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Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Program Participant Activities 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 < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

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< 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 Treading a line 15 Aug 2020 Sarah Bushra Mekbib Tadesse Emperor Menelik IIPhotographer: Mekbib Tadesse On June 30, the second day after protests broke out in Addis Ababa, and following the assassination of the Oromo people’s cultural icon and musician, Hacaaluu Hundeessaa, the streets in 4 kilo – a government district where Parliament, the Prime Minister’s office, and the Palace seats are located – were quiet and still. A stark contrast to the day before. Occasional voices broke out, echoing between low rise buildings and across the relatively wide-set street before falling onto our ears: “they are coming, they are coming.” A warning call, to which the sparse occupants of the street responded by readying themselves, brandishing sticks of all varieties, alert and equipped to ward off the belligerent youth from advancing towards the city center. Oromo is the largest ethnic group and historically marginalized community in Ethiopia. In 2016, a youth movement emerged by the name Qero , meaning “young unmarried men,” to claim political power and overthrow the hegemonic cultural and social structure. In the recent protests, the Amhara ethnic group were the intended targets of stone pelting, violent killings, and the burning and bashing of businesses, for being Neftegna . This word literally translates to “riflemen,” but has recently became synonymous to “colonizer,” referencing Ethiopia’s long-standing Imperial rule – spanning over ten centuries, with predominantly North Ethiopian Emperors (Amhara and Tigray) governing a system which favored them as landowners. When the protests began on June 29, a morning after artist, Hacaaluu Hundessaa was murdered, the Oromo youth headed to the Ghiorgis Roundabout in Addis Ababa, to topple over the statue of Emperor Menelik II – depicted gracefully riding a horse, a symbol of oppression for the Oromo resistance. As novice beneficiaries of the freedom of expression (or its illusions), as a community, many Ethiopians still stutter when trying to exercise it. Mistaking their newly found liberty for supremacy, most of those who have found a platform to voice their criticism – either on social media or on public forums – have veered to a language of hate. This new mode of communication has morphed the meanings of words that were previously harmless attributes of ethnic identities, to triggers of emotional and physical turmoil. It was particularly difficult for me, a millennial with no vested interest in politics, to reflect on the recent unrests taking place all over Ethiopia. Primarily because I had insulated myself from Ethiopian political discourse, falsely assuming its ethnic-based linings were somebody else’s concern. Politics here refers to governance, and the racket among parties as they contest for ruling power. Having grown up in an environment where such politics is discussed in hushed tones (if ever), I had neither the language nor the insight to comb through the nuances that led to the current turn of events. But when hurled into the conflict, unsuspecting and without pretext, I couldn’t escape its confrontational reality. Following the consequences of the pandemic, I immersed myself in the online world, embracing the changes openly and with vigilance. On the 29th of June, when the network connectivity stopped working, I imagined I had simply run out of my package and went to the nearest telecom office to top-up my card. On my way there, a friend called to warn me to stay at home upon rumors of protests breaking out, incited by the murder of Hacaalluu. A lot of people in my network also had their first warning call from a family member or a friend. These types of oral stories becomes the only source of information when the government shuts down the internet for three weeks. Someone who knows someone, who has a friend living in Shashemene, says his neighbor’s house was burnt down. There is something mythical about the way these kinds of stories circulate, with a tint of otherworldliness that at times comforts, and other times, terrifies. Mass media coverage during the time of the protest was no exception to the theatrics of mysticism. Radios and TVs chimed with an endless instrumental tune, with the latter accompanied by images of Hacaaluu superimposed with a picture of a burning candle. Keguro Macharia, a Kenyan literary scholar, tweets about the benefits of myths in times of collective duress. Referring particularly to the pandemic and the power of myths to alleviate the pressure from a lack of economic means within certain communities, where factually incorrect narratives circulate, he exemplifies this claim with: “ ‘black tea helps against the virus,’ might help cope with a reduced capacity to buy milk…” Ethiopian Prime Minister, Dr. Abiy Ahmed, seems to think along the same lines when addressing the public on the day of Haccaaluu Hundeesaa’s assassination, citing the popular myth of “Sene ena Segno” – that Mondays in the month of June (Sené, the tenth month in Ethiopian Calendar), are prone to host unfortunate incidents. Perhaps implying it’s not particularly the moral decadence of society that resulted in the death of 239 people, and the loss of billions in birr, but rather, an unescapable fate set up within this popular myth. Nguigi wa Thing’o writes in his introduction to Hama Tuma’s The Case of the Socialist Witch-Doctor and Other Stories saying: “Ethiopia is the land of myths.” He admires the stories in the following pages (which were all set during Ethiopia’s Red Terror period) for their particular poignancy – propped as vignettes, unassuming of the mist in which they exist – simply framing their peculiar reality in minute details. The most wide-spread accounts of protests were unencumbered by context or the burden of proof, leaving it up to the audience to interpret and arrive at the underlining meaning. As I tried to grapple my way for a sound strand of narrative within this haze, I remembered Konjit Seyoum and her practice of reading a line. She’s simultaneously an artist and artisan – weaving stories that unravel from the multiverse of her lived experiences, as the movement of her hands materialize a thin white line from a nebulous cloud of cotton. It is this line that delineates the embodied from the performed identity. This line which borders the surge of young men who flood the streets, between those of us on the sidelines pacing in agitation, wavering between clemency and anger. It is this thin, intricate line that separates the myths from the facts, the tales from historical accounts. I finally found a friend to accompany me to the telecom, still unaware that it was in fact the government who had shut down the internet. We walked up the streets and suddenly came face to face with the stampede of wide-eyed young men, holding heavy-duty sticks, unmistakably handled as weapons. In a traditional dance of the Oromo people, the men sport a sturdy stick, much in the same way as the men in front of us did. I remembered the dancer standing next to me: as he once struggled to learn this dance, teeth clenched, sweat beads trickling, launching the stick up and down to the rhythm of a heavy staccato breathing. Filmed by Sarah Bushra Dancer: Dawit Seto Location: Fekat Circus August 2020 Addis Ababa Sarah Bushra is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, working primarily with a hybrid of text and images. Previous Next

< Back What Could Should Curating Do Volume 1 1/4 Language Serbian Published in 2018 The first volume in the What Could/Should Curating Do? publication series co-published with Orion Art designed by Sasa Tkacenko and conceived by Biljana Ciric. What Could/Should Curating Do? series serves as an archive of the discourses produced around the course on an annual basis, thereby engaging with questions of how to archive something that is still in development. These volumes are one possible solution to be further shared and explored. With this mind, the WCSCD publication series developed are imagined as annual reader related to the curatorial discourses that grow out of the program’s different workshops, initiated by the invited guest mentors to the program. At the same time, this effort also encourages the attending, emerging curators to produce and contribute their own writing. The first volume includes contributions : Neva Lukic, Katarina Kostandinovic, Dorothea von Hantelmann, Elena Filipović, Tara McDowell ,Maria Lind, Matt Packer, Mia David, Hou Hanru, What, How & for Whom, Jasna Jasna Zmak, Kirila Cvetkovska, Ruri Kawanami, Vera Zalutskaya Niels van Tomme, Sinisa Ilic, Milena Joksimovic, Agustina Andreoletti, Tjasa Pogacar, Boba Mirjana Stojadinovic, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Branislav Dimitrijevic and Biljana Ciric.

< 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

Alumni Alumni 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 < Participants Educational Program Programs >

About educational program Introduction of program 2018-2022 About educational program Introduction of program 2018-2022 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 Due to the lack of formal education related to curatorial and artistic work in the Balkan region (while in the former West there has been a proliferation of MA and PhD programmes in curating and artistic research), WCSCD was initiated with the goal of fostering the new generation of curators and artists as well as to raise awareness of the importance of curatorial and artistic knowledge and positions when thinking of art institutions and their role within the larger social context. The intention is to bring together key international and local figures engaged in decolonizing curatorial and artistic discourse, who are specifically able to offer diverse knowledges to the program participants. Through the program, we invite mentors from non-western contexts, local practitioners and also colleagues from the former West. In the last three years our participants were young practitioners from different parts of the world including the Balkans, EU, Asia, Central Asia, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America making it a unique program in Europe. Due to very limited funding structures for the arts within Serbia, funding of the program was dependent on the support of cultural institutions. The program has also charged a participation fee in line with the monthly salary of the country from which the participants is a passport holder. This was an attempt to generate more equal access to participation for everyone who applied. We also offer special grants for colleagues in need and in 2022 we have granted program access to the colleagues from Russia. Furthermore, in collaboration with Kadist Foundation in 2022 we have enable grant for practitioners from the region in order to participate in the program. The program is intensive, with daily programs of workshops, writing sessions, studio visits, and research trips in the region. Some of the research trips we have done so far include: Kosovo, Bosnia, Romania, Slovenia and Austria. Every year the program would accept up to 15 participants. Besides closed-door workshops for participants, all invited mentors would present public lectures to the larger cultural sector, sharing their ways of working and instituting. From 2023 educational program will be biennial and spread across two years in order to facilitate deeper and longer research of program participants. < Participants Educational Program Programs >

Nellya Dzhamanbaeva < Back Art in Central Asia during the quarantine Nellya Dzhamanbaeva I went through several stages when the quarantine was announced. The first stage was an observation. Being far from the crisis, without full information about the virus, I was a bit skeptical about it. The next stage I faced, being closed at home was “okay, now I’ll have more time to do what I haven’t had time to do before.” After that came a realization of the situation, and I was scared of what would be tomorrow. How will I survive? After the acceptance of the inability to change the situation came recognition. That led me to desire to do something and continue to work in the frames of the current circumstances. I feel that this emotional portrait could be applied to the art institutions as well. On the last stage, there are two variations: one is a desire to move forward, another is anger and the inability to be flexible. It all depends on the management and creativity. Some institutions could change and adapt to the situation, even taking advantage of it; another couldn’t and will be stuck even though the current time shows an inability to avoid digitalization. This situation also applies to the art market and artists in general. One will find ways to extend their influence and gather more attention; others will die or, with time, will follow the path of those who invented new forms. In general, this is an entire period of being creative, finding new ways of collaboration and forming digital strategies towards sustainability. Currently, I am happy to see that now it is a time of art blossoming. Being isolated, people watch films, listen to music, draw, craft, play on musical instruments or learn to do it, read books (even online), take part in art challenges, etc. Art institutions are available as they never were before. They organize virtual tours, show exhibitions online, guide, show ballets, performances, hold live translations, and FREE! It is the right time to recruit people to art, teaching them about it, allowing them to try it, being accessible, and creating loyalty. This time should be considered as an asset and investment to the future bigger auditorium. When the crisis ends, they need to adapt and maintain attention, finding new ways to attract people to their events. What I see now is that every day there are new situations. Announcements appear from the governments, and it is a time of being fully conscious. In some countries, because of the quarantine and curfew (as in Kyrgyzstan), there is a lack of media information as they are limited in movements. This leads to misinformation, which is very dangerous. Politics tries to use this time to take more power and influence. Lack of education and knowledge leads to acceptance of everything they say. It is crucial to keep track of pulse and not allow overusing of power and strangling of freedom. People are unusually adaptive, and I see how those in power use this period to promote their draft laws that could be harmful. That is why I think it is essential to be actively involved in the situation and use art to talk about it. It is essential to inform people in a more understandable and accessible method for them – art. During the period of quarantine, I’ve created several artworks dedicated to isolation and how the government doesn’t do much for people. They keep them at home without support and lobby state legislations. One of the works called “How I see the government/ How government (doesn’t) see me” is about the isolation both for the government and for the citizens. It seemed that government doesn’t see the problems of the people left without work or any financial support. There are volunteer groups that have formed and support those in need, providing food, essentials, medicine, sewing protection costumes for doctors and face masks. Sympathetic people in diasporas from abroad have donated money to support those needing it. How government (doesn’t) sees me, Nellya Dzhamanabaeva How I see the government, Nellya Dzhamanbaeva At the same time, government initiates a draft law about the referendum to reform the government – parliamentary or presidential. That is definitely not an important topic today for the country, but somehow important for certain individuals. For example, those who are on the front line today – doctors and medical personnel don’t have enough equipment to protect themselves and still haven’t received promised increase in salary due to increased working hours. I’ve made a contribution to the doctors with public art installation “Crane” by placing it on the gates of the National Hospital. I’ve also made an art intervention to the pharmacies with the free distribution of self-made facemasks “Maska bar” (we have masks). It was a reaction to the lack of facemasks in the pharmacies after the quarantine declaration. They placed a sign “No masks. Maska jok,” and it was said that people flocked to buy masks. Often those in need don’t have an opportunity to buy it. There are already many mistakes that have terrible consequences. For example, raising nationalism towards Asian people. I see art institutions as influencers that build such cases to talk with their audience. My point of view is that they need to be socially involved; this is when they cannot ignore problems anymore and need to take a position and raise questions. A few Central Asian countries, artists, curators, and art managers have united and created a group where they could sell their artworks to each other for the available price. It is excellent, because they support each other. Another thing that some people find perspective to do in the current moment is invest in art as it is always an asset. I would say that we live in a strange time whereas usually there are pros and cons, but the most important aspect to remember is that tomorrow will be a new day and we could do something we have not done today. It is always possible to find the solution and do something meaningful to influence the future sustainability of art institutions (as well as personal). Nellya is an artist, art manager, and curator from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Previous Next

Alumni 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2022 2022 Alumni Adelina Luft is an unaffiliated curator whose practice emerged and developed in Yogyakarta (Indonesia) along decolonial lines of thought and modes of working that favor collaboration, processes and interdisciplinarity. Her curatorial projects address trans-local affinities, shared histories, human/nonhuman relations with land, migration and identity. In 2021 she moved to Bucharest where she continues to initiate interdisciplinary and socially-engaged art projects. She collaborates with tranzit.Bucuresti and is a member of the curatorial team for Biennale Jogja Equator 2023, where she previously took on roles as assistant curator in 2017 and residency manager in 2015. Adelina holds a BA from the National University of Political Studies in Bucharest and a MA in Visual Art Studies from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. She often contributes with translations and texts about Indonesian art, more recently for the book A History of Photography in Indonesia: From the Colonial Era to the Digital Age published by Amsterdam University Press and Afterhours Jakarta. She participated in several curatorial programs: Kuandu Museum of Fine Art in Taipei (2018), ODD in Bucharest (2018), and Curator’s Agenda in Vienna (2016). Anastasia Albokrinova has an education in design and a post-graduate in urban research at Strelka Institute (Moscow). While being a student she and her friends established a self-organisation ‘XI komnat’ which was a studio, exhibition and event space from 2008 to 2011. In 2012 she made a residency at NODE center for curatorial studies. Her work path lead from graphic to exhibition design and brand-design for local museums to working as an assistant curator at Shiryaevo Biennial (2018) and later as a curator of Victoria gallery in Samara (2020-present). There Anastasia is mainly responsible for Victoria Underground space and defines her mission as supporting local artists (from different regions of Russia) and practicing experimental curatorial approaches. Her interest includes, but is not limited to cultural identity and local geography, (post)digital art, performance and contemporary dance, time- and process-based art, artificial intelligence, post-human, hybrid practices. Since 2017 Anastasia joined the team of VolgaFest – an urban culture festival on the Volga embankment in Samara as an art-director. Currently she is in the process of completion of her first book (supported by garage.text grant) ‘Vision hunters: artistic and anomalous experiences on the Volga’ that is based on the exhibition she made in 2020 putting together various cultural and occult practices in local geography. Sabine Wedege (1993, she/her) is a visual artist from Denmark, educated from Jutland Art Academy and Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. Works primarily with sculpture, but also with text, video, and sound – used in parallel and in contrast. Researching how to harmonize concept and material, by putting associations in a new frame of references. Occupied with history versus topicality, to connect the past to contemporary issues and questions. Ginevra Ludovici (Rome, 1992) is an independent curator and a Ph.D. candidate at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca. Graduated in Economics and Management from Bocconi University and in Contemporary Arts History at Ca’ Foscari University, in 2019 she attended CAMPO – course for curators of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and co-founded the curatorial collective CampoBase. She has carried out collaborations with several institutions, including Carpe Diem Arte and Pesquisa (Lisbon), ASK Research Center – Art, Science, Knowledge (Milan), MoMA – The Museum of Modern Art (New York) and Pushkin Museum (Venice). She deepened her research and training at UNIDEE Academy (Biella), PACT Zollverein (Essen), BAK (Utrecht), SixtyEight Art Institute (Copenhagen), MACBA (Barcelona) and MADRE (Naples). She has published in academic and sector journals, such as PARSE Journal, NERO editions, roots§routes and Made in Mind, and presented her research in different universities, including The University of Arts Belgrade, The Lisbon Consortium and The UK Association for Art History. Her curatorial activity is rooted in collaborative practices, and it develops parallel to her academic research which focuses on radical pedagogy programs, processes of self-institutionalization in the arts, and decolonial theories and practices. She is currently conducting a visiting research period at HDK – Valand, Academy of Art and Design, in Gothenburg, Sweden. Giulia Menegale is an independent curator and editor living in Italy. At the moment, she is a PhD candidate in Analysis and Management of Cultural Heritage at IMT (Lucca, Italy). She investigates transnational solidarity networks as a possible strategy to decentralise and pluriversalize the production and exhibit of arts. In her research, she considers case studies across institutional and non-institutional settings. She holds a BA in Visual Art from IUAV (University of Architecture of Venice) and a MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths, University of London. She has collaborated as a curatorial, editorial and research assistant for Looking Forward C.I.C. (London, UK), Castello di Rivoli – Museum of Contemporary Arts (Turin, IT), Island gallery (Brussels, BE) and Taryn Simon Projects (New York, US). Currently, she is editor-in-chief of a series of books on art and theory produced by Ayiné, a Brazilian publishing house (Belo Horizonte, Brazil). Karlygash Akhmetbek is a Kazakhstani socially engaged artist and creative producer of community-oriented educational projects. She holds a BA in Interior Design from the Savannah College for Arts and Design and has experience studying and working in Atlanta, United States, and Hong Kong. As a spatial designer she researches and creates environmentally sustainable solutions for infrastructures, conceptual and immersive spaces that evoke connection. Currently she works in a core team of Artcom Platform Public Association and curates activities for communities around Balkhash lake ecosystems. She designs projects like Beine in order to engage everyone in a community to explore one’s space, its beauties and challenges, and to find new perspectives to address them. Lera Lerner (b. 1988, Leningrad) is an artist, curator, and mediator from St. Petersburg, Russia. Her practice, which she defines as sociopoetic art, is based on mutually educative and inclusive projects. Lerner is interested in helping different communities to create magic safe spaces for sharing and support. She researches everyday rituals of care and joy. She explores how we can blur or accept boundaries of otherness through performative practices of embodied empathy. She believes in coincidence, miracle, intuition and love. She creates spontaneous communication in public space through performances, installations, and research. Lera graduated from the Pro Arte Program for contemporary artists (2015) and completed the MA program in Biology at the Faculty of Biology of St. Petersburg State University (2012). She had projects with the Manifesta biennale in St. Petersburg, Grafikens Hus and LAVA-Dansproduktion in Sweden, Mattress factory in Pittsburgh, CEC ArtsLink in NY, Ars Electronica in Linz, Pro Helvetia Swiss art consul in Moscow, Red Square Festival in Berlin, Agents of Change: Mediating Minorities in Finland, Kone foundation in Finland, Consulate General of Italy in St. Petersburg, Institut français de Russie in St. Petersburg. Since 2017 Lerner is co-curating the Art Prospect public art festival. Simon Gennard is a writer and curator based in Ngāmotu New Plymouth, Aotearoa New Zealand, where he is Assistant Curator Contemporary Art and Collection at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. He has previously worked for Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington; The Dowse Art Museum, Te Awakairangi Lower Hutt; and Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Previous research has examined queer desire, politics and artmaking in Aotearoa. He holds a Master of Arts in Art History from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington (2017). Jelena Andžić is a visual artist from Belgrade, Serbia. She received her MFA in Set Design at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2019 and in 2016 graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. She recently finished the Metàfora Studio Arts diploma course in Barcelona and defended her final thesis at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona (MACBA) in January 2022. Her artistic practice revolves around the static image and the potential it holds in terms of giving and absorbing knowledge. Her main points of interest are the impenetrability and ambiguity painting inherently possesses, as well as the different roles time plays in painting and photography. She recently had her solo exhibition at N.O. Concept Gallery (Belgrade) and took part in group exhibitions in Homesession (Barcelona), àngels barcelona | Espai 2 (Barcelona), Mutuo galería (Barcelona), Cultural Center Pančevo (Pančevo), Museum of Applied Arts (Belgrade). In 2022 she was a resident at Fabra i Coats: Fàbrica de Creació in Barcelona. She is currently based in Belgrade and works in a studio space in Jugošped building. 2021/20 Alumni Devashish Sharma has a BFA in Painting from the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, and an MFA from the Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida. After completing his MFA, he joined the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi as a trainee, and was part of the team responsible for the physical verification and documentation of the art collection. In 2017, he received the Public Art Grant from the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), New Delhi and was able to pursue his interest in setting up a museum for the children of the villages of Kumharpara and Balengapara, Chattisgarh. The Museum of Questions and Imagined Futures is a space for children to think about the future of history in a rural context. Research on architecture and landscapes is a key part of his practice, and in 2019 through a grant funded by the Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi he was able to initiate Road Number Zero, a research project that explores the cusp between rural and urban landscapes within India. His practice revolves around the ideas of bodily experience and movement, and the politics of curating. Devashish is currently based in Bangalore. Beatrice Rubio-Gabriel is an independent curator, writer and performance artist based in Naarm/Melbourne. She finished a double-degree BA in Art History and Theory alongside a BFA from the Monash University School of Art, Design and Architecture, and was the recipient of the BAHCxMUMA Curatorial award at the MADANOW19 exhibition. Centring around a collaborative and experimental practice, she has curated projects that aim to challenge current curatorial and euro-centric modes of exhibiting, and experiments with writing as artform. Her curated projects include /dis/location, MPavilion, Melbourne (2019); The Art of Consumption and The Answers You Need Are Right Where You Are, Intermission Gallery, Melbourne (2019); Revisiting the Quadriennale, CareOf Facility, Milan (2018) and Dwelling Inbetween Here and Some Other Place, Monash Prato Centre, Prato (2018). The former artistic director of Intermission Gallery, she is now currently researching systems of care and intersectional spaces of Resistance Aesthetics. She is also exploring the Baybayin script of the Philippines as a gateway for cultural understanding and re-connection, and how this may be engaged through performance and mark-making. Christophe Barbeau Following a BFA in Quebec City at Université Laval, Christophe Barbeau completed the Master of Visual Studies, Curatorial Studies, at the University of Toronto, Canada, during which his research looked for a political understanding of the position of the “curator” through a specific concept of “authorship”. His projects, as an artist and a curator, have been presented in different group and solo exhibitions in Quebec City, Montreal, Rouyn Noranda, Toronto, Boston, and Nice. Notably : The Die Has Been Cast (2014 Villa Arson, Nice), dans la petite galerie. […] (2014, L’Oeil de Poisson, Quebec City), Dans ce cas-ci (si), […] (2015, Quebec City), Dans le but de décentraliser […] (2016, L’Écart, Rouyn Noranda). In this first stage of projects, the research focused on developing artist’s curated situations of exhibitions where a curatorial strategy was embedded within an artistic practice, specifically through display structures as well as employing strategies of copies, re-makes, re-enactments. Barbeau’s latest exhibitions were entitled : «Qu’avons- nous fait? […] (2019) presented in Toronto; and «and I am the curator of this show1» (2018) presented at the Art Museum University of Toronto in 2018. In this stage of projects, the focus was redirected towards the power relationship specific to the position of the curator, through the use of institutional critique and self-reflexive curatorial gestures, the projects were aiming at deconstructing the conventional and naturalized authorities of the curator, uncovering the political challenges that this figure is facing. 2021/20 2019 Alumni Aigerim Kapar is an independent curator, cultural activist, and founder of the creative communication platform Artcom. She was born in 1987 in Kazakhstan and continues to live and work in Astana. Kapar curates and organizes exhibitions, urban art interventions, discussions, lectures, and workshops. To accomplish such wide-ranging initiatives she often collaborates closely with art and educational institutions, as well as scientific apparatuses. In 2015, she founded the open online platform Artcom in conjunction with the local art community. The platform brings together different cultural figures to share experiences and discover channels for greater interaction within society in order to develop and promote contemporary art and culture. In 2017, Aigerim initiated the Art Collider informal school—when art meets science. Through this initiative artists and scientists jointly conduct research and present lectures and discussions related to current issues. The results of the school are presented through exhibitions, publications, and audio-visual materials. Ana Roman has a Master’s degree in Human Geography from São Paulo University and is a doctoral student in Art History at the University of Essex. Her current research focuses on contemporary art and curatorship. Previously, she was an assistant curator for Between Construction and Appropriation: Antonio Dias, Geraldo de Barros and Rubens Gerchman in the 60s (SESC Pinheiros, São Paulo, Brazil, 2018), and researcher/assistant curator for Ready Made in Brasil(Centro Cultural Fiesp, São Paulo, Brazil, 2017); Rever_Augusto de Campos (SESC Pompeia, São Paulo, Brazil, 2016); and Lina Grafica (SESC Pompeia, São Paulo , Brazil, 2014), among others. She was the head curator for Whereabouts (Zipper Gallery, 2018) with works by David Almeida; Mirages (Baro Gallery, 2018) with works by Amanda Mei; and Small Formats (Baro Gallery, 2018) with works by Alexandre Wagner, to name a few. She also writes critical texts for different media outlets. Since 2014, she has been a participant in Sem Titulo, s.d., a production and research collective focused on contemporary art with whom she organized the exhibitions What is not performance? (Centro Universitário Maria Antonia, São Paulo, Brazil, 2015) and Tuiuiu, with works by Alice Shintani (ABER, São Paulo, Brazil, 2017). Bermet Borubaeva is a curator, researcher, and artist. She was born in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and gained her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and Master’s of Arts focusing on “Political analysis and public policy,” from the High School of Economics in Moscow. She graduated from the Bishkek “Art East” School of Contemporary Art in 2009 and studied at First Moscow Curatorial Summer School for their program “Doing Exhibitions Politically,” initiated by Victor Miziano and V-A-C Foundation. Borubaeva also participated in the curatorial research residency “ReDirecting East” at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw. Borubaeva has also taken part in different exhibitions and projects, such as the First Youth Central Asian exhibition of Contemporary Art, ON/OFF; the eco-festival, Trash; and an exchange project in collaboration with Focus-Art Association, titled TET A TET #2 (Vevey, Switzerland). Recent projects include the Education Program for Lingua Franca/франк тили’, the re-exhibition project for the Central Asia Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, done in collaboration with Oxana Kapishnikova and Ukhina Diana (2012); the exhibitions Artists-in-Residence at CCI Fabrika (2014–2016 Moscow); the exhibition PAS DE DEUX—KG. CH. at the Center of Contemporary Art Yverdon-Les-Bains, Switzerland; and the performance Café “Non-seller,” addressing the problem of food waste in conjunction with the documentary film “Eco Cup” (Moscow), as part of the Curatorial Research Program, CPR-2017: Mexico. She has also contributed to several publications in the fields of art, political science, and urban environment. Ewa Borysiewicz studied art history at the University of Warsaw and Freie Universität Berlin. She was a member of the curatorial team for Side by Side: Poland—Germany. A 1000 Years of Art and History (Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin), led by Anda Rottenberg. She is the author of Rausz kinetyczny (2013), a book exploring the political and emancipatory aspects of non-camera animation. From 2012–2019, she worked at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw as the curator for visual arts. Her duties included establishing international partnerships, programming the international visitors’ program, facilitating artistic residencies, and enabling presentations of Polish art worldwide. She is presently co-organizing (with galleries Stereo and Wschód) the exhibition Friend of a Friend, a gallery-share initiative in Warsaw that has been taking place since 2018. Borysiewicz has also curated and co-curated exhibitions at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, the Polish Institute in Düsseldorf, and the Museum Jerke in Recklinghausen. She is the author of many texts and catalogue entries. Mateja Smic is a Dublin-based artist working with coffee, gelatin and other, often non-traditional materials, chosen by principles of association within her subject matter. Her recent subjects range from geopolitics to national identity. Through printmaking, digital collage, video and animation, Smic’s installations combine philosophical and psychological questions around experience, the phenomenon of Othering, and tensions between the real subject and its mediated representations. Consisting of intensive cycles and processes of intuitive and experimental engagement with her materials, which become a metaphor for an intangible subject, Smic’s reflexive and multi-layered art practice parallels with her contextual research and writing. Having graduated from the National College of Art and Design in Fine Print and Critical Cultures, her thesis and professional practice project focused on the creation of the image of the Balkans in the West and the portrayal of the region through various art forms and curatorial activities. Tomek Pawlowski is a curator, and events and meeting producer. In 2018 he participated in the curatorial program at Swimming Pool, Sofia. He is the curator of numerous exhibitions, performances, and projects in collaboration with artists from younger generations, groups, independent galleries, and institutions in Poland. He uses collective practices, critical entertainment, and politics of friendship as his main guiding framework. From 2016–2018 he ran Cycle, a program of micro-residencies and events in the apartments where he lived. In 2017 co-curated (along with Romuald Demidenko and Aurelia Nowak) The Open Triennial: the 8th Young Triennial at the Center for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko. He is also the co-curator (with Magdalena Adameczek and Ola Polerowicz) of Sandra Art Gallery, the nomadic agency associating with and supporting emerging female artists from Poznań. He currently resides between Białystok and Poznań. Shasta Stevic is an artist and curator from Melbourne, Australia. She is the co-founder, co-curator, and creative director of IntraLiminal—an ongoing project that showcases the work of talented young artists from regional Australia. She is passionate about providing opportunities for young artists to share their work publicly and supporting the development of ongoing creative practices in younger generations. Having completed degrees in science and law, she sees art as an important vehicle for the exploration of social issues including the environment and sustainability, civilization and progress, so-called technological and scientific advancement, and the worrying divide between humans and nature. She is particularly interested in using unconventional methods of storytelling and installation to bring about social change. Stevic has studied at the LungA School, an experimental art school in Seydisfjordur, Iceland, and has curated exhibitions for a mid-winter festival in Northern Iceland. Sasha Puchkova is an artist and curator based in Moscow. As an artist, Puchkova works with different media: sound, video, objects, performative communication and experiments. She explores phenomena related to different points of connection and the linking of digital and offline processes, as well as the space between these realms, and the interdependent influence of cyberspace on social norms. Key topics are particular interest to her are the plasticity of the laws of the digital system; the body in online space; new materialism; artificial synesthesia; decolonial pathways; post-cyberfeminist practices; and post-anthropocene practices. The pivot of her curatorial practice revolves around an experimental, expositional approach, which has been realized in such projects as a series of performative actions, ideas around the “exhibition as living space,” long-term laboratories, and the development of theatrical exhibitions-in-real-time, among other things. Her curated projects include Syntax (a series of performances and laboratory); (Im)-possible object (research and exhibition projects); and Capture Map (performative project and communication platform). Puchkova is also a member of the research group “Speculative Practices of Corporal Mutations” (with Katya Pislari and Daria Yuriychuk). Victoria Vargas Downing is a Chilean art historian, heritage researcher and independent curator based Leeds in the UK. She holds a BA in Fine Theory and History of Art at the University of Chile, a Curating Diploma and MA in Arts Management and Heritages studies at Leeds University. Has participated in art projects in Chile, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles CA, Vienna and The UK where she co-curated Imtiaz Dharker Exhibition and participated in the process and management of Chilean Mural restoration at the Leeds Students Union. She has worked as teacher and research assistant in different projects and art organisations in Chile (museums, galleries and non-profit organisations). She is PhD candidate at the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at Leeds University. Her research verse on the relationship between contemporary art and heritage, particularly, in non-Western cultures. Seda Yıldız is a Hamburg-based artist-curator. Her multidisciplinary practice focuses on exploring the art of shaping (collective) memory, language, and the politics of the city. She is interested in the poetics of politics and frequently uses humor and abstraction as a tool in her artistic practice, working primarily with video, text, installation, and the form of the artist book. Her curatorial practice focuses on exploring the clash and intersection between the local and global, and aims to reach a heterogeneous audience while giving voice to the silenced. She is particularly is interested to take part in process-oriented, open and experimental projects that foster collaboration and exchange. Yıldız has exhibited her work and joined various editorial and curatorial projects internationally. In 2018, she was selected as an emerging curator by PARALLEL Photo Platform, co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union. Occasionally she writes about design, architecture, and urbanism, and contributed to Brownbook Magazine, MONU Magazine, Kajet Journal, and Freunde von Freunden. Yıldız holds an MA in Contemporary Artistic Practices from Haute école d’art et de design Geneva (2014) and a BA in Communication and Design from Bilkent University (2011). http://yildizseda.com Zulfikar Filandra is a film and theatre-maker based in Sarajevo. Filandra was educated at Griffith College Dublin, the Academy of Performing Arts Sarajevo, and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering Sarajevo. As a collaborator and member of several local and several international art collectives, he has worked with all the relevant mainstream art and cultural institutions in Sarajevo and is also active in Sarajevo’s underground art scene. Aside from directing in film and theatre, and assistant directing, Filandra also works as a screenwriter, lecturer, producer, editor, musician, actor, promoter, event organizer, and photographer. As a member of the youngest generation of Bosnian directors his topics touch on the legacy of war in Bosnia, but through a more intimate view of living in contemporary times and the position of a small culture like Bosnia in a globalizing world. Currently, he is actively collaborating with the Experimental Film Society (based in Dublin, Ireland) and Outline (based in Amsterdam, Netherlands). Filandra completed two short films in 2018 and is currently working on two more short films, while also developing his first feature project, titled Shipbuilding. At the moment, Filandra is in the process of founding and starting the first full-time artist-in-residence program in Sarajevo. Martina Yordanova is a curator, writer, and researcher based in Sofia, Bulgaria. She graduated from the University of Vienna in Publicity and Communication Sciences in 2014. She went on to do her postgraduate studies in Cultural Management and Curatorial Practices at different European educational institutions, including the University of Arts Berlin, Goldsmiths University, Institute for Cultural Concepts Vienna, and The Cultural Academy in Salzburg. Currently, she works in Sofia where in 2016, together with architects Galya Krumova and exhibition designer Petya Krumova, she established a non-profit foundation for contemporary art and media. Since then, Yordanova has been initiating different art events and exhibitions with international and Bulgarian artists, mostly living abroad. She is also the founder and curator of “1m2 of Art”—a project based in Veliko Tarnovo wherein every month a different artist from the local art scene presents their work in a space no bigger than its name. 2019 2018 Alumni Agustina Andreoletti works within the realms of research, writing, discussion, publishing and exhibition making. Her practice reflects on the unstable overlap between material, social and political processes; especially as such relations develop over time. Andreoletti is currently a Postgrad fellow at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Ivana Čavić is an artist based in Serbia and currently studies photography at The Academy Of Arts Novi Sad. Her photographic practice is an exploration of narration and context, focused on creating visual narratives that question boundaries of documentation and fiction, private and public. With research based work she is often playing with photographic and textual narratives which trigger a dialogue about different readings of personal histories and memories. She participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions, and international collaborative projects. Jovana Vasić is a student of interdisciplinary doctoral studies at the University of Arts in Belgrade on the program Theory of Arts and Media. With the mentor Nikola Dedić she is working on the thesis – The critical institutional theory of the Museum of Contemporary Art. She writes and publishes papers in the field of art theory. In her previous work, she dealt with the issues of the transposition of personal narratives in the form of memories through the relationship between the public and the private. 2018 Karen Vestergaard Andersen is a curator and writer based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her curatorial practice explores alternative research methods though open artistic dialogue with the aim of generating new curatorial methodologies that are both critically engaging and context sensitive. Her research interests and methodologies derive from an intersectional approaches to queer / feminist discourse and New Materialist theory. Her writing has appeared in various artists’ catalogues and publications, including at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Nikolaj Kunsthal, as well as in Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics, Danske Museer and Notes on Metamodernism. Kirila Cvetkovska is an independent researcher, curator and artist from Macedonia. After studying art history and psychology in Rome, Italy, she has been involved in the cultural programming of the non-profit Tevereterno (both in Rome and NYC). Currently, she is living in Macedonia, while also collaborating with artists in Italy on experimental art projects. Kirila’s personal practice dwells on the themes of collective memory, loss and detachment, analyzing the cross-cultural values that encompass these issues, while liberating oneself from the restraints of consumerism. She is attempting to bring art to a much wider audience, in places without a largely established art scene. Marta Saccavino obtained her MA degree in Art History, University of Leeds, UK. In her academic work she focused on artists coming from “relative peripheries”, a concept explored by Maria Lind. Her current researches focus at the close relationship between art and cinema, specifically on how television intervenes and shapes this relationship, which began with the invention of cinema itself, and it is often analysed without taking in consideration the latter element. She is currently working on an interdisciplinary project on sacred and profane relics with an emerging fashion designer and the Morgagni Museum in Padua. Milena Jokanović is a research-fellow at the Art History Department, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade where she obtained her PhD recently. She has also obtained MA diploma at the UNESCO Chair for Cultural Policy and Management at the University of Arts, Belgrade and Université Lumière Lyon. Her research interests therefore span the museology, use of the historical models of collecting in modern and contemporary art, theories of memory and identity construction and cultural heritage management. She curated several exhibitions, has written many papers and managed few cultural projects. Nina Mihaljinac is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arts in Belgrade in the field of cultural management and cultural policy. She works as a project manager for Creative Creative Europe Serbia at the Ministry of Culture of RS. She obtained her doctorate in Arts and Media at the University of Art in Belgrade in 2017. She has participated in numerous national and international research projects and has published several monographs and dozens of papers in the field of art theory, culture of memory, management in culture and cultural policy. Neva Lukić has completed her master’s degree in art history and archaeology from the University of Zagreb, and in theory of modern and contemporary art at Leiden University. She has professional experience in museum curatorship (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka), as a freelance curator (Croatian Association of Artists – Zagreb, Arti et Amicitiae – Amsterdam, See Lab – The Hague, etc.) and as an art critic (active member of Croatian section of AICA – the International Association of Art Critics). She has published four books (poetry & short stories) and one picture book for children. Ruri Kawanami is a Berlin based curatorial assistant working at the intersection of artistic production and critical writings. She studied cultural science at post-graduate level at Humboldt-University in Berlin, where she specialized in the museum epistemology of the early 20th century. From 2014 to 2017, she worked as a curatorial assistant at the Japanese literature museum in Berlin. Teodora Nikčević graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje 2009. Since 2012 she has worked as a curator at the Center for Contemporary Art of Montenegro CSUCG in Podgorica. She actively exhibits at individual and group exhibitions in the country and abroad and participates in numerous residential and art projects. Her work at the CSUCG is focused on the promotion and affirmation of young artists. She was a curator of group exhibitions and led a series of interviews with artists – Artist talks. Tjaša Pogačar works as a freelance writer, editor and curator of exhibitions and discursive programs for various institutional and noninstitutional contexts since 2010. In her work she is concerned with systemic operations of contemporary art and the limits and possible further developments of institutional critique. Some of her recent curatorial and editorial projects look at how contemporary art practices and institutions deal with the current techno-capitalist conditions. She is a co-founder and editor of ŠUM, journal for contemporary art criticism and theory and is currently working as an assistant curator at the Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana. Vera Zalutskaya is a contemporary art curator. Her interests are mainly in art of Eastern and Central Europe in the context of postcolonial studies. In 2014 she graduated from the European Humanities University in Vilnius (educational program Theory and practices of contemporary art). Studied also Art history and Culturology: comparative studies of civilization on the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. As a member of different collectives or independently she organized and curated many exhibitions in Belarus and Poland. Zohreh Deldadeh is a freelance art scholar and curator based in Tehran. She started her career as an executive manager in Iranian Art Publishing and Tavoos Contemporary Art Online Magazine; she was part of Mohsen Gallery, one of the leading contemporary art galleries in Tehran; Pejman Foundation’s team as an assistant director and assistant curator in two venues of the foundation (Argo Factory and Kandovan Building). Moreover, she has collaborated as a coordinator, project manager and co-curator with other galleries and art institutions in Iran and abroad. Aleksandra Mikić obtained BA degree in Art History, Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade. Her interests are in the art of post Yugoslavian period in conditions of transition. In her researches she is focusing on art practices as social symptoms in the context of biopolitics and biopower. Anna Tudos is a freelance curator from Budapest, Hungary. She completed the Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) MLitt course at the Glasgow School of Art in 2017 after her studies at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts. She is particularly interested in exploring hidden histories and underrepresented issues often through unconventional ways of mediating art. Her recent collaborations include OverOverOver, an artist exchange between Detroit and Glasgow and BRUT Europe with artist Marija Nemcenko. She co-hosts the show ‘Radio Dacha’ on Subcity Radio, exploring the notion of the „East” through discussion and music. Biljana Puric is an independent researcher. She holds Masters Degrees in Film Aesthetics from the University of Oxford, and in Gender Studies from the Central European University. She has published peer-reviewed articles, along with art and film reviews and criticism, in Issues in Ethnology & Anthropology, ARTMargins, Journal of Curatorial Studies, New Eastern Europe, and Short Film Studies. Rebecca Vaughan is a Melbourne based curator and writer. Previously Rebecca was Museum Assistant and Administrator at the Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) and Editorial Assistant at Perimeter Books, a small arts publishing imprint based in Melbourne. She holds a Master of Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne. < Participants Educational Program Programs > Up