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Events Lecture Series Participant Activities The WCSCD 2019 Salary Spreadsheet: Expanding the Conversation Around Salaries in the Arts Earlier this year, a spreadsheet originating in the USA was circulated within the international arts community detailing the salaries of various roles at museums, galleries and other arts institutions, and with a request for arts workers to add anonymous details of their own salaries to the spreadsheet. At the time of writing, that spreadsheet now contains over 3200 entries, the majority of which are from the USA, but also other countries such as Canada, the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Mexico. The accuracy of the data is unclear as contributors are anonymous and are encouraged to share as much or as little as they are comfortable with the purpose of the spreadsheet, titled Arts + All Museums Salary Transparency 2019 , is to bring an unprecedented level of transparency to the arts in terms of pay and to open up a dialogue between arts workers, with the hope of bringing about positive change in what is, traditionally, a relatively low-paid industry. At WCSCD 2019 we saw the importance of such a dialogue and discussed salaries with many of the curators and arts workers we met during the program, ultimately creating our own anonymous salary spreadsheet. The WCSCD 2019 Salary Spreadsheet includes salary information for a number of countries not currently found in the original spreadsheet or only mentioned a very small number of times, such as Serbia, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia. It also includes information about general average and minimum salaries in each of the countries listed in order to illustrate how the salaries of arts workers compare to general salaries. In what is unlikely to come as a surprise to those who work in the arts, the WCSCD 2019 Salary Spreadsheet suggests that arts salaries often fail to reach average salaries and, in a number of countries, struggle to even meet recognised minimum standards. Discussions about salaries during the WCSCD program also uncovered other issues, including the lack of written agreements between funders and curators regarding curatorial fees, non-payment of agreed curatorial fees, and changes being made to the funding of projects without notifying curators in advance. The more that discussions around salaries and working conditions become the norm, the better it will be for arts workers. As Michelle Millar Fisher, an assistant curator in the European decorative arts and design department of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and one of the people who started the original spreadsheet, said: “If you don’t do it, everything stays the same. Sometimes it takes just one tiny action. Solidarity is the only way to affect great change.” text by Shasta Stevic WCSCD 2019 Salary Spreadsheet

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Events 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 < Educational Program Participants >

Educational Program  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 < Educational Program Participants >

WCSCD emergency grant for practitioners in Former Yugoslav Region www.old.wcscd.com what.could.curating.do@gmail.com In light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the art community, the What Could Should Curating DO has created 3 grants of 450 euros for artists, curator, art practitioners working on visual arts whose work and livelihood has been affected due to impacted by the economic fallout from postponed or canceled exhibitions and projects. ELIGIBILITY Relief will be provided to practitioners who can demonstrate that they have had an engagement canceled or postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in visual arts sector and this is their main form of income Applicants must be individual artists, curators, or an individual representing an artist or curatorial collective , or group. Organizers, organizations, or arts presenters are not eligible to apply. Practitioners based in any former Yugoslav region are eligible to apply including Serbia, Northern Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia. Bosnia and Hercegovina Applicants must be living in the any of the above-mentioned countries PROCESS Please send us your CV portfolio so we can understand your practice (please write in letter head where are you based and year of birth) Please explain how many projects have been cancelled and your situation description in no more than one page The support grant is based of precarity. Application process is open NOW (June 22th 2020) and as soon number of applicants have been received application will be reviewed and funds transferred. Please send your material via email to: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com with subject WCSCD Emergency grant Emergency grant has been supported through the online curatorial program Post-Pandemic Condition with mentors Natasa Petresin Bachelez, Maria Lind and Biljana Ciric

WCSCD 2025/2026 educational program participants Giulia Gaibisso Giulia Gaibisso (Rome, 1993) is an art historian and curator. With a strong vocation for research, she is interested in building relationships between voices of the present and stories from the cultural past, coordinating projects of a performative, exhibition and editorial nature. Since 2021 she has been part of the team of IUNO, an independent research centre for contemporary art founded by Cecilia Canziani and Ilaria Gianni. She was a member of the artist-run space In Spazio In Situ, and has curated performances (CircoTornio by Chiara Camoni and the Centro di Sperimentazione, Rome 2021), exhibitions (The Good Company , Rome 2025; But it did happen , Rome 2023) and workshops dedicated to writing and conceived in collaboration with young Italian artists (Allineamenti - Roberto Casti; Resta sveglia , Davide Sgambaro; La memoria delle cose , Andrea Martinucci). She was co-curator of Rome's Portrait . Festival delle Accademie e degli Istituti di Cultura at Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 2023. She has worked as curatorial assistant for projects hosted by institutions such as MAXXI L'Aquila and GAM - Turin, and as editorial assistant for Treccani and NERO Editions. In 2022 she joined the editorial staff of Radio GAMeC 30 years. Xia Chengwei Xia Chengwei (b. 1994, Chengdu, Sichuan, China) is an artist currently living between London and China. She holds a BA in Architectural Studies with First Class Honours from the University of Hong Kong (2016), an MA in Fine Art (Painting Pathway) with Distinction from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL (2022), and completed The Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School in 2023. Rooted in non-linear time, embodied knowledge, and relational ways of understanding, Chengwei’s practice moves across writing, drawing, painting, and making. Her works often blur the lines between artistic creation and everyday labor, using materials as clues to weave together place, memory, and community. She sees painting and drawing as acts that access psychic realities and delve into deep inner landscapes. A key concern in her practice is feminine and care-based labor—acts of “knitting” and “growing” that hold the energies of the body and the passage of time in rhythms that resist capitalist acceleration. Place is fundamental to Chengwei’s work. Born in a red-clay village in Sichuan, she draws inspiration from local agrarian life, ecological rhythms, and folk-shamanic beliefs. Her experience of otherness while living in London also feeds into her artistic inquiry. She is currently researching the salt-field ecosystem in Laoshi Village (Danzhou, Hainan), with the aim of nurturing an art and research space rooted in the local community while fostering translocal connections. She is also tracing family histories and disappearing knowledge systems in her hometown of Fangjiasi Village (Jianyang, Sichuan), gathering oral traditions and plant-based knowledge through drawing and writing as invocation. Chengwei perceives art as a slow, relational unfolding—less about representation than about co-presence, care, and cultivation. Marie Tatjana Niederleithinger Photo by Amiel Pauli Marie Tatjana Niederleithinger is a Vienna-based curator, moderator, and researcher who loves all kinds of moving and expressing through the body. Their two foci regarding exhibition projects are community-focussed, politically engaged art and Art & Science. Marie previously initiated exhibition days on collective mourning in an interim use neighbourhood meeting place in Vienna (»Wie wir Trauern. On loss and Transformation«, Jul 2023). In December 2024, they curated an exhibition on artificial photosynthesis (»Of Light and Water. Striving for Superficiality«) commissioned by CataLight Collaborative Research Center at Kunstverein Ulm, Germany. Since 2021, they are amongst the organizers of the residency program »künstlerische Tatsachen« (artistic facts) in Jena, Germany, and co-founded the association »Zentrum für künstlerische Forschung« (center for artistic research, coming soon) in 2024. Marie formally trained in molecular biology and adjacent disciplines in Germany, France and Chile before entering the arts via an internship at former STATE Studio in Berlin, as well as co-creative modes of carrying out health research and health intervention development (Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft, Vienna). In their current one-year educational leave, Marie spontaneously became a not-for-profit yoga instructor. Their personal intellectual and sensual inquiry in 2025 is investigating collective wellness practices. Irene Coscarella Photo by Alberto Nidola Irene Coscarella (Alba, 1997) is an Italian curator and educator with a background in visual arts. Over the years, she has developed and researched projects that promote collaboration within the cultural field, experimenting with different methodologies and frameworks that foster dialogue and shared learning Between 2019 and 2021, she co-founded and ran INFERNOTTO, an independent art space in Turin dedicated to supporting emerging artists. Since 2021, she has been part of the Education Department at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, a contemporary art institution in Turin. During this time, she has managed and developed several educational projects aimed at fostering engagement, participation, and critical dialogue. Through her practice, she seeks to create more accessible spaces for dialogue and understanding, focusing on the role of institutions in our time. Through art and education, she engages with the public sphere and reflects critically on the world around us. Sara Kecman Sara Kecman was born in 1998 in Novi Sad, where she completed her undergraduate studies in photography at the Academy of Arts, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Art Education at the same institution. She is a co-founder of the Association of Artists “Project EXP” and a member of its curatorial collective, through which they have curated three exhibitions of young artists in Novi Sad since 2022, developed a regional project in collaboration with partner organizations from Zagreb and Skopje (2024), and participated in a cultural mobility program in Oslo (February 2025). She has exhibited her photography work in several group exhibitions, notably the Student Photography Biennial (SKC "Fabrika", Novi Sad, 2021), where she received the Third Prize and the Special Award for the Best Student Work from Serbia, as well as the project Photography as a Method of Visual Research (Cultural Station "Svilara", Novi Sad, 2019). Her documentary film "You're Still Thinking About That?", created as part of the Ateliers Varan workshop, was screened at film festivals in Novi Sad, Belgrade, and Paris. She was awarded a one-year internship at the Photography Department of the Academy of Arts (APV, 2023/24), the prize for the best graduation project in the artistic discipline of photography (2022), and a scholarship from the Personal Development Fund (OPENS, 2021).

Contributors Zian Chen Dunja Karanović Jovan Mladenović Teodora Jeremić Beatrice Rubio-Gabriel Veronika Dashkova Ash Moniz Larys Frogier Yabebal Fantaye Brett Neilson Robert Bobnič Kaja Kraner Tjaša Pogačar Aigerim Kapar Jasphy Zheng Chen Liang Jelica Jovanović Bota Sharipova Nataliya Chemayeva WaterCafè Kulshat Medeuova Dragan Stojmenović Su Wei Anvar Musrepov Tjaša Pureber Solveig Suess Asia Bazdyrieva Hu Yun Alexey Ulko Sinkneh Eshetu Zeleke Aziza Abdul Fetah Ocean & Wavz Shasta Stevic Bermet Borubaeva Katarina Kostandinović Sarah Bushra Siniša Ilić Robel Temesgen Zdenka Badovinac Nikita Yingqian Cai Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev Mifta Zeleke Biljana Ciric < Projects Curatorial Inquiries Menu >

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

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities The educational program What Could/Should Curating Do is proud to announce lecture by Aslıhan Demirtaş Hosted by Kolarac Venue: Student square no 5 Date: November 30th 2022 18:00 On constellations and earth by Aslıhan Demirtaş “I wait for those lights, I know some of you do too, wherever you are, I mean when you are standing by an ocean, alone, within the calmness of your spirit. Be planetary.” Shifting the Silence, Etel Adnan A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. Ever since prehistory, constellations were woven into stories, beliefs, experiences for mythologies. Each star is distant, distinct and unique in the way they move, in their physical qualities, age and are connected only through a fixed point of view–in our case our planet Earth. As an alternative imaginary to the concepts of community, collectivity and perhaps even the definition of the commons, this lecture will be a contemplation on the concept of constellations articulated with architectural and artistic works made with and about earth–connected and positioned together with related people and places. About Speaker Aslıhan Demirtaş is a practicing architect, artist, writer and educator. Her practice is situated on and around the boundaries of disciplines engaged in making, often in the forms of buildings, gardens and art projects, while searching for a revised mode of existence and practice on our planet. Aslıhan has an undergraduate degree from METU and a graduate degree from MIT. Prior to establishing her own practice in New York, she worked for Pritzker Laureate I.M. Pei as the lead designer for the Museum of Islamic Arts in Doha, Qatar and the Miho Chapel in Japan. She is the recipient of Graham Foundation Grant for her e-book Graft to be published by SALT and is an active member of the Initiative for the Protection of the Historical Yedikule Urban Gardens. Most recently she has designed the Winter Garden at SALT, Istanbul, a rammed earth space bordered by plants and has been working with Lumbardhi Foundation on the conversion of Kino Lumbardhi, Prizren. She lives in Istanbul and together with Ali Cindoruk runs KHORA Office, a climate for design, making and thinking. The event is free and open to the public. The WCSCD educational program and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. The lecture by Aslıhan Demirtaş is organized in collaboration with Grupa Arhitekata Project Partners We thank following partners for supporting selected participants for 2022 program: Romanian Cultural Institute. Artcom platform , Kadist Foundation, William Demant Foundation For more information about the program, please refer to www.wcscd.com Project contacts: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com Follow us: FB: @whatcscdo Instagram: @whatcouldshouldcuratingdo < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

< Back Non-Alignment Summit Anniversary a difficulty to re-member 10 Nov 2021 Dunja Karanović & Jovan Mladenović About a month and a half has passed since Serbia hosted the 60th anniversary celebration of the 1st Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement. Over a hundred member and observer state delegations gathered for a two-day conference in Belgrade, the same city where the 1st Summit was held in the Fall of 1961. 1st Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade 1961. Source: Wikipedia I say about a month and a half has passed, because the events that unfolded in the short time span since the anniversary are somehow difficult to align . The two decades preceding the emergence of this text were all about erasing the 31 years this particular locus was part of the Non-Aligned Movement. I say locus because for someone who was born around the time one country disappeared and six new ones were created, it’s also difficult to pinpoint which entity took part in what. [1 ] In 1961, when our capital hosted the Summit, it was the capital of a different country. It was also the capital of a member country, which is no longer the case. [2] The difficulty to discern the when and where is one that our current regime took advantage of during the national broadcasting of the 2021 event. Over the course of two days, two decades of erasure were spun off through a clever campaign of government myth-weaving. Pro-regime media outlets were swarming with yugonostalgia and titoist trivia as the streets of Belgrade turned into a scenography of brightly colored flags and banners representing the 105 countries participating in the event. Remembrance and erasure were intertwined in an attempt to blur out the fact that Serbia’s current political system is in no way in line with the values behind non-alignment. Even more so, an attempt to pass over the fact that the system is a direct successor of the regime that got us kicked out of the Movement in the first place. [3] The Non-Aligned Movement was created in opposition to the hegemonic trajectories of the post-WWII world. An alternative built around the values of emancipation, anticolonialism, equity, peace, solidarity, and cooperation. Twenty-five countries came together in that first summit to stand against the inevitability of the Cold War. One of their main agreements was that disarmament was crucial for maintaining international stability and social justice. To illustrate just one in a multitude of paradoxes employed in the theatrical 60th anniversary celebration, the last day was rounded off with the opening of the 10th International Arms and Military Equipment Fair [4] . Looking at some of the events of the past month and a half, it becomes clear just how much this political charade was used to conceal the actual pan-alignment of our current locus. Two human rights activists were taken into police custody for throwing eggs on a mural depicting a nineties war criminal in Belgrade. [5] Five hundred Vietnamese workers are being held hostage in inhumane conditions on a construction site in Zrenjanin [6] . Ten children ended up in the infirmary after running a school race in Lazarevac on a day when it measured the highest air pollution rate in Europe. [7] A bank was sued for refusing to open accounts to Iranian refugees and asylum seekers in Serbia. [8] The list goes on. I write this in an effort to decode some of the messages that were sent during the two days Serbia was celebrating . Yes, the first summit was organized in Belgrade in 1961. Yes, it is important to remember the values that guided the following three decades. But whether or not this is the same Belgrade that upheld those values then is up for the reader to decide. Personally, it feels a lot like the scenario from Spielberg’s 2004 film Terminal – we are still there, but there is no longer the same there to go back to. Photo: Branimir Karanovic Considering how Tito had to make most of his diplomatic journeys by boat (the famous “Seagull”), it is curious how the twenty-first century has rendered us closer geographically yet further apart ideologically. The 1st summit, initiated by Nehru, Nasser, and Tito, was about creating ties of friendship and cooperation between distant cultures, and taking a pacifist stance against the global power structures. Sixty years later, distance has become the keyword as the world is faced with a global pandemic and the climate crisis, deepening the gap between what we still call the developing (distant) and the developed (power structures). Remembering how the Belgrade Summit of 1961 happened only two weeks after the Berlin wall started literally dividing East and West, it seems almost counterintuitive to say we could be more in need of interdependence and solidarity today than we ever were. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the question of whether there is still a need for a Non-Aligned Movement has been raised. The Movement now consists of 120 members and 17 observer countries, including Russia which has joined this year. The sixtieth anniversary of the Belgrade Summit was marked by world leaders simultaneously calling for international solidarity and multilateralism, and asking for support for their current foreign politics [9] . Underlining the pan-alignment approach of Serbia, the event included a strong presence of both China and Russia, which were historically on the opposing side of the principles proposed by Tito, Nasser, and Nehru. In addressing these issues and the importance of revitalizing some of the connections made during the 1961 summit, Serbian officials spoke about how proud they are as a government to be continuing Tito’s diplomatic legacy and Yugoslavian values. The same officials who spend most of their working days in the National Assembly, in between what used to be the Marx and Engels Square, and what used to be the Boulevard of Revolution. The last Non-Alignment Movement summit organized in Belgrade took place in 1989, in a post-Tito, post-Berlin Wall, and pre-nineties setting. Since then, over 200 Belgrade street names have been changed from those commemorating Yugoslavian history to those beating around it. The former Federal Executive Council of Yugoslavia (built in 1961!) is now the Palace “Serbia”, the Central Committee building is now overshadowed by a shopping mall, and the former Trade Union Hall is named after a bank. Most recently, the city’s deputy mayor suggested we should rename those streets which still bear the names of ex-Yugoslav capitals and cities – a final deletion of Tito’s brotherhood and unity. For those of us living in New Belgrade, Nehru, Gandhi, and Agostinho Neto are still household names. However, walking the streets of Belgrade you have a better chance of noticing street signs in Russian, English, and Mandarin, than any sign of our pride in Yugoslavian values. Alignment with each and every capitalist power structure is now embedded in our public spaces. In an attempt to rediscover and commemorate the remnants of non-alignment in public space, the Museum of African Art created an interactive online heritage map , marking various monuments related to the NAM in the streets of Belgrade and the rest of the world. The heritological map is still growing, but already features many street names, monuments, murals, and buildings that were created either for or during the two summits that happened in Belgrade in Yugoslav time. The project is a part of their larger exhibition “Non-Aligned World”, curated by Emilia Epštajn, Ana Knežević, Milica Naumov and dr Nemanja Radonjić, to mark the anniversary of the 1961 NAM summit. More than half a century after the event, they invite us to locate the “Non-Aligned World” in our present day, what the movement used to be and mean, what of it still exists today? Peace, equality, solidarity, cooperation, emancipation, and anti-colonialism are the central themes of the exhibit, as the key elements of defining personal as well as group identities – the hope for building a new world. The exhibition tends to focus on the weight, importance, and tenderness that these terms bear today. Regardless of whether they are used as mottos for social justice movements, or they are drawn as cultural or social classifications, these ideas are very much alive and needed in present times. Accordingly, the curatorial concept focuses on the meaning of the words and ideas, how they were proliferated at that point, and how they motivated people to act by better understanding their role on a global scale, despite being conveyed through state media outlets. The exhibition is structured in a way that gives us a glimpse of the past that is less known, tells a story about the common people, and emphasizes the atmosphere that was created around the possibility of creating a new (Non-Aligned) world. Non-Aligned World Exhibition – Museum of African Art in Belgrade. Photo: Jelena Jankovic The Museum of African Art symbolically and literally preserves the legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement, outlining the importance of cultural diplomacy in times of crises. The Museum of African Art is the first and only museum in the region entirely dedicated to the cultures and arts of the African continent. Their permanent display is based on examples of (primarily) West African art and includes objects from the collection formed by the founders of the Museum – Veda Zagorac and dr Zdravko Pečar. Over the course of twenty years spent in West Africa, as a journalist, diplomat and Yugoslav ambassador in seven African countries, Dr. Zdravko Pečar together with his wife Veda Zagorac was developing friendship-based contacts with both African statesmen/diplomats, as well as common people. For forty years this institution has made a significant contribution to promoting and fostering cultural relations and encouraging the principles of multilateralism and cultural diversity. Endorsing the importance of African and non-European culture is the foundation upon which the overall work of this museum is based. While the permanent display has remained unchanged since the opening of the museum (encapsulating in a sense the cultural, diplomatic, and curatorial practices of the time), their program incorporates more contemporary arts production from Africa. [10] Another critical approach to the issue of remembrance and commemoration in relation to 1961 values was also assumed by Ana Panić and Jovana Nedeljković, the curatorial team behind the exhibition “Prometheans of the New Century” in the Museum of Yugoslavia [11] . The exhibition title comes from a painting of the same name by the Yugoslav artist Petar Lubarda, which took the central place of the decor of the 1st Summit of the Non-Aligned in 1961. The central theme of the exhibition is the relationship between Yugoslavia and India presented through art and the exchange of cultural ideas between the two countries. Josip Broz Tito visited India for the first time in 1955, which is considered by many to be the spark that started the whole idea for creating the movement. This relationship is portrayed by the gifts Tito received from Indian officials and artists during his diplomatic meetings. The exhibition also features the works of Indian artists who were given scholarships from the Yugoslav government to study alongside prominent Yugoslavian artists. The political ties between the two non-aligned countries were strengthened through diplomatic and cultural exchange, including contemporary art practices. In terms of bilateral cultural exchanges, the openness of cultural institutions in Serbia to contemporary artistic and curatorial practices from what is nowadays called the Third world has not moved much since the sixties and seventies. The second part of the exhibition continues to communicate with India, this time through the work of the painter Petar Lubarda. Lubarda spent several months in India in 1963, at the invitation of the Yugoslav Commission for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. This experience left a deep mark on him, which influenced his art to explore the themes of the universal battle of good and evil, primordial impulse in humans, and their connection with matter and elements. All of these embodied in paintings such as “Awakening of Africa” (1956-1959), “Prometheus” (1967), “Man and Beasts” (1964), and “Bull and Cloud” (1963). But what happened to “Prometheans of the New Century”? As the legend goes, Prometheus was punished for bringing humans fire by being bound to a rock, and an eagle was sent to eat his liver which would then grow back overnight, only to be eaten again the next day in an ongoing cycle. Having taken center stage in the 1961 summit, the original painting was in recent years hung inthe cinema of Kombank Hall [12] , formerly known (ironically) as Trade Union Hall. Vladimir Nikolic – “The Communist Painting in The Age of Digital Reproduction” (2017) Source: www.vladimir-nikolic.com This is all emphasized in a video work entitled “Communist Painting in the Age of its Digital Reproduction” by Vladimir Nikolić – the final element and conclusion to the exhibition. The work was commissioned in 2017 for the exhibition When the Other meets the Other curated by Biljana Ćirić. Once a symbol of freedom from external control and economic exploitation, it seems that our Prometheus of the New Century has been bound to a wall above the ticket stand, sentenced to an ongoing cycle of endless consumerism. In the new setting, it closes the exhibition on a symbolic level, but at the same time opens the question of what happened to the ideas of modernism, which we were once so proud of. What happened to the values and ideas of non-alignment, solidarity, anti-colonialism, and revolutionism? Dunja Karanović (Belgrade, 1996) is a visual artist and freelance journalist. Jovan Mladenović (Kraljevo, 1995) is an art historian and an MA student at the Belgrade University of Arts -UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy and Management. [1] Yugoslavia stopped being a member of the NAM in 1992; from 1991 until the early 2000s the country was fraught with a civil war which resulted in its gradual breakup. The ex-Yugoslav states – Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Kosovo* have not regained their membership within the Non-Aligned Movement. The question of transitional justice in the region is still ongoing. [2] Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina currently hold an observer status in the Non-Aligned Movement. [3] The ruling party in Serbia was created in 2008 by former members of the far-right Serbian Radical Party of Vojislav Seselj, who served as prime minister of Serbia between 1998 and 2000, and was tried for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. [4] https://www.danas.rs/vesti/drustvo/pocinje-10-medjunarodni-sajam-naoruzanja-i-vojne-opreme-partner-2021/ [5] https://pescanik.net/pred-vratima-naseg-grada/ [6] https://www.a11initiative.org/en/request-for-the-urgent-reaction-of-the-competent-institutions-in-case-of-potential-human-trafficking-for-the-purpose-of-labor-exploitation-of-workers-from-vietnam-engaged-in-the-company-linglong/ [7] https://nova.rs/vesti/drustvo/deca-u-lazarevcu-se-otrovala-od-zagadjenja-dok-su-trcala-kros/ [8] https://www.a11initiative.org/en/the-commissioner-for-the-protection-of-equality-finds-that-raiffeisen-bank-discriminated-against-refugees/ [9] https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/samit-nesvrstanih-beograd/31502971.html [10] REFLECT – Namibia after 30 years of independence (2020), EVERYDAY POETICS Instagramming Life in East Africa (2019), POLES APART Exhibition by Massinissa Selmani etc. (2019) [11] The Museum of Yugoslavia is the new name of a complex of three museums. The “Prometheans of the New Century” exhibition takes place at The 25th May Museum, named after the birthday of Tito, as the institution was presented to the president as a gift from the city on his seventieth birthday. Interestingly, it was designed in 1962 by the architect Mihailo Mika Janković, the same architect who designed the aforementioned Central Committee (CK) and Federal Executive Council (SIV) buildings. The period that followed the 1961 NAM summit in Belgrade was marked by many milestones in the field of culture, including the founding of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade in 1965. [12] After the Trade Union Hall was privatized in 2018, the painting was moved to another hallway within the newly renamed Kombank Hall. Previous Next