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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

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 >

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Program Participant Activities 2024 Glossary l(a)unch: gender issues On WCSCD educational programme | Collective reflections Walking as a Way of Knowing – Belgrade Regenerative living-creating spaces for the multi species co-existence Celebrating Resilience and Solidarity Glossary l(a)unch: a passage between collecting and transforming 2022 Program Participant Activities 2020/21 Series of texts developed by participants of WCSCD 2020/2021 program as a response to Bruno Latour text What protective measures can you think of so we don’t go back to the pre-crisis production model? 2019 To be enjoyed endlessly – a zine final project by WCSCD2019 curators Seda Yıldız and Ewa Borysiewicz Reading of the biggest image in Belgrade The WCSCD 2019 Salary Spreadsheet: Expanding the Conversation Around Salaries in the Arts < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Lecture by Maria Lind / Future Light: or is A New Enlightenment Worth Considering? CURATORIAL COURSE WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? IS GLAD TO ANNOUNCE THE NEW EDITION OF THE PROGRAMME IN THE FOLLOWING 2019 AND THE PUBLIC TALK BY MARIA LIND Future Light: or is A New Enlightenment Worth Considering? MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART BELGRADE MONDAY, MARCH 11 2019 AT 6PM In collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, the lecture within the series of public programs about contemporary curatorial practices will be held by Maria Lind (an esteemed curator, writer and educator) and will serve as an extension to the 2018 edition of the curatorial course WCSCD. Based on an on-going research into art, abstraction and opacity, within the presentation Maria Lind will discuss the project Future Light curated in 2015 as part of the first Vienna Biennial at the Museum Angewandte Kunst and elsewhere. ABOUT THE LECTURER: Maria Lind is a curator, writer and educator based in Stockholm and Berlin. She was the director of Stockholm’s Tenstakonsthall 2011-18, the artistic director of the 11th Gwangju Biennale, the director of the graduate program, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (2008-2010) and director of Iaspis in Stockholm (2005-2007). From 2002-2004 she was the director of Kunstvereinand in 1998, co-curator of Manifesta 2. She has taught widely since the early 1990s, including as professor of artistic research at the Art Academy in Oslo 2015-18. She has contributed widely to newspapers, magazines, catalogues and other publications. She is the 2009 recipient of the Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement. In the fall of 2010 Selected Maria Lind Writing was published by Sternberg Press. The WCSCD curatorial course and series of public lectures are initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. The lecture by Maria Lind is made possible with the help of MoCAB and the Embassy of Sweden. The WCSCD curatorial course is a long term project initiated by Biljana Ćirić, with the support and collaboration of the following partner institutions: project patron – Wiener Städtische, partners – The Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade; EVA International—Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art; and Zepter Museum, among others. The project is supported by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Belgrado; the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Belgrade; the Austrian Cultural Forum; Heinrich Boell Stiftung; Hestia Art Residency & Exhibitions Bureau and EUNIC Serbia among others. * Photo credit: Escaping Transparency at MAK, Vienna, 2015, as part of Future Light. Pablo Accinelli (Buenos Aires/Sao Paulo), Doug Ashford (New York), Claire Barclay (Glasgow), Rana Begum (Sylhet/London), Elena Damiani (Lima/Copenhagen), Shezad Dawood (London), Annika Eriksson (Stockholm/Berlin), Matias Faldbakken (Oslo), Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian (Tehran), Ane Hjort Guttu (Oslo), Tom Holert (Berlin), Philippe Parreno (Paris), Amalia Pica (Buenos Aires/London), Yelena Popova (Moscow/Nottingham), Walid Raad (Beirut/New York), Bik Van der Pol (Rotterdam), Haegue Yang (Seoul/Berlin) < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

SELF - POSITIONING Self-positioning starts not during a conference or a business handshake. It is rooted in your personality and shaped by the many contexts in which you exist. Self-positioning is also framed by the notions of ‘normative’ deriving from colonial, gender and a multitude of sociopolitical frameworks. To be able to liberate ourselves from predominant discourses and find our unique ways to act in the world we need first to discover and question our core attitudes - to ourselves, to the art system, to the global ‘other’. BLOCK 1.1 An input for this task is provided by Biljana Ciric, WSCSD program initiator. To start with, we offer you a set of questions. They may seem quite abstract, but can act as a trigger for a more in-depth analysis of self and further expand on your professional identity. What moves you? What has you? What is your position in relation to colonial difference? Who are you in relation to others? Task Position yourself within the world. Tell about your practice, but try to avoid showcasing your works. Think and understand who do you cite. Through citation you create relation and history. Revise your vocabulary. Who are you citing? By which terms do you define yourself and your practice? How can you overcome the colonial vocabulary? Put this into a text or a text+images format An advice: before staring each session we propose you to devote your practice to someone. Additional materials Listen to Hicham Khalidi, Director of the Jan van Eyck Academie, and Rolando Vázquez, Associate Professor of Sociology, University College Roosevelt speaking in “Transforming Institutions: On Social and Climate Justice ” Podcast. Self-feedback Did you discover something about yourself? What is your main trigger/ question? BLOCK 1.2 Together with artist and curator Anastasia Albokrinova we will focus on communication and creative approach. I am an impostor i imitate i play i squeeze in others’ skin i sign fake papers i make void agreements i take peoples’ money and give them to others i pretend i don’t know what’s curating and thus i own the freedom to reinvent it i fool those who want the truth i do things nobody notices i nourish useless processes i intervene in the order of things i ask why this should be that way and not the other i ask who said that i feel sometimes my game has gone too far i fear i have no legal right but somehow i’m where i should be Anastasia Albokrinova, 2022 Let's start with What are the alternatives for direct speech or image+text presentations? Thinks about the fears do you face while trying to step out of the pattern. Is it being vulnerable, shy, ignorant, insecure or else? Think of ways to embrace and face these fears. Make a list with three columns: Fears / Ways to face them / Means to transform fear into action. Task Relying on the content you developed before, try to experiment with the ways you deliver it. Can you use drawing, gestures, sound, movement, multilinguility, gamification? Develop an alternative way for self-presentation. Deliver it to other people. Additional materials Listen to Hicham Khalidi, Director of the Jan van Eyck Academie, and Rolando Vázquez, Associate Professor of Sociology, University College Roosevelt speaking in “Transforming Institutions: On Social and Climate Justice ” Podcast. Self-feedback What are your expectations when communicating yourself to others? What limitations did you face? What is your authenticity you can play with? Did a self-positioning process help you better understand why you do things that you do, the way you do? Online sharing session We invite you to share your self-positioning presentations with a group of fellow students of the WCSCD online course. We will focus on giving and receiving critique, discuss what is a good and bad experience in communication. The meeting is a recurring event with a limitation of 10 participants. Estimated duration: around 1.5 hrs. To take part subscribe for a proposed time in the table below. During the session you will have 10 to 15 minutes to present and receive feedback. Form: Date/ Time (GMT)/ Number of places left/ (organizer provides nearest time/date options and limits the number of attendants) Enter your email to receive a zoom link for the meeting. Email Book Session (user receives a zoom link for a set time) Modules

Past Programs 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2021 Program Archive WCSCD 2020/21 Open Call February 5, 2020

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

WCSCD 2020/21 open call Call Opens: February 6, 2020 Call Closes: March 8, 2020, promptly at 17:00 The 2020 program will run from August 1 to October 29, 2020. WCSCD continues to value and emphasize forms of curatorial practice that are active at the margins of the mainstream art world, yet that contribute to the global perspective. This is accomplished primarily through reflection on the local context and efforts to rethink how to meaningfully contribute to the production of curatorial discourses. This is can also be read as an attempt to de-colonize art and its many discourses more broadly. The program maintains an international purview, while proposing consideration of what it means to be international within the abovementioned theoretical parameters. This is in part accomplished through the invitation of the 2020 mentors for the program, including Ekaterina Degot (Director and Chief Curator of steirischer herbst), Lisa Rosendahl (Associate Professor of Exhibition Studies at Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and Curator of GIBCA – the Gothenburg biennial in 2019 & 2021, Chus Martínez (Director of the Art Institute at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, Luca Lo Pinto (Director of MACRO in Rome), Suzana Milevska (Curator and a visual culture theorist), Jelena Vesic (Independent curator, writer, and lecturer – based in Belgrade), Xiang Zairong (Scholar), Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez (Independent curator, editor and writer), and ruangrupa (Artistic directors of Documenta 15) among others. For this iteration, the curatorial program WCSCD2020 will have a specific focus on women curators or directors of institutions with ties to the former Yugoslavian cultural field from the 1970s, which challenged mainstream approaches to art. Program participants will conduct interviews, engage in archival practices around their research into these practitioners, all while thinking about modes of archiving in and of itself and discussing different curatorial histories. Each participants’ research practices will be shared and contextualized through different public forms of expression during the program. s. The research conducted as part of WCSCD 2020 will create an archive around these practices, which will be made accessible through publication and open source online content. The aim will also be to discuss these artists’ contributions towards the creation of an “art system” in the region. As the educational-curatorial platform WCSCD enters its third year, it is of note to point out that the majority of attendees of the program thus far have been women, with enrollment of only 20% men. Similar art educational programs around the world share these experiences, and in university contexts as well—women outnumber men in the study of Art History. This poses an important question on the role of gender in relation to curatorial practices and positions within different institutions of art. By revisiting the historical moments cited above, we intend to contextualize and reflect on the current situation within our working contexts as well.Over the past two years we’ve seen the rise of an international movement, the #metoo campaign, thanks in part to the many brave arts professionals who went public with their experiences of harassment and violence, which is now part of the public domain. Yet, the gender imbalance between different work areas and roles within the art system is still very much present today. These observations, along with many others, have led us to tailor a project that will look at the “notion of the curatorial” through a gendered lens and within the context of the ex-Yugoslavian cultural field. Criteria for consideration: Applicants must be 35 years of age or younger No prior degrees in art or art history are required The course fee is based on the monthly average salary of the country from which you hail, for which you are a passport holder (we use online reference of most recent average salary data of successful applicants) Please note that the fee does not include accommodations or travel costs. International participants will be provided assistance with finding accommodations in Belgrade—such accommodations are approximately 180 EUR per month. The standard course fee also does not cover travel and accommodations for research trips. Successful applicants should prepare an allowance of approximately 300 EUR to cover these additional costs. How to apply: Applications should include the following items as a single Word or PDF document, sent by email to what.could.curating.do@gmail.com with the subject line: Curatorial-Course-WCSCD 2020 by March 8, 2020: CV/Portfolio Letter of Interest (500 words maximum, explaining your interest in curatorial practices and specific research interests) Description (300 words maximum, the working methodology you propose with regard to the project, taking into consideration the role of archives, ways of designing and testing new methodologies for implementation, and gender-related research) Based on the quality of the submitted documents, up to 15 participants will be selected to attend the course. Selected applicants should plan to arrive in Belgrade no later than August 1, 2020. The final list of participants will be announced the first week of April 2020. The final curriculum of the program will be confirmed in May 2020 and shared with the attending curators at that time. This year WCSCD introduced the possibility for distant education and participation in the mentoring session with price 400 euros for program duration for more information how to apply for it pls write to us with subject WCSCD online program WCSCD is proud to also announce the advisory group who will help us shape the program, the members of which include: Matt Packer, Director of the Eva International Biennial; Ares Shporta, Director of the Lumbardhi Foundation; and Andrea Palasti, a Novi Sad based artist. The WCSCD curatorial course is a long-term project initiated by Biljana Ćirić, with the support and collaboration of the following partner institutions: The Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade; EVA International—Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art; and Zepter Museum, among others. The project is supported by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura Belgrado; the Austrian Cultural Forum; Institut français de Serbie, Swedish Embassy in Belgrade and Hestia Art Residency & Exhibitions Bureau among others. For more information regarding the application process and/or invited lecturers for the 2020 program, please refer to the website: www.old.wcscd.com . For other queries, please send to the following email address: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com .

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities The educational program What Could/Should Curating Do is proud to announce lecture by Amelie Aranguren hosted by Kolarac Venue: Student square no 5 Date: December 13th 2022 18:00 Small Hall Between utility and emotion. Inland artistic practices. by Amelie Aranguren Amelie statement: In my talk I will talk about the Campo Adentro project that began in 2010 as an initiative about the need to think about the rural environment as a place for artistic creation and how over the years we have felt the need to face the reality and difficulty of living off the land. This is how we have our own agroecological production with a flock of sheep and the recovery of a village in the mountains that aims to be a collective agrarian and artistic production essay. But the commitment of the city is fundamental and thus arises the CAR, Centro de Acercamiento a lo Rural, our space in Madrid. This window to the rural is born with the purpose of bringing to the city the experience of self-sufficiency and sustainability of the agrarian tradition. The challenge of Campo Adentro is to create awareness of all that agricultural work and life in rural areas has to offer, an enrichment for both rural and urban areas. Inland flock in Casa de Campo, Madrid About Speaker Amelie Aranguren, head of artistic programming at INLAND’s Center for the Aproach to the Rural (CAR) in Madrid and Inland member since 2010. She has been coordinator of exhibitions at the Jeu de Paume, Paris, head of Espacio Uno at the Museo Reina Sofía, a space dedicated to specific projects by emerging artists, director of Activities at the Fundación Federico García Lorca, a private foundation dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of the poet’s legacy and artistic director of the Max Estrella gallery. INLAND is a collective dedicated to agricultural, social and cultural production, and a collaborative agency. It was started in 2009 as a project about an organization that engages territories, culture, and social change, by Fernando Garcia Dory, artist and agroecologist. During its first stage (2010-2013) and taking Spain as initial case study, INLAND comprised an international conference, artistic production with 22 artists in residence in the same number of villages across the country, and nationwide exhibitions and presentations. This was followed by a period of reflection and evaluation, launching study groups on art & ecology, and series of publications. Today INLAND functions as a collective and works as a para-institution to open space for land-based collaborations, economies and communities-of-practice as a substrate for post-Contemporary Art cultural forms. Appearing in different forms in different countries, whilst dissolving individual agency in the collective, INLAND publishes books, produces shows, and makes cheese. It also advises as a consultant for the European Union Commission on the use of art for rural development policies while facilitating a shepherd and nomadic peoples movements, and is recovering an abandoned village in an undisclosed location for collective artistic and agricultural production. In 2015 it was presented at Istanbul Biennial, at Casco Art Projects in The Netherlands, PAV Torino in Italy and the Maebashi Museum of Japan. In 2017 it has been working at Contemporary Arts Glasgow, MALBA, Matadero Madrid, Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin, and developing field actions in Italy (TRANSART Festival Bolzano and Puglia) and at the Jeju Biennial, South Korea. Recently INLAND has been awarded the Council of Forms, Paris and the Carasso Foundation awards to finalise New Curriculum, a project devoted to training the artists and rural agents of the future. For 2019, it was presented at Serpentine London, Pompidou Paris, Savvy Berlin, Cittadelarte Milan and Casa do Povo, Sao Paulo. In 2020 is prepairing proposals for Baltic Art Centre (Newcastle, UK), Madre (Napoli), Istanbul, Urals and Kosovo Biennales and documenta fifteen. 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 Amelie Aranguren is supported by Embajada de España en Belgrado 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 >