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< Back Seeing the Invisible: Documenting and Interpreting China’s Cultural Presence in Uzbekistan (Part 2) 22 Nov 2020 Alexey Ulko Setting himself the task of “researching ‘the politics and aesthetics of the visual representation of China-Uzbek relations’…” Alex Ulko continues to reflect on the “complexity and contradictions” permeating the relationship between China and countries within Central Asia. This follows from Part 1 as another collection of photographs, thoughts and observations – his ongoing inquiry which seeks to piece together a “disjointed and fragmented” picture of the lines running from China through and around Uzbekistan. B Peter Frankopan writes in his excellent, but somewhat sketchy, book The New Silk Roads (2018): “talking about improving connections is one thing; funding them is quite another.” It is a fair point to make as many previous ideas foreseeing the Great Silk Road’s revival, in one way or another, were based mostly on wishful thinking rather than on pragmatic strategies. My major experience dealing with one of such concepts was obtained while working for the International Institute for Central Asian Studies, established in Samarkand in 1995 as a result of UNESCO’s Silk Roads Project: Integral Studies of the Silk Roads, the Roads of Dialogue 1988-1997 . Described by Federico Mayor, the UNESCO Director-General at the time, as “a bold and ambitious venture set to reopen doors to the past thus shedding new light on the present”, the project was very much a product of its time. As the Cold War drew to a close and the Berlin Wall came down, many Central Asian scholars and politicians alike embraced a romantic, meta-modernist vision of the region’s future reunited with its glorious past. The Great Silk Road was seen as an essentialist template that had united people from China to Europe once, and so could be made to work again – of course, in a new geopolitical context. It promised to put Central Asia back to where it once apparently belonged: in the very centre of the intercontinental dialogue. The leaders of Uzbekistan were particularly keen to play the key role in this process. If Central Asia was the heart and soul of the world and the Great Silk Road its backbone, then Uzbekistan was its heart. Samarkand was, of course, the iconic Silk Road city and it made perfect sense to make it the home of a new institution that would symbolise the new-found zest for transcultural and transboundary cooperation in the region. IICAS Member States (from the internet) The IICAS was founded by ten member states with a mission to bring Central Asian historical and cultural issues to the international community’s attention. It was supposed to become an international academic hub, strengthening collaboration between local scholars and their foreign colleagues through a multidisciplinary study of the region. However, the vision of a prosperous, transparent and dynamic Central Asia never quite materialised. Central Asian states could never find a solid common background, and for over twenty years Uzbekistan mounted itself on a perch of political self-isolation, quarrelling with all its neighbours and being very much part of the problem, not the solution. Although the Silk Roads’ dream still continues, its implementation now almost entirely depends on China and Chinese capital as there are few volunteers who are ready to invest in the region. Even China can be quite choosy. It stopped paying its agreed fee to support the IICAS after several short years without any explanation. Ostensibly, this duty was transferred to a poorer government academic body. Most likely, the Chinese authorities simply felt that an open multicultural institution supporting a range of international projects along the Great Silk Road did not quite meet the objectives of the Chinese cultural and political strategy within the region. *** The Damansky Island Battle (Alex Ulko) Lei Feng, the Chinese national hero by Shen Jingdong (from the internet) One of my first conscious memories of China was the Chinese military threat. Of course, in the Soviet days no reliable information about it was available, but the public awareness of the Damansky Island conflict was there – albeit very vague and almost entirely based on rumours. The boys in class shared “confidential” information about eighteen infantry lines, rolling in waves on our defensive positions and being wiped out one by one by our secret weapon. Some said it was laser guns, others suggested generators of infrared rays were involved, but nobody could say which year it was. It seemed very recent at the time, but only much later did I learn that the armed conflict had taken place just a couple of days after I was born, in March 1969. The small Damansky Island in the Ussuri River was finally yielded to China in 1991 and is now known as Zhenbao Island (珍寶島). The commander of the Russian forces killed in action was a colonel Leonov, with an unusual first name: Demokrat. We know little about him, apart from the fact that he was born to a border guard officer in Baku in 1926, when the world Communist revolution still seemed so near. *** HUAWEI advert on the road from the Tashkent airport (Alex Ulko) In the first weeks of autumn 2020, as the heat of summer gave way to cooler weather, European states further restricted Huawei’s role in the construction of their communication networks. More and more countries became convinced that the Chinese company was a security threat. Their mainstream media outlets frequently mentioned that Chinese citizens were required by law to help their country gather intelligence where they could, and the US urged the EU to ban Chinese technology from its future communication networks. Keith Krach, the US Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs said that “there is really no future with Huawei.” While the UK has already officially banned Huawei, it looks like Germany will probably suffocate the company’s operations with bureaucracy. The result will be the same, say European experts, but apparently not in Uzbekistan. The first thing visitors see on their way from the Tashkent International Airport to the city centre is a huge HUAWEI logo. It has replaced the old Soviet neon slogan “Tashkent is the City of Peace and Friendship”. A telling development, indeed. *** Wang Tong hotel in Tashkent (Alex Ulko) Uzbeks and the Chinese tend to see the world as two distinct groups of people: their own family, relatives, neighbours and friends (their circle of relationships) on one side of an imaginary fence, with everybody else on the other. These cultures identify a much stronger distinction between Us and Them than most European cultures. There are several important distinctions, as far as I can see. Firstly, although Uzbeks make up the majority in Uzbekistan, they are continuously exposed to other cultures, e.g. Russian, as they live along with representatives of these cultures (especially in cities). Uzbek culture is a classical hybrid, while the Chinese one seems much more defined. Many Uzbeks speak some other languages – Russian, Tajik, Kazakh or even English, and when they travel to a neighbouring country or to Russia, they do not feel intensely culturally isolated. In other words, they are quite used to being the colonial Other in Russia, and feel comfortable with guests, visitors or local non-Uzbeks in Uzbekistan. On the contrary, the Chinese are perceived by many other nations as a huge homogenous group and in many ways, they behave like this. Outside of China, their “In” group becomes abruptly and threateningly small, and it is ethnically determined. Both cultures, Chinese and Uzbek, are particularist. In other words, they value relationships more than the rules, and focus on the exceptional nature of present circumstances. Interestingly, the research conducted by Fons Trompenaars suggests that Russian culture is also particularist, even more so than Chinese (see Riding the Waves of Culture , 1993). This, of course, is relative. Many people in Uzbekistan lament that the collapse of the USSR and the subsequent independence brought about more corruption and deregulated chaos than what was thought permissible during the Soviet rule. Although this anecdotal evidence proves nothing, it at least tells us something about the perception of the Soviet, Russia-dominated culture vs. Uzbek which is seen by many as much more relationship-driven. It would also be interesting to see what will happen if, in the future, Chinese culture eventually replaces Russian in Central Asia. *** “Today, if people in Eurasia were all fans of Chinese pop music or television dramas, or had a more positive image of China, it might be easier for their governments to partner with Beijing on “win-win” initiatives like the BRI,” wrote a Chinese journalist George Gao (not to be confused with George Fu Gao, a prominent virologist and immunologist). Nikita Makarenko, one of the top Russian-language bloggers in Uzbekistan, rejected the very possibility of this on his Facebook page, saying “China can become as economically strong as it wants. But it will never seriously control the minds and hearts of people on the planet.” In his opinion, China does not produce an attractive and sought-after modern culture and as the result, nobody outside the country really listens to modern Chinese music or watches Chinese cinema. “You go to watch Nolan’s films and listen to Lady Gaga,” says Makarenko. Left: Cheap Chinese everyday products (Umida Akhmedova)Right: Chinese wholesale shop (Elina Klimova) This may sound like another bout of Sinophobia based on racial prejudice but the popularity of the more distant and even more esoteric Japanese popular culture – from karate to manga, Kurosawa to yakitori suggests otherwise. One of the commentators noticed, “Japanese people are far more likely to respect my privacy and not try to strike up a random conversation with me. I often find that it’s difficult to just be left alone in China, which is annoying.” However, talking to several Uzbeks now living in China, I have heard some praises of its social culture. Some Uzbeks commented that the Chinese are quite good at creating an atmosphere of informal camaraderie between people, and that they can be outspoken and direct in discussion. One Uzbek girl who had spent several years teaching English in a Chinese school said, “Chinese girls have more opportunities than ever before in education and work, and they always seem to have goals and ambitions of their own, not like back home.” The quarantine in China (Zarina Anvar) Yet Makarenko remained unconvinced. “No one in the world wants to be like [the] Chinese. No one in their right mind wears a Beijing logo on their cap and dreams of emigrating to the fabulous Guangzhou.” His conclusion is simple. “In an authoritarian state, the production of a topical and globally modern cultural product is simply impossible. A lily will not grow in the desert, only a cactus and a thorn.” Tell that to Ai Weiwei, I thought. Or Yuk Hui. *** Thinking further about the BRI and the relations between China and Uzbekistan, I remembered Vanessa Page writing about China, “it is home to rampant corruption. The national government is actively trying to stamp it out in an effort to make the country more business-friendly for westerners and to avoid the economic and business inefficiencies that come from corruption.” Uzbekistan is facing very similar problems and if there has been a name evoked every time corruption in the country is mentioned, it is Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of independent Singapore. His popularity with Uzbek neoliberals is explained by his image of “a man with an iron hand,” leading his country to prosperity in an Asian, rather than a democratic European, fashion. Here, a top-down Soviet approach gets mixed with patriarchal power patterns attributed to Asia. Some influencers seriously suggest that Uzbekistan should adopt “a Singaporean model” unconcerned by the huge geopolitical difference between one of the world’s busiest cargo ports and a double landlocked country in “the lost heart of Asia,” as Colin Thubron had it. Chinese and Uzbek flags (Umida Akhmedova) Guanxi (benefits gained from social connections) (Alex Ulko) Corruption is not the only problem that China shares with Uzbekistan. There are obvious cracks in both countries’ economies. There is the problem of underemployment and inflation. Government spending is a key driver of growth in China and in Uzbekistan, and it has led to indiscriminate construction in the recent years. China has struggled to find buyers for properties in its ghost cities. Some large-scale city development projects in Uzbekistan have already stalled. The vision of urbanism that has become the trademark of Chinese “progress” (whatever that means in real terms) has turned into a form of cargo cult in Uzbekistan – an imitation without any clear objective. Commenting on the poor quality of the newly built high-rise building in the centre of Tashkent, some people say, “at least these won’t stay here long.” What a consolation! *** The famous Russian rock musician, Boris Grebenshchikov, a renowned connoisseur of Taoism, wrote the following joke and shared it on Facebook: “One day Lao Tzu was driving a black buffalo and violated the traffic rules. A traffic cop approached him and asked to see his driving license. Lao Tzu said: – When water flows down, it does nothing, because flowing down is its natural property. Such are the properties of a true person: they do not improve, but things follow them. The sky itself is high. The earth itself is solid. The Moon and the Sun are light in themselves. What can they improve? How can a person riding a buffalo have a license? The cop did not know whether to laugh or to cry.” Chinese traffic police signs (from the internet) In 2007, Chinese city traffic police officers had an average life expectancy of 43 years. Nearly every traffic police officer in large cities had respiratory infections caused by polluted air. Stress, traffic noise and the time they had to stand in the sun also exacerbated their grave health conditions. I do not know if their life has become better over the last 13 years, but I am sure that even without the COVID-19 pandemic, it remains rather grim. Things do not change that fast. *** An important characteristic of the BRI framework has been noticed by Roman Vakulchuk and Indra Overland, who saw that the Chinese strategists had decided to tackle the internal lack of cohesion within the Central Asian region by using a bilateral approach in China’s relations with Central Asian governments in the 21st century. They write: “The Chinese have acted patiently and pragmatically, and over time have managed to build working relations with each of the five countries, including Turkmenistan, where the construction of the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline can be viewed as a major Chinese success story in a country where both Russia and the United States have struggled to maintain a foothold.” However, these bilateral relations can be described as skewed, at best. A substantial part of the Chinese investments into Central Asia forever remains within the Chinese infrastructure as a loan given by a Chinese bank to a local government, or when project is used to pay the Chinese company that had been contracted to execute the project. The company, of course, uses Chinese equipment and Chinese workers to do almost all the work. The most spectacular illustrations of this are the roads built in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as the Kamchik Railway Tunnel in Uzbekistan linking the Ferghana Valley with the rest of the country across the mountains. Chinese construction equipment (Elina Klimova) Despite the fact that BRI is a huge regional project, it is obvious that in the short and medium term, the collaboration between China and Central Asian states will be based primarily on bilateral relations. That was what happened in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and in a different form, is now happening in Uzbekistan. In summer 2020, I had to open my Visa card with an Uzbek bank and tellingly chose the one called the Ipak Yuli Bank (the Silk Road Bank). I was quite surprised to receive a free UnionPay card as a bonus. Interested, I went online to check the benefits and potential issues with the card and found the following review: “After the annexation of the Crimea, the United States and other Western countries imposed sanctions on Russia, which has led to disruptions in service to holders of Visa and MasterCard cards issued by some Russian banks. Chinese UnionPay cards, which on the one hand have become common throughout the world, on the other hand, cannot have their use limited by US authorities. So for those who have suffered from the sanctions or are afraid of such a prospect, the CUP cards are the most suitable.” If there is a book that can comprehensively explain the attractiveness of such exciting options to Central Asians, it’s not going to be Frankopan’s New Silk Roads, but rather Dictators without Borders by Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw. a screenshot of a section dedicated to Uzbek-China relations from Podrobno.uz (from the internet) Meanwhile in Uzbekistan, the once invisible Chinese presence is becoming more and more articulate. A popular web news outlet podrobno.uz/ has a special section dedicated solely to the relations between Uzbekistan and China, aptly called: Keys to the Future . The section contains what is known as “sponsored content” with texts redolent of the long forgotten Soviet style – unashamedly banal and bombastic at the same time. One article describing a cultural festival organised by the Chinese company CNODC, informs its readers that “the Chinese people call on the peoples of the whole world to jointly create a global community of shared destiny. And many countries have already extended their hands of friendship and cooperation in return. We must act together, share our cultures and knowledge, have common good goals and move forward, creating a bright and wonderful future for our descendants. After all, we are all children of the same planet.” Aren’t we just? Atlas gown, two books and two chopsticks (Alex Ulko) Alexey Ulko , born in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) in 1969. Previous Next

As you go . . . the roads under your feet, towards a new future (If you want to travel, build roads first) About Cells Activities Online Journal Projects Contributors

Alumni 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 >

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

Alumni 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 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. 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 >

WCSCD emergency grant announces grant recipients We are honored that we can give a symbolic contribution to colleagues and peers in the region through emergency grant. Participants of the program have selected three grants recipients: Sasa Rakic cartoonist based in Pancevo (Serbia), creating comics under the pseudonym of Aleksandar Zograf. www.aleksandarzograf.com Adela Jusic artist based in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), cofounder Association for Culture and Art Crvena, one of the creators of Online archive of Antifascist struggle of women of B&H and Yugoslavia (adelajusic.wordpress.com www.afzarhiv.org ) Agata Lucic artist based in Zagreb (Croatia) (https://www.behance.net/agatalucic ) We would like to thank all applicants for reaching to us. WCSCD will continue finding ways supporting community so please stay in touch with us. About Grant: 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. Colleagues in former Yugoslav Region are eligible to apply. Emergency grant has been supported through the online curatorial program Post-Pandemic Condition with mentors Natasa Petresin Bachelez, Maria Lind and Biljana Ciric. Online program participants: Louise Hobson, Ainsle Roddick, Kirsty Màiri Robertson, Aglaya Zhdanova, Julia Gelezova, Ariana Kalliga, Cushla Donaldson, Teodora Jeremic, Sophie Davis, Dunja Rmandic, Agata Szymanek, Amal Al Ali, Yin Shuai.

Speaking (with, ‘n, from) Nearby “I don't intend to speak about, just to speak near by.” Using Trinh T. Minh-ha quote we would like to suggest to think of your own position of speaking near by someone or something and what kind of relationality it implies. An invited tutor for this task is Toby Üpson, an art writer currently based in London (UK). His interests lie in ideas around realities and how these (so often framed as this) can be mediated and consumed. Specifically, how realities can be mediated and consumed otherwise. Often drawn to quotidian matter, Üpson uses ekphrastic modes of writing to abound linear understandings of things. In turn, questioning the system that surrounds. Üpson has written for numerous international publications, most recently Art Monthly, Art & Education, FAD_, and Garageland. Intro This is an exercise in close writing. In slowness, and the potentials of ekphrastic prose to resist systemic forms of op- and re- pression. That is the task’s ‘aim’, beyond creative fulfillment, is to use poetic language to get beyond the stereotyped way we receive our everyday existence and to afford an opportunity for a writer, indeed a reader, to escape the streamlined flows of a reality made in and as a disposable commodity. This task seeks to create air. To afford slow breaths. To allow us to think anew from a position of proximity. Here slowness and a collection of written prompts will be used to make sensorial something of a space between the I of the writer and an everyday object before their eyes. And in this way, this task seeks to give new, anomalous, visibility, to something otherwise ‘known’, something overlooked. Further, as a metaphorical excise, the task asks us to consider the critical (not only liberatory but revolutionary) potentials of creative writing, of poetic and indirect language, of slowness, and how these expressions could be applied to everyday life as a way to resist a colonial-capitalist world system, where ‘efficiency’ of movement is foregrounded for wholly extractive ends. The output of this task will be a short 100-word text. Rather than an appendage to an encounter with a thing, my hope is that this exercise will allow you to produce a text that has its own creative agency. A text that provides a reader with a point of departure for their own creative thinking. And, in this way, this text will be something of a creative relay. You will need (exercise equipment) Paper and a pencil, or a pen; or a laptop, or a phone (your preferred writing media) The ability to go into the world. That is, to sit in a cafe or park, for example (this task could be undertaken from within one's home however) Slowness and time. Though the physical output from this task is a short 100 word text, the task itself should be performed with beautiful slowness; with careful and carefilled thinking. Task (exercise instructions) Go somewhere you go everyday or very regularly (for example, a cafe, a park, or a railway station) Sit in this place and notice. What are the small, overlooked, things that constitute the performances of this place? Note these down as a short list. (ie, the teaspoons in a cafe, the benches in a park, the tickets that flutter between hands at a railway station.) Choose one of these small, overlooked, things, and in 100 words describe this.(Please do not name this thing. We do not want 100 words of ‘this spoon is grey.’ This is a rather dull description.) Now, thinking across your senses (sight and smell and sound and taste?) use 100 words to describe how you experience this thing. (ie, ‘It's cold and sleek. Sounding with a clatter as I twist and turn cappuccino foam…’) Stay close to this thing, and also stay close to how you are experiencing this thing at this moment. Note down one association that comes to mind. (This could be a memory, or an analogy, a story, or a theory - try to avoid thinking too academic, however. For example, a teaspoon might remind you of an oyster shell.) Now, use 100 words to describe this association. (ie, why does the teaspoon remind you of an oyster shell?) We are going to shift perspective now. Write down, in 100 words, why this place is everyday, and also mention the performance(s) you enact in this place. (‘I come to this cafe every day. It is a large space in the centre of the city. I always get a cappuccino before work….’ You have 100 words, think carefully.) From this perspective, use 100 words to describe how the thing of your previous attention operates within this space. Also, consider, why is it overlooked, and how does this thing enable you to perform what you do in this place? You should now have a total of 500 words - five sets of 100 word notes - which describe a thing in a space and something of your relation to this. As an exercise in creative editing, take these 500 words and weave them together into a singular text of no more than 100 words. This text can take any form - a single paragraph, a series of short verses, a score or a script - think creatively. (I am asking you to condense a space of relation down into something small and indeed reductive. The aim of this challenge is, however, to make you think about words carefully, precisely; to make you consider how to caress a space of relations (that space between you - a speaking ‘I’ - and an overlooked thing - the thing before your ‘eye’) into existence.) You can now leave this everyday place. (Enjoy the rest of your day!) Additional materials Leonid Bilmes, 2023, ‘Introduction: On seeing prose pictures,’ in Ekphrasis, Memory and Narrative after Proust: Prose Pictures and Fictional Recollection . Bloomsbury Publishing Marcel Proust, c.1927, In Search of Lost Time. Volume 6: Finding Time Again [trans. Ian Patterson], pages 180-207. Penguin Books (2003). Georges Perec, c. 1975, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris Tina M. Campt, 2017, Listening to Images Self-feedback What unexpected happened during your performing of the task? Did something break your shell? How do you envision applying this exercise in an institutional framework (museum/ gallery visit, meeting and artist/ curator)? What change may it bring to your approach? Can you articulate your individual voice - where does it come from, what it aims for?

Past Programs 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2020 Program Archive WCSCD 2020/21 Open Call February 5, 2020 Art and the Post-Pandemic Condition – an online curatorial program and support grant for art practitioners May 15, 2020 WCSCD emergency grant announces grant recipients July 16, 2020 WCSCD emergency grant for practitioners in Former Yugoslav Region June 22, 2020

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Practices of Care: On Rehumanization and Curating | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series The curatorial program What Could/Should Curating Do 2020 is proud to continue in 2020 with public program through lecture series The fifth talk in the 2020/21 series is titled: “Practices of Care: On Rehumanization and Curating” By Natasa Petresin-Bachelez Date: January 12, 2020 Time: 12:00 pm Belgrade/ 10:00 pm Melbourne/ 07:00 pm Shanghai/ 6:00 am New York Venue: zoom link Meeting ID: 985 237 3109 Live stream/Facebook link Installation of Sensing Salon, part of the exhibition Not Fully Human, Not Human at All, Kunstverein in Hamburg, 2020, photo Natasa Petresin-Bachelez Natasa Petresin-Bachelez will speak about two of her recent curatorial projects, “Not Fully Human, Not Human at All” (KADIST and Kunstverein in Hamburg, 2020, co-curated with Bettina Steinbrügge) and the Initiative of Practices and Visions of Radical Care that she co-founded with Elena Sorokina in spring 2020. Through them she will trace the questions of (in)compatibility of curatorial and institutional methods with the produced content, and talk about her understanding of the concept of interdependence. photo by Ivana Kalvacheva, jewellery artist ismail Afghan About Speaker Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez is an independent curator, editor and writer, she lives and works in Paris. Among the projects and exhibitions she curated are: Contour Biennale 9: Coltan as Cotton (Mechelen, 2019), Defiant Muses. Delphine Seyrig and Feminist Video Collectives in France in 1970s-1980s at the Museum Reina Sofia, Madrid and museum LaM, Lille (with Giovanna Zapperi, 2019), Let’s Talk about the Weather. Art and Ecology in a Time of Crisis at the Sursock Museum in Beirut (with Nora Razian, 2016), Resilience. Triennial of Contemporary Art in Slovenia at Museum of Contemporary Art (Ljubljana, 2013), and in France Becoming Earthlings. Blackmarket for Useful Knowledge and Non-Knowledge #18 at Musée de l’Homme (with Alexander Klose, Council and Mobile Academy, 2015), Tales of Empathy at Jeu de Paume (2014), The Promises of the Past at the Centre Pompidou (with Christine Macel and Joanna Mytkowska, 2010), Société anonyme at Le Plateau/FRAC Ile-de-France (with Thomas Boutoux and François Piron, 2007). Between 2010 and 2012, she was co-director of Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers and co-founder of the European network of small-scale art institutions Cluster. She is a co-organizer and co-founder of the seminar Something You Should Know at EHESS, Paris (with Elisabeth Lebovici and Patricia Falguières), and a member of the research group Travelling Féministe, at Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir, Paris. She is the chief editor of the publishing platform Versopolis Review, between 2014 and 2017 she was the chief editor of L’Internationale Online, the publishing platform of L’Internationale – the confederation of cultural institutions, and between 2012 and 2014 she was the chief editor of the Manifesta Journal. She contributed to various publications and held lectures and organized seminars in which she presents her ongoing research into situated curatorial practices, empathy and transnational feminism, slow institutions, performative practices in the former Eastern Europe, and engaged artistic practices in the era of the Anthropocene/Capitalocene. In the scholar year 2019-2020 she teaches at the Sint Lucas School of Arts, Antwerpen. WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) was initiated and funded in 2018 in Belgrade as an educational platform around notions of curatorial. From 2020 WCSCD started to initiate its own curatorial inquiries and projects that should unpack above -mentioned complexities keeping educational component as a core to the WCSCD. The WCSCD curatorial program and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. WCSCD 2020/2021 public program series has been done in collaboration with Division of Arts and Humanities, Duke Kunshan University and they co-stream all public lectures. Strategic media collaboration is done with Seecult and they will co-host all public lecture series. Project Partners Media Partner For more information about the program, please refer to www.wcscd.com Project contacts: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com Follow us: FB: @whatcscdo Instagram: @whatcouldshouldcuratingdo < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Reimagining the museum | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series The curatorial program What Could/Should Curating Do 2020 is proud to continue in 2020 with public program through lecture series The first talk in the 2020 series is titled: Reimagining the museum By Luca Lo Pinto Date: November 10, 2020 Time: 12:00 pm Belgrade/10:00 pm Melbourne /6:00 am New York Venue: zoom invitation link (ID: 985 237 3109) Live stream/Facebook event link “The museum is a medium that should constantly be able to be questioned. It cannot be anymore intended as a space of mere contemplation but rather as a social space based on freedom of experimentation and on the desire to realise artists’ visions. In a historical moment in which the concept of museum and its identity are constantly challenged by social and economic changes as well as by the language of art itself, it’s essential to experiment with alternative models. In occasion of the talk, I would discuss the program I’m developing at MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome where I’m turning the museum into an exhibition intended as a form and place of production. A container which becomes content – aiming to reduce the distance between the dichotomies of museum-actor and public-spectator”. Portrait by Giovanna Silva About Speaker Born in 1981, Luca Lo Pinto is the artistic director of MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome. From 2014 till 2019 he worked as curator of Kunsthalle Wien. He is co-founder of the magazine and publishing house NERO. At Kunsthalle Wien he organized solo exhibitions of Nathalie du Pasquier, Camille Henrot, Gelatin&Liam Gillick, Olaf Nicolai, Pierre Bismuth, Babette Mangolte, Charlemagne Palestine and the group exhibitions Time is Thirsty; Publishing as an artistic toolbox: 1989-2017; More than just words; One, No One and One Hundred Thousand; Individual Stories and Function Follows Vision, Vision Follows Reality. Other curatorial projects include Io, Luca Vitone (PAC, Milan),16th Art Quadriennale (Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome), Le Regole del Gioco (Achille Castiglioni Studio-Museum, Milan); Trapped in the closet (Carnegie Library/FRAC Champagne Ardenne, Reims), Antigrazioso (Palais de Tokyo, Paris); Luigi Ontani (H.C. Andersen Museum, Rome); D’après Giorgio (Giorgio de Chirico Foundation, Rome); Olaf Nicolai-Conversation Pieces (Mario Praz Museum, Rome). He has written for many catalogues and international magazines. He edited the book “Documenta 1955-2012. The endless story of two lovers” and artist books by Olaf Nicolai, Luigi Ontani, Emilio Prini, Alexandre Singh, Mario Garcia Torres and Mario Diacono. In 2014 he published a time capsule publication titled 2014. WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) was initiated and funded in 2018 in Belgrade as an educational platform around notions of curatorial. From 2020 WCSCD started to initiate its own curatorial inquiries and projects that should unpack above -mentioned complexities keeping educational component as a core to the WCSCD. The WCSCD curatorial program and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. WCSCD 2020/2021 public program series has been done in collaboration with Division of Arts and Humanities, Duke Kunshan University and they co-stream all public lectures. Strategic media collaboration is done with Seecult and they will co-host all public lecture series. Project Partners Media Partner For more information about the program, please refer to www.wcscd.com Project contacts: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com Follow us: FB: @whatcscdo Instagram: @whatcouldshouldcuratingdo < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >