helped make this symposium possible. Associate Editor: Beatrice Rubio-Gabriel Designer: Toby Tam Technical Support: Aleksandar Kogoj Jr. and Rok Hvala Coordinator (Moderna galerija): Adela Železnik And the team from the Moderna galerija: Tomaž Kučer, Ana Mizerit, Tamara Soban, Monash Museum of Art, Bianca Winaputri, Warisa Somsuphangsri Following our recent As You Go… Symposium, we present a series of documentation by Beatrice Rubio-Gabriel, tracking 6 days of research presentations and discussions. Beatrice developed set of experimental transcriptions of marks composed of voice notes, key words and statements, and visual cues. Link to Transcription here Programme DAY 1: 11am– 13:30pm CET Introduction — an introduction to the project and its mode of working during the pandemic as a proposition towards interdependence by Biljana Ciric and Zdenka Badovinac. Screening of the film Awra Amba’s E(u)topia by Salem Mekuria — About Awra Amba’s E(u)topia – About seventy years ago, Zumra Nuru was born into a traditional agrarian Muslim family in a remote village in Northern Ethiopia, near Awra Amba. He never went to school. As a child he started questioning why things were as unequal and unjust as he observed life in his village to be. He dreamt of a society where people could live in peace and full equality regardless of who they were. Fifty years ago, that dream materialized into what is now known as Awra Amba, a community based on true equality in all aspects of life and where religion is a private affair. This story introduces a revolutionary society thriving in the heart of a very conservative Ethiopia. With interviews and compelling scenes of the village and its people, Awra Amba’s (E)utopia will give us a glimpse into their unique lifestyle. Presentations by Robel Temesgen The Addis Newspaper Marija Glavas THE CULTURAL INTERWEAVING OF CHINA AND THE BALKANS — Abstract – This research focuses on the cultural exchanges between China and countries from the Balkan region under the Belt and Road Initiative. It begins with a systematic examination of these exchanges, and continues with exploring their potential in this specific spatial and temporal context. This potential is juxtaposed against classical national narratives, with Slovenia used as a case study examining the dangers national narratives can bring. This concludes with a proposed textual analysis to further explore whether these international exchanges live up to their potential of shifting away from national narratives to create new futures. Q&A from audience DAY 2: 11am– 13:00pm CET Disjointed Images from Afar and Fragmented Stories in Proximity Intro — Convened by Nikita Yingqian Cai, this day of the symposium resists the single narrative of transformation that the regions As You Go… are engaging with are undergoing. Joined by artists and filmmakers, Salem Mekuria, Hu Yun, and Alex Ulko, this seminar proposes to capture and unfold the personal and collective memories we share in our current moment, to better realise the path we may create for the future. Moderator: Nikita Yingqian Cai Presentations: Alex Ulko: Seeing the Invisible: Documenting and Interpreting China’s Cultural Presence in Uzbekistan — Abstract – This presentation begins with a close look at the Soviet, Russian, and Central Asian past and present, with an exploration of the overlapping post-Soviet and post-colonial identities, as well as the role of Uzbekistan, in the global system. From previously submitted personal recollections to the As You Go…Journal, I will then use my own sketches, drawings, stories, photos of household items, etc. to speak to the perception of China by my peers and myself throughout the 1970-80s to demonstrate how this incomplete and distorted anecdotal information created the basis for the imagination of Chinese civilisation within the USSR and Uzbekistan. Accompanying this is a short video discussing the Confucius Institute in Samarkand, located at the city’s historical centre on the grounds of Samarkand University. This video will explore the institute’s physical and historical environment, as well as the programmes the Institute is carrying out, and the soft power they project. I will conclude with the acknowledgement that the situation is changing, before making some predictions about the possible developments in cultural relations between China and Uzbekistan. Hu Yun: Untitled — Abstract BOR – The early stage of my research in Bor is composed of an ongoing conversation with the city’s only Chinese restaurant owner, Chef Qiu. On 18th December 2018, Chinese Mining company, Zijin Mining Group, formally took over RTB Bor Group under the new name “Serbia Zijin Bor Copper”. During the past two years, Chinese engineers and workers have been relocated to Bor by Zijin Group and its supporting companies from China. Due to the pandemic, the relocation process has slowed down, though has not come to a stop. According to Zijin’s development planning, more workers will be needed in the coming years. As a newcomer, just like all the Chinese workers working for Zijin Group, Chef Qiu arrived at Bor without any knowledge of the local context, and he only speaks Mandarin and Hokkien (Fujian Province, Southern China dialect). The outcome of this first stage of research will be several short video essays based on a series of interviews done with Chef Qiu and video footage taken during a research trip in early 2020, together with footage from Chef Qiu taken throughout 2020 as his own visual memory of his first year in Bor. Salem Mekuria: Spacial and Other Memories: Maskal Square’s contribution — Before this panel please view Square Stories Trilogy: https://vimeo.com/413415836 Abstract – For the last twenty years, I have been exploring innovative ways to visually represent the lingering, yet unexamined, legacy of the tragic events of Ethiopia’s military regime. I started experimenting with multi-screen format as a tool for complicating the linearity of documentary style film, and for telling visual stories without the need for verbal narration. In utilising the triptych form, I reference traditional Ethiopian Orthodox religious art history and its ubiquity in the lives of my primary audience. By expanding on this cultural motif and emptying it of its traditional content, I juxtapose images, events, stories, and ideas to offer multiple ways of understanding Ethiopian history, and to engage audiences by inviting them to actively participate in the unfolding of these narratives. The Square Stories Trilogy is the latest in such experimentation. In it, I examine visual memory and the process of its erasure – how the spaces in Maskal Square defy efforts to suppress or erase traces of the traumatic events presented in Deluge. I follow the Square’s physical evolution from its beginnings as a space for the annual celebration of Maskal (the Finding of the true Cross), to becoming the primary site for political protests as well as the display of spectacles of power by succeeding regimes. Ethiopia’s desire for modernity is also played out in the ongoing transformation of the square, which has watched Ethiopian history be made and remade time and again. Discussion: Q&A: DAY 3: 11am– 13:00 CET Alternatives to new forms of geo-political and economical administrations of localities and people: archiving, reacting, creating. Intro — Convened by Larys Frogier of Rockbund Art Museum, with Jelica Jovanovic and research group, Artcom, along with Sinkneh Eshetu, Berhanu, and Aziza Abdul Fetah this panel will focus on three study cases: Zijin Bor Mining complex and the infrastructure throughout the Balkan region; Lake Balkhash and its geo-political positions and water management; and the Addis Ababa Riverbank project. Interrogating the highly criticised Chinese (economic) presence in these localities, this seminar reveals the complexities of each local context and gives insight to new positions the geographies of the margins can take in this new cold war era unfolding before us. Moderator: Larys Frogier Presentations: Jelica Jovanovic: Infrastructuring the Region. Materiality and Intangibility of the New Silk Road in Serbia — Abstract – Since the Belt and Road Initiative first formalized in 2012 through the establishment of the “16+1 Initiative” for cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries (China-CEEC), Serbia has slowly but steadily been emerging as the lead partner of China within these initiatives. Various projects, executed either as concessions or infrastructural development via bilateral agreements (propped up by the generous loans from Chinese government), as well as direct investments into production facilities in Serbia, and most notably the current healthcare and vaccine diplomacy, are all physical manifestations of the BRI in the Republic of Serbia. The research is interested in these varied projects undertaken by Chinese companies within Serbia, with its main focus on the large-scale industries and pieces of infrastructure which have been previously (actively) neglected over the last 30 years, though are now miraculously revamped through lucrative international agreements and bilateral cooperation. The cases of Bor Mining and Smelting Basin, as well as the developments done by the China Road and Bridge Corporation on the railway reconstruction of the Serbian portion of the Pan-European corridor E75, are rebuilding and restoring these formerly robust yet decrepit structures, thus materializing a new relation between the two countries. The research also examines the historical components of these structures and relationships, and based on familiar scenarios from the other (neighboring) countries and Serbia’s own past, speculates on their possible futures. Sinkneh Eshetu, Berhanu, Aziza Abdul Fetah: The Danger of Ambition and Neglect: The Case of Beautifying Sheger Project — Abstract – ‘Beautifying Sheger’ (Addis Ababa) is a three-year long project to rehabilitate two tributaries of major rivers in Addis Ababa, Kurtime and Bentyiketu, which though aims to enhance the green coverage and beauty of the city, urban tourism, green economy and flood control, and is applauded by many, has already brought criticism for prioritising the development over people by the residents affected. This research project aims to study the impact of the landscape design under implementation on the livelihood of the people dependent on the rivers, focusing on urban agriculture and its contribution to the urban food system […] it will strive to suggest better design alternatives that may enhance the natural ecosystem and human-nature integration in the continuing phases of the Beautifying Sheger project. Aigerim Kapar: The many secret scapes of Balkhash Lake: a travelogue of the crossboundary contexts, communities and ecosystem — Abstract – This contribution discusses the research process and preliminary results of Artcom’s study on how the local values of Balkhash Lake impact local livelihoods; and how the local imagination is/can be connected to Balkhash Lake in relation to existing (trans)disciplinary studies, national and crossboundary dynamic, and environmental and cultural policies. The lake is one of the biggest endorheic water bodies in the world and has a millenia-long history of socio-cultural life, ecological traditions, and semi-nomadic management methods, responsive to the climatic features of the arid zone. Today modern industrialization and militarization during the colonial Soviet period continues to prevail in its cultural landscape and imagination. Scientific research of the lake and its region mainly carries out a capitalist design, and the socio-cultural studies are practically absent. An important and pressing task is to decolonize the concept/memory/knowledge of Balkhash. It is necessary to understand what it was like before the Soviet period, what role Balkhash played in the cultural landscape of the local people, and how current sources impact the attitudes and practice towards Balkhash ecosystem – how old/current/new sources can be reflected through decolonial optics and emerge as an important factor in its sustainable future. The secrets of Lake Balkhash is a transdisciplinary collaborative mixed methods research effort including contributions from ethnography, cultural mapping, interviews, observations, expedition reports. The research is part of Artcom Platform’s Care for Balkhash initiative and is supported by the As you go…the roads under your feet into the new future long term research inquiry. Discussion: Q&A: DAY 4: 11am– 13:00pm CET Situated Research, Situated Practices Intro — Convened by Aigerim Kapar of the collective Artcom, this seminar utilises Donna Haraway’s 1988 essay: Situated knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective as its point of departure. Joined by Robert Bobnic and Kaya Kraner, Yabebal Fantaye from Astrobus-Ethiopia and artist, Jasphy Zheng, this panel will further explore the situatedness within their local contexts (and newfound global ones), and the practices embedded within these to explore what it means to be connected to a place and ultimately, to one another. Moderator: Aigerim Kapar Presentations: Robert Bobnic and Kaja Kraner: Bor is burning: From mining to data mining in socialist Yugoslavia — Abstract – Located in the southeastern part of Serbia, Bor was one of the iconic places of Yugoslav industry, and consequently one of the mythological places of proletarian and industrially induced socialist culture. After the anticipated future bloodily collapsed during the 90s and the land was deterritorialized, the Bor mine was sold to the Chinese state-owned Zinjin corporation in 2017 as part of the Chinese investment in the Balkan region. Indeed, Bor, where copper and gold mining dates back to at least 5000 BC, is a place of particular synthesis between the geological past and technological future, being the perfect example of Yuk Hui’s concept of cosmotechnics. Cosmotechnics can be understood as a means of reaffirming relations between nature, culture, technics, and cosmos, stating that technical and scientific thinking have always emerged under cosmological imagination in the relation between humans and their particular milieus. Our aim is to question the supposedly uniform development and understanding of technology in the modern western context based on the case study of Bor. Focusing on the concept of work as a cosmotechnical activity of the extraction of nature (including human nature) and the construction of society, this research engages with (1) Marxist anthropological understanding of work as a mediation between human and milieu and (2) with the understanding of technics in the Yugoslav self-management system as a particular cybernetical system, wherein computer technology mainly took an instrumental role for the purpose of organizing socialistically understood social relations, paradoxically obstructing a more differentiated socialist – or in a more cosmotechnical way, Yugoslav – understanding of technology. Yabebal Fantaye: Astrobus-Ethiopia: A dynamic response to fast changing challenges and opportunities — Abstract Astrobus-Ethiopia: A dynamic response to fast changing challenges and opportunities – Astrobus-Ethiopia is a mobile science-art-innovation initiative that is carried out by driving a vehicle across different locations in Ethiopia. The program’s ambition is to stimulate critical thinking, whilst also supporting the country’s social and economic development. Combining engaging activities across science, art, and innovation, Astrobus-Ethiopia promotes education and cultural connection, and encourages curiosity of artistic, technological, and scientific practices. Additionally, the project produces educational materials in local languages and shares them on its website in order to allow for accessibility. The next Astrobus-Ethiopia event will take place in the first week of May 2021, with a successful research trip having been carried out to learn how to safely implement the event in the conditions imposed by the pandemic. This presentation will discuss previous events hosted by Astrobus-Ethiopia and will also forecast upcoming events and the possibilities of how they will present themselves as the initiative moves forward in this COVID-19 era. Jasphy Zheng: Stories from the Room – — Abstract – As a response to the state of our global isolation and the collective pause we shared due to the outbreak of the pandemic, I initiated Stories from the Room to collect personal writings from across the world, to build a growing archive and house it in various countries. By exhibiting the archive in both physical and imaginative spaces, connecting online and offline worlds, I am exploring where the notion of “universality” begins and ends, and extending empathy when the sentiments of ”we are in this together” fails. Discussion: Q&A: DAY 5 The importance of Ports Intro — Convened by Sinkneh Eshetu with researchers, Nikita Yingqian Cai of Times Museum and Brett Neilson from Western Sydney University, this seminar explores the complexities of Maritime Roads, as they were then and as they are now, and its narrative as told by different agents through different cultural structures. From the different ports within China’s coastal cities to the ports of Piraeus, Kolkata and Valparaiso, these presentations unpack ports and their geo-political importance as imbued through technology and infrastructure. Moderator: Sinkneh Eshetu Presentations: Nikita Yingqian Cai: Performativity of a Guarded Globalization – How is the Maritime Silk Road represented in China’s Public Museums? — Abstract – Based on a field trip to three public museums in former treaty port cities in China (Ningbobang Museum, Quanzhou Maritime Museum and Xiamen Overseas Chinese Museum), this research examines how the historical concept of the ancient Maritime Silk Road, coined by German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen and sinologist Roderich Ptak, are represented within museum displays and institutional narratives to perform an up-to-date globalization as supported by the state whilst guarded by national ideologies. One important aspect of the Ancient Maritime Silk Road (9-14 CE) was freedom and autonomy of navigation, which made indigenous trade routes and the exchanges of peoples and cultures between the South China Sea and Indian Oceans possible prior to the region’s integration into the global hierarchy of imperialism, the emergence of sovereignty over territorial water, and the formation of nation-states. While alternative historiographies and cartographies, and relational narratives and subjectivities are usually marginalized within public museums, the revival of the Maritime Silk Road in relation to urban gentrification, free trade, and free port is promoted through the reproductions of historical materials (archives, imageries, situations, and figurations) to connect the long line of maritime history with the emergent middle-class audience. The curious confounding of speculation and historiography registers the conundrum of state performativity and subjects negative spaces for artistic interrogations. Alongside this will be a short video of the paracuratorial field trip of Times Museum in 2020, which documents how artists, folk scholars, and museum practitioners came together as engaged observers to challenge disciplinary boundaries between museology and contemporary art. Brett Neilson: Logistical Worlds, or, Research before the Pandemic — Abstract – Logistical Worlds: Infrastructure, Software, Labor was a project conducted across the ports of Piraeus, Kolkata and Valparaiso in the period 2012-2017. The research explored logistical techniques and technologies in ports and hinterlands where Chinese investment was underway or expected at the time of the project’s initiation. Begun before China announced the Belt and Road initiative, the realities and hypes surrounding this program of infrastructural expansion altered the stakes and direction of the research. This talk engages these changes, reflecting on how circumstances can shift the dynamics of knowledge production. In particular, I consider the complexities of working across sites in three different continents, the question of funding, and the trickiness of orchestrating contributions from academics, activists, and artists. To conclude, I note that the pandemic has shifted conditions in ways that would preclude this research, and ask what knowledge production strategies might enhance an understanding of how COVID-19 has changed China’s international logistical engagements. Ash Moniz: Untitled — Abstract – As the extraterritoriality of logistics carves out geographies of supply chain infrastructure, it also molds the spatial constellations of logistics workers’ solidarity networks. In my research, I have found that workers at many ports each have their own unique port allies who organize in correspondence with their struggles (eg. between Sokhna and Mumbai, or Istanbul and Rio De Janeiro). The nuances of historical reasoning behind these nodes often show cartographies of solidarity that expand beyond geographical or corporate proximity. I would like to contribute to the Maritime Portal residency by experimenting with different cartographical possibilities for representing geographies of solidarity, and how directionalities of social relations interweave with those of cargo. I am building off of an ongoing independent archive that compiles materials from dockers’ strikes internationally, that I have collected over the years. This also includes materials from research on container ships and in ports (Singapore, Sokhna, Port Said, Beirut, Tripoli, Athens, Istanbul, etc.), and shared video-archives from transport workers unions, etc. I am interested in the modes of literacy that dictate inventories of supply, and the forms of representational leverage that shape logistical negotiations. In investigating how tacticality takes form, my work situates the temporal loss of supply-chain interruption within both logistical time and historical time, mapping the lost possibilities of past struggles. Presentation of researcher from digital residency: Discussion: Q&A: DAY 6 How we work together: a round table discussion of partner cells Intro — The symposium will come to a close with a roundtable discussion between partner cells: Moderna Galerija, Times Museum, Rockbund Art Museum, Robel Temesgen, Sinkneh Eshetu, Artcom platform, What Should Should Curating Do, Public Bor Library. Together, they will discuss their modes of working as built on interdependence, the right to opacity, and horizontality. Participants: Zdenka Badovinac, Nikita Yingqian Cai, Larys Frogier, Sinkneh Eshetu, Robel Temesgen, AIgerim Kapar, Dragan Stojmenovic, Biljana Ciric As you go…roads under your feet, towards the new future initiated and conceived by Biljana Ciric. The inquiry research cells include What Could Should Curating Do (Belgrade), Moderna Galerija (Ljubljana), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai), Guangdong Times Museum (Guangzhou), ArtCom (Astana), Robel Temesgen and Sinkneh Eshetu (Addis Ababa), and The Public Library (Bor). The first stage of the project has been supported by the Foundation for Arts Initiatives, CURTAIN (Rockbund Art Museum), Austrian Cultural Forum, Curatorial Practice (Monash University Art, Design and Architecture), and the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. Previous Next

< Back As you go... Journal Special Issue April 2021 10 Apr 2021 Biljana Ciric Throughout the first year of inquiry, As you go…roads under your feet, towards the new future , most of the research has dealt with human-made changes and how this has interfered with the local life of other people. However, there is very little mention of the non-human world, or an acknowledgement of its existence and transformation. For the april edition of our online journal , I asked each researcher and partner cells (if there are many of you in one cell, you must still each individually participate) to contribute two keywords . The first describing one non-human existence which has disappeared from the earth in relation to the changes within their research. The second a non-human existence that has emerged from the new living conditions that have transformed within your respective research. The keyword and its accompanying description could range from one sentence to an entire page, could be sounds of short video, and image. This special feature of journal in march will acknowledge our interdependence in the world that virus reminded us of but also proposition to act and view the world as truly interconnected web knowing that we are just one part of it. It is invitation to become conscious of the world under our feet, making each step lighter, acknowledging the world below. Biljana Ciric Previous Next

Events Events 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 Future Light: or is A New Enlightenment Worth Considering? | Maria Lind Comradeship: Curating Art, and Politics in Post-Socialist Europe | Zdenka Badovinac What Could/Should the Institution Do? | Ares Shporta < Participants Educational Program Programs >

< Back Sharing Session: As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future 10 July 2021 Astrobus-Ethiopia event, 2019. Photo provided by Astrobus-Ethiopia Speakers: Biljana Ciric (interdependent curator), Sinkneh Eshetu (writer), Yabebal Fantaye (astrophysicist and data scientist), Robel Temesgen (artist), Jasphy Zheng (artist) Moderator: Zheng Peihan (Interim Education Manager of Rockbund Art Museum) Zoom ID: 827 5362 1666 Password: 992302 Direct Link English On Saturday 10 July, 6pm HKT, partner cells of project As you go… roads under yourfeet, towards the new future , which is a long–term project intertwined with theresearch project CURTAIN, is bringing a sharing session introducing the project,practices and research, progress and stories behind the project. As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future is a long–term research projectcentring around the unheard voices and raising awareness about the shared issuesunderlying different contexts, ranging from China to the Balkan peninsula, fromEthiopia to Central Asia. Through building a collective knowledge platformorganised around the principles of ‘organic cells’ of the research—the collaborationswhich span individuals, small–scale organisations, and state–run and privatemuseums, forming a close–knit atmosphere to engage in an entirely novel form of collaboration. During the event, Biljana Ciric, interdependent curator who initiated and conceivedthis project, is going to introduce partner cells and the As you go… roads under yourfeet, towards the new future project with a panel discussion, which share not onlyresearch, but also modes of working based on relationality and interdependence. Artists and partner cells Jasphy Zheng and Robel Temesgen, whose works are onview in Curtain , will introduce their artistic concepts. Through immersiveinstallations, unannounced performances, sculptural objects, and artist’s books,Jasphy Zheng, an interdisciplinary artist who lives between Brooklyn and China,constructs and realises scenarios of public intervention that aim to raise awareness ofour social and cultural environments in and out of the context of contemporary art.Robel Temesgen is an artist practicing painting that encompasses elements ofperformance, installation, video, and collaborative projects. Through reimagininglocal artefacts and cultures, such as ‘Nu Bunna Tetu’ coffee pots and protectiveadbar spirits, Temesgen connects people, both local and ‘strangers’ who constitutepart of his continued interest in the socio–political dynamics of the social, sociality,and sociability. Co–founders of Astrobus–Ethiopia, Yabebal Fantaye and Sinkneh Eshetu, as partnercells of As you go… , will also discuss their project, especially the third six–day trip theyundertook in May 2021, which reached seven schools in three cities and about3,500 students. Astrobus–Ethiopia as one of the commissions by As you go… is aproject to stimulate a culture of scientific thinking in Ethiopia by promoting science–art–technology–innovation education and creating public awareness around it. Bybus, the project went to different locations in Ethiopia to provide an opportunity forthe public to explore, learn, and understand the main elements of moderncivilisation, and how these are realised, i.e. how ideas are created, imagined, tested,mixed, visualised, transformed, and then applied to help improve the state of theworld. In practice, scientists, astronomers, artists, writers, and filmmakers havejumped on the bus in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, and embarked on ajourney of knowledge sharing in many places. Previous Next

< Back Bicycle Uprising Against Authoritarianism 20 July 2020 Tjaša Pureber Three months of protests in Slovenia Culture is a guardian of sleep of the middle class. Graffiti on the wall of Ministry of Culture, May 2020. On March 12, 2020, Slovenia went into a lockdown after declaring the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic. A day later, right-wing Prime Minister Janez Janša, took over the government. What followed were three months of repressive measures, often disguised as anti-pandemic laws, which made already existing contradictions within society even more visible and dire. Government policies were met with massive self-organized resistance, and the Slovenians’ mass protests on bicycles were one of the first attempts in the world to explore what it means to fight against social injustice on a massive scale, whilst maintaining social solidarity within a pandemic. Cultural workers and creative actions played an important role in the still ongoing wave of unrest that has redefined the notion of collectivity in a time when the individualization of our lives has become mandatory. The following is a short summary of what has happened. Prelude: from the uprising of 2012/2013 to the protests of 2020 The last time Janez Janša was in power, he was met with six months of uprisings in the winter and spring of 2012/2013, which eventually led to his resignation. This was the biggest continuous social and political unrest the country had seen since its fight for independence in 1991. It was marked by massive direct action, while the diverse movement itself was self-organized by various anti-capitalist and other initiatives, within which cultural workers played a visible role. The protests were also marked by anti-corruption and anti-austerity topics, as well as a general distrust in the political class. In the years since, Slovenia was ruled by what can only be described as governments of extreme center. They introduced several laws that increased the authority of military and police to be used against the civil population, installed barbed wire on the southern border, and maintained extremely restrictive immigration policies. In many ways, those characteristics set the stage for more ideologically far right policies, immediately introduced by the new right-wing government. Once the pandemic of COVID-19 hit Slovenia, most civil society actors and institutions, largely dependent on state funding, were met with the new reality – lockdown, lack of funding, an uncertain employment future; all mixed with restrictive, authoritarian governmental policies, and a new style of ruling largely marked by hate speech, character assassinations in the press, and the spread of fake news through government owned and controlled media. # stayathome was quickly adopted by the people as the only way to remain in solidarity, often forgetting it only applies to the financially stable and educated, middle class populace. Meanwhile, industrial production continued undisturbed, often in risky health conditions, while cities and states closed down support structures for the homeless, thus leaving a vulnerable part of the population in even more precarious situations. From the very beginning of the pandemic, it was the self-organized social movements who offered a different vision of social solidarity, aimed at supporting those cut off from state-led welfare structures (such as the elderly, homeless, and the poor). They offered a vision of direct social care as an answer to state imposed quarantine, which accommodates only those who can afford it. These attempts coincided with the need to address the question of political protests and building a collective experience of dissent in times of imposed individualization. State responses to the pandemic marked a return to the patriarchal society – limiting social interactions to the immediate family members, combined with the oppressive language of the “dangerous and dirty Other,” who spreads the virus. The only safe environment became the notion of home, while everything else posed a risk. This created a claustrophobic atmosphere, in which authoritarian measures, such as the attempt to use the military to monitor and control migration flows, were unable to be met with dissent on the streets. Anti-authoritarian, mostly anarchist social movements in the country, recognized this as the first attempt from the new government to establish authoritarian rule in Slovenia. This created the need to form a collective response which would still be able to protect people in struggle from the dangers of the pandemic, whilst offering a platform to express anger over the political measurements. At beginning of April, roughly three weeks after the introduction of quarantine, an alliance of different anti-authoritarian, anarchist and autonomous initiatives created a decentralized call for sound demonstrations on balconies. Urging people to visibly mark and transform their home space into political territories (such as with banners, slogans etc), it was an attempt to break the cycle of re-patriarchalisation. To radicalize traditional patriarchic spaces in which we live, whilst creating a tool for neighborhoods to connect in a common, yet safe action. Meanwhile, people were also finding creative ways of expression on the streets. While the state prohibited collective gatherings in public space (limited to only people you live with, even merely for recreation), people from all walks of life were discovering ways in which they could do solo political actions. Walls in the city center were densely covered by political graffiti, people were filming themselves jogging with political banners, and the square in the front of the parliament became plastered with black crosses, thus marking the 1.5 meter social distance that would still allow protesting, while people set up pictures of their feet in front of the parliament in a similar fashion. On April 24, a week before May Day, the anti-authoritarian initiative that had at that point been doing sound demonstrations on balconies for almost a month, called for the first bicycle demonstration in the city center. Bicycles were chosen because they allowed social distancing as well as social solidarity against the virus for those who needed it, all while allowing the presence of a collective body in dissent. Several hundreds of people joined the call to protest authoritarian policies, militarization, and capitalism, creating one of the biggest protests in the world during the COVID-19 lockdown. This marked the beginning of numerous protests all over the world against authoritarian measurements of states, and against repression of dissent under the pretense of fighting the pandemic, while many parts of the world continued to fail in protecting the people against the spread of the virus. The stage in Slovenia was now set for new things to come. Creative direct action The May Day demonstration on bikes attracted wide support, and self-organized protests gathered close to ten thousand people who completely blocked the city center and around major crossroads with bicycles, creating traffic chaos. Messages were anti-authoritarian, in solidarity with nature, and against militarization and capitalism. Soon afterward, the first assembly in the autonomous cultural center of Metelkova followed, marking the beginning of three mutually supporting blocs – anti-capitalist, cultural, and environmental – that has since initiated action on the streets. Every week the routes of cyclists changed: from Ministry of Culture, to Ministry of Environment; from Parliament to public television; from the main hospital to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Protests were met with unprecedented policing – hundreds of people were either detained or had their information taken for breach of quarantine and are still in process of receiving penalties. Soon, the public discourse and protests themselves became geared toward an anti-police sentiment, addressing both repressions abroad (in front of US Embassy) and at home. It became clear that the battle here was larger than against the mere subduing of one particular protest, but rather, against a government trying to impose new limits of dissent in public spaces. Protesting against the fence around Parliament and against policing therefore became the symbolic point of struggle for free expression of dissent in public space. Looking back at the protests in 2012/13, it is often discussed among activists that part of the demobilization was also caused by the culturalization of protests – considered here is the introduction of creative communication actions that often only served as a spectacle, but were not challenging the existing relations of power. This was one of the arguments about being careful in introducing exclusively creative actions within the movement this time around. One of the strongest moments from this wave of protests, was the coexistence and mutual support between different forms of action, from more militant direct action to more symbolic ones. When Prime Minister and government controlled media attacked the anti-capitalist bloc and antifa as terrorist, other blocs, namely cultural, publicly defended them. It became clear that mutual solidarity creates an environment in which protests are far less controllable. If only limited to militant direct action, they are bound to be subdued by repression, and if only limited to symbolic mass action they are limited to self-neutralization. Together, the combination of both approaches creates a more incisive social unrest and edginess. Friday protests were full of creative actions. From climbing and pushing the fence around the Parliament, to displaying different placards of messages against the government and dropping banners of revolt from bridges. The Ministry of Culture was marked by a banner saying “We refuse to give up art for cultural mess” , that later became the slogan of the cultural bloc’s future protests. Almost all actions were met with heavy police repression, resulting in a spontaneous demonstration in front of the police station, until all protesters were released. Besides smaller and more socio-politically oriented assemblies in autonomous spaces (three so far), experiments with direct democracy also took place in a bigger setting as part of one of the Friday protests. During one of them in July, several thousand protesters gathered to discuss topics which included new alternative political models, health, street action, environment, and culture. Outside of the Friday mass protests, smaller actions and forms of dissent continued through the following months. Environmental actions mostly took place in front of the Ministry of Environment, including sit-ins and protests, as well as the symbolic mass walking that occurred around the river Sava. Journalists protested the new media law, which was supported by other blocs. The Ministry of Culture saw five smaller protests of a few hundred people. These addressed the systemic problems within the current cultural model, which was leaving people in precarious and perilous situations. These were the first continuous large-scale protests in front of the Ministry in the history of independent Slovenia. Actions in front of the Ministry included plastering the outside of the building with all of unanswered memos of cultural organizations during the pandemic to improve the situation of the artists; lying on the street in silence for several minutes; sitting on the chairs in the streets; watching the Ministry’s lack of response at the police violence against artists during the Friday protests; dropping tools of artistic work in front of the building; and reading in front of the ministry, amplifying the dissent of voices. Nearby, the Museum of Contemporary Art also expressed solidarity with activists by showing artwork on the building’s exterior during the protest. Other smaller actions continued throughout the city expressing concern for other pressing issues such as rape, women’s rights, migration, repression, militarization, and notably, antifascism (critically after Neo-Nazis appeared on the streets, though only drawing an extremely small crowd). New terrain of struggle The composition of these protests is extremely diverse, and often conflictual in ideas between themselves. Despite a glaring rejection of political parties on the streets, it is clear that both the opposition and the current governmental parties seek to gain something from the protests, whether it be legitimization for more repressive measurements or support for elections. It would however, be wrong to assume that protests can be reduced to only desiring a change of current government, since a large part of the movement rejects current political and capitalist systems while actively seeking alternative political modes of horizontal self-organization and anti-authoritarianism, combined with a clear anti-fascist positioning against all forms of oppression. The challenge now posing itself to the majority of protesters has become complex. It is clear that we no longer live in times when mobilization lasted for a short period to be followed by long periods of assumed social peace. As the historical compromise with the working class is coming to an end, it is becoming clearer that the states, especially led by right and/or far right political parties, are willing to use violent means of repression to maintain the illusion of the security of a welfare state. As a consequence of new forms of government, and experiences of this year’s mobilization, it is becoming evident that we are looking at new forms of social movements. In them, weeks, months or even years of ongoing social protest will be the enduring form of dissent on the streets. Therefore, the question for the movement that remains is how to maintain the strength, attention and constant mobilization, while avoiding activist burnouts. Of how to create a common space in which a diversity of tactics is possible, and how to keep the struggle open for different forms of expression and topics to be addressed. But importantly, how to maintain unpredictability, within a constant reinvention of what political conflict means. Tjaša Pureber is a political scientist, cultural worker and activist. Previous Next

Program Participant Activities Program Participant Activities 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 Tonight we invite you to encounter a collective archive of the 2022 What could/should curating do educational programme, which took place in Belgrade and other locations around the Post-Yugoslav region, between September and December this year. The departure point for this archive is a proposal by Biljana Ćirić, program curator and facilitator, to consider the means by which the discussions, events, inquiries and relationships developed during this time might be recorded or documented. Archiving is never neutral. Determinations are always made—by individuals, by collectives, by collecting institutions—about what knowledge is worth saving, the means by which knowledge is indexed, housed and cared for, who has access and on what terms. Within the framework of an alternative educational platform—with a loose and evolving curriculum, and no formalised method of assessment or grading—this exercise presents an opportunity to consider what alternative measures we might allow ourselves for the production of knowledge when freed from institutional modes of transmission and circulation. As such, these archives—both individually and collectively—do not simply record a series of shared (and at times differing) experiences. They include questions around how the embodied, linguistic, political, intimate, relational nature of experience and remembering, ranging in scope from the personal, to the national. Each contribution is informed by the “baggage” we carried with us, as a group of individuals from many different geographic and cultural contexts, many of whom had little relationship with Belgrade, Serbia or the Balkan region prior to this course. This “baggage” includes our different relationships to contemporary art’s infrastructures; our different fields of knowledge and networks of relationships; cultural and linguistic differences; differing relations to histories of colonialism, resource extraction and capitalist exploitation; and varying habits of thought, modes of making, inhabiting and formulating questions about the world. Through differing strategies of presentation and circulation, we hope to open up questions about what we have in common, as well as what separates us; what of ourselves is dispersed, and what is withheld. But the physical “archive” we share with you tonight is only a part of a wider set of relationships, experiences, idea exchanges, occasional encounters, gossip and experimenting. Tonight we celebrate the beauty and fragility of these moments. Be our guests at the two tables. Read silently. Read aloud. Whisper. Describe what you see. Share what you feel. Eat. Drink. Embrace. This archive is staged as something living, developing and transformational, ever evolving as our moments with you. Thank you for sharing this journey with us. We hope it’s not the end, but only a stop on the way. WC/SCD 2022 Adelina, Anastasia, Ginevra, Giuglia, Jelena, Karly, Lera, Sabine, Simon < Participants Educational Program Programs >

Marija Glavas < Back national identities, common ground Marija Glavas Previous Next