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< Back Activities to stop or to reappear and to be born after (or as a result of) the health crisis Yana Gaponenko Bruno Latour proposes to reflect on the current pandemic situation as the possibility to refuse poisoning and damaging activities we had before it as well as emancipating and liberating ones to appear after we learn to live with the consequences of the pandemic. I may for now conclude that we’ll be totally missing our pre-pandemic brains as we used to miss our pre-internet ones. Nostalgia as a safe space element now defines our daily life practices in quarantine: artists, curators, researchers of all kinds return to their unfinished projects, rethink on their previous background and dive into an inner archeology and inner watching. Diaries will return as a tool of everyday notes and individual archiving and dreams will replace physical travelling in space so people will write down and draw their dreams’ narratives as one of the only unpredictable and not controlled by the state adventures spaces in quarantine times. Past time begins to matter and the concept of the future feels to be reduced. The planning horizon is as narrow as one week maximum. Offline meetings with group activities became extremely precious practices of the past and the concept of collectivity moved from the concept itself to the real people groups quarantine put us in – whether it’s our family we locked in with or our neighbors we rent the space with. At the same time family as a social institution will be reconsidered and people will practice single status much more often after all. All human life spheres will be emphasized with the nationality aspect. The concept of a national state already comes back as geographical borders are now more obvious than ever in past decades. The tools of pandemia fight varies from one country to another. Bio, body management and health maintenance is especially politicized now and have all means of control described once by Foucault. Perhaps control over death will return and replace neoliberal control over life as the medical system isn’t able to sustain so many people suffering from diseases. People will be allowed to die as it was in the Middle Ages. One gets medical help depending on the health system status their country has reached due to inner political decisions of the past. The perverse imbalance of medical help reveals total social injustice in all countries. Vulnerable people became even more vulnerable, precarious cultural workers – even more precarious than earlier. Incest, home violence, suicides will grow. There will become more homeless people as a consequence of the economic crisis and physical distance. Capital, be it financial or symbolic, is the key currency nowadays. Institutionally protected artists and curators will for some time rest in their safe spaces whereas total freelancers and the rest of emerging art makers will show more agility and maybe even invent new means of art production. More and more artists will practice work offline and make crafts and art with palpable materials which will remain after the crisis. Barter as an alternative to money exchange for the service will reappear as a practice of surviving and mutually beneficial cooperation. Home agricultural rituals will reappear and people will live with the vegetables and fruits they planted in their houses which will cause the appearance of the new organic forms of life in a human habitat (worms, insects, etc). Searching for vitamin D people will start moving to the south, and so will the building industry. People will reduce consuming food from the supermarkets, clothes (they may use each other’s protecting costumes when going outside now) and the entertaining experience will remain individual as in quarantine times. Invisible labour done by women in families such as housekeeping and childcare will be equated to the paid work and become more regulated and protected. Office work and going to school will cause a lot of debates after the pandemic and will split society into those who put real interactions at the forefront and others who don’t trust people after all biological battles. Vernissages, public art discussions and symposiums will be held less often than before being replaced by individual tours and consultations for those who can afford it. Art infrastructure will be represented by two polar agents: very strong state art institutions with national old art collections and low horizontal self-organised initiatives. No ‘middle class’ private cultural institutions will survive the crisis. Artwork logistics will become chaotic, works will be bought directly from artists studios, there will become more private collections as collectors will support living artists on a barter basis, making collections of the future look subjective. More and more international council boards will appear to decide on the future of art producing today. Big art institutions will combine their collections for mutual survival and reduce exhibition spaces which no one may maintain anymore. National cultural memory of third world countries will since upcoming times be owned by big players among capitalist countries, bringing us to the new era of informational colonisation. Some practices which will most likely be back but not wished: Elite individual original artworks experience (will make capitalistic gaps even bigger) Rewriting history and informational colonisation (oblivion and propaganda will lead to irrevocable consequences) Alt-right and nationalistic tendencies will grow Control over death replacing control over life (ethical crisis) Some practices which will most likely be back and are wished to: Barter and exchange economy (will strengthen horizontal connections) Self-sufficiency with nature materials, sewing clothes, planting food, crafts (will reduce consumerism) Diary notes, archiving, inner archeology, mail art (will reduce visual overproduction) Vladivostok as a relatively young Russian city (est. in 1860) has always been aside from major empire or state disasters and used to be “a state in the state”. As a voluntary and adventurous place it was discovered by those who were ready to start their life from scratch and had nothing to lose or were forced to settle these lands from the west. This entrepreneurial vein comes to the fore every time the region is in crisis. So nowadays, pandemic unfortunately doesn’t deter people from going to work because otherwise they won’t survive the economic crisis. Extremely remote position from the place of state decision making will leave my region to survive on its own as it has already been doing during the 1990s. Poaching seafood and wild animals will intensify, that’s the way people will become closer to nature here. Vladivostok used to be a closed city until the 1990s, therefore solely as a speculation we may assume that the pandemic of 2020 will just make this isolated city as remote and independent as it already used to be thirty years ago and before it as well (exactly one hundred years ago when the Far Eastern Republic was proclaimed here for a couple of years). Yana Gaponenko (born 1988) – curator, lives and works in Vladivostok, Russia. Previous Next

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Alumni 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2019 Alumni Aigerim Kapar is an independent curator, cultural activist, and founder of the creative communication platform Artcom. She was born in 1987 in Kazakhstan and continues to live and work in Astana. Kapar curates and organizes exhibitions, urban art interventions, discussions, lectures, and workshops. To accomplish such wide-ranging initiatives she often collaborates closely with art and educational institutions, as well as scientific apparatuses. In 2015, she founded the open online platform Artcom in conjunction with the local art community. The platform brings together different cultural figures to share experiences and discover channels for greater interaction within society in order to develop and promote contemporary art and culture. In 2017, Aigerim initiated the Art Collider informal school—when art meets science. Through this initiative artists and scientists jointly conduct research and present lectures and discussions related to current issues. The results of the school are presented through exhibitions, publications, and audio-visual materials. Ana Roman has a Master’s degree in Human Geography from São Paulo University and is a doctoral student in Art History at the University of Essex. Her current research focuses on contemporary art and curatorship. Previously, she was an assistant curator for Between Construction and Appropriation: Antonio Dias, Geraldo de Barros and Rubens Gerchman in the 60s (SESC Pinheiros, São Paulo, Brazil, 2018), and researcher/assistant curator for Ready Made in Brasil(Centro Cultural Fiesp, São Paulo, Brazil, 2017); Rever_Augusto de Campos (SESC Pompeia, São Paulo, Brazil, 2016); and Lina Grafica (SESC Pompeia, São Paulo , Brazil, 2014), among others. She was the head curator for Whereabouts (Zipper Gallery, 2018) with works by David Almeida; Mirages (Baro Gallery, 2018) with works by Amanda Mei; and Small Formats (Baro Gallery, 2018) with works by Alexandre Wagner, to name a few. She also writes critical texts for different media outlets. Since 2014, she has been a participant in Sem Titulo, s.d., a production and research collective focused on contemporary art with whom she organized the exhibitions What is not performance? (Centro Universitário Maria Antonia, São Paulo, Brazil, 2015) and Tuiuiu, with works by Alice Shintani (ABER, São Paulo, Brazil, 2017). Bermet Borubaeva is a curator, researcher, and artist. She was born in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and gained her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and Master’s of Arts focusing on “Political analysis and public policy,” from the High School of Economics in Moscow. She graduated from the Bishkek “Art East” School of Contemporary Art in 2009 and studied at First Moscow Curatorial Summer School for their program “Doing Exhibitions Politically,” initiated by Victor Miziano and V-A-C Foundation. Borubaeva also participated in the curatorial research residency “ReDirecting East” at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw. Borubaeva has also taken part in different exhibitions and projects, such as the First Youth Central Asian exhibition of Contemporary Art, ON/OFF; the eco-festival, Trash; and an exchange project in collaboration with Focus-Art Association, titled TET A TET #2 (Vevey, Switzerland). Recent projects include the Education Program for Lingua Franca/франк тили’, the re-exhibition project for the Central Asia Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, done in collaboration with Oxana Kapishnikova and Ukhina Diana (2012); the exhibitions Artists-in-Residence at CCI Fabrika (2014–2016 Moscow); the exhibition PAS DE DEUX—KG. CH. at the Center of Contemporary Art Yverdon-Les-Bains, Switzerland; and the performance Café “Non-seller,” addressing the problem of food waste in conjunction with the documentary film “Eco Cup” (Moscow), as part of the Curatorial Research Program, CPR-2017: Mexico. She has also contributed to several publications in the fields of art, political science, and urban environment. Ewa Borysiewicz studied art history at the University of Warsaw and Freie Universität Berlin. She was a member of the curatorial team for Side by Side: Poland—Germany. A 1000 Years of Art and History (Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin), led by Anda Rottenberg. She is the author of Rausz kinetyczny (2013), a book exploring the political and emancipatory aspects of non-camera animation. From 2012–2019, she worked at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw as the curator for visual arts. Her duties included establishing international partnerships, programming the international visitors’ program, facilitating artistic residencies, and enabling presentations of Polish art worldwide. She is presently co-organizing (with galleries Stereo and Wschód) the exhibition Friend of a Friend, a gallery-share initiative in Warsaw that has been taking place since 2018. Borysiewicz has also curated and co-curated exhibitions at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, the Polish Institute in Düsseldorf, and the Museum Jerke in Recklinghausen. She is the author of many texts and catalogue entries. Mateja Smic is a Dublin-based artist working with coffee, gelatin and other, often non-traditional materials, chosen by principles of association within her subject matter. Her recent subjects range from geopolitics to national identity. Through printmaking, digital collage, video and animation, Smic’s installations combine philosophical and psychological questions around experience, the phenomenon of Othering, and tensions between the real subject and its mediated representations. Consisting of intensive cycles and processes of intuitive and experimental engagement with her materials, which become a metaphor for an intangible subject, Smic’s reflexive and multi-layered art practice parallels with her contextual research and writing. Having graduated from the National College of Art and Design in Fine Print and Critical Cultures, her thesis and professional practice project focused on the creation of the image of the Balkans in the West and the portrayal of the region through various art forms and curatorial activities. Tomek Pawlowski is a curator, and events and meeting producer. In 2018 he participated in the curatorial program at Swimming Pool, Sofia. He is the curator of numerous exhibitions, performances, and projects in collaboration with artists from younger generations, groups, independent galleries, and institutions in Poland. He uses collective practices, critical entertainment, and politics of friendship as his main guiding framework. From 2016–2018 he ran Cycle, a program of micro-residencies and events in the apartments where he lived. In 2017 co-curated (along with Romuald Demidenko and Aurelia Nowak) The Open Triennial: the 8th Young Triennial at the Center for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko. He is also the co-curator (with Magdalena Adameczek and Ola Polerowicz) of Sandra Art Gallery, the nomadic agency associating with and supporting emerging female artists from Poznań. He currently resides between Białystok and Poznań. Shasta Stevic is an artist and curator from Melbourne, Australia. She is the co-founder, co-curator, and creative director of IntraLiminal—an ongoing project that showcases the work of talented young artists from regional Australia. She is passionate about providing opportunities for young artists to share their work publicly and supporting the development of ongoing creative practices in younger generations. Having completed degrees in science and law, she sees art as an important vehicle for the exploration of social issues including the environment and sustainability, civilization and progress, so-called technological and scientific advancement, and the worrying divide between humans and nature. She is particularly interested in using unconventional methods of storytelling and installation to bring about social change. Stevic has studied at the LungA School, an experimental art school in Seydisfjordur, Iceland, and has curated exhibitions for a mid-winter festival in Northern Iceland. Sasha Puchkova is an artist and curator based in Moscow. As an artist, Puchkova works with different media: sound, video, objects, performative communication and experiments. She explores phenomena related to different points of connection and the linking of digital and offline processes, as well as the space between these realms, and the interdependent influence of cyberspace on social norms. Key topics are particular interest to her are the plasticity of the laws of the digital system; the body in online space; new materialism; artificial synesthesia; decolonial pathways; post-cyberfeminist practices; and post-anthropocene practices. The pivot of her curatorial practice revolves around an experimental, expositional approach, which has been realized in such projects as a series of performative actions, ideas around the “exhibition as living space,” long-term laboratories, and the development of theatrical exhibitions-in-real-time, among other things. Her curated projects include Syntax (a series of performances and laboratory); (Im)-possible object (research and exhibition projects); and Capture Map (performative project and communication platform). Puchkova is also a member of the research group “Speculative Practices of Corporal Mutations” (with Katya Pislari and Daria Yuriychuk). Victoria Vargas Downing is a Chilean art historian, heritage researcher and independent curator based Leeds in the UK. She holds a BA in Fine Theory and History of Art at the University of Chile, a Curating Diploma and MA in Arts Management and Heritages studies at Leeds University. Has participated in art projects in Chile, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles CA, Vienna and The UK where she co-curated Imtiaz Dharker Exhibition and participated in the process and management of Chilean Mural restoration at the Leeds Students Union. She has worked as teacher and research assistant in different projects and art organisations in Chile (museums, galleries and non-profit organisations). She is PhD candidate at the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at Leeds University. Her research verse on the relationship between contemporary art and heritage, particularly, in non-Western cultures. Seda Yıldız is a Hamburg-based artist-curator. Her multidisciplinary practice focuses on exploring the art of shaping (collective) memory, language, and the politics of the city. She is interested in the poetics of politics and frequently uses humor and abstraction as a tool in her artistic practice, working primarily with video, text, installation, and the form of the artist book. Her curatorial practice focuses on exploring the clash and intersection between the local and global, and aims to reach a heterogeneous audience while giving voice to the silenced. She is particularly is interested to take part in process-oriented, open and experimental projects that foster collaboration and exchange. Yıldız has exhibited her work and joined various editorial and curatorial projects internationally. In 2018, she was selected as an emerging curator by PARALLEL Photo Platform, co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union. Occasionally she writes about design, architecture, and urbanism, and contributed to Brownbook Magazine, MONU Magazine, Kajet Journal, and Freunde von Freunden. Yıldız holds an MA in Contemporary Artistic Practices from Haute école d’art et de design Geneva (2014) and a BA in Communication and Design from Bilkent University (2011). http://yildizseda.com Zulfikar Filandra is a film and theatre-maker based in Sarajevo. Filandra was educated at Griffith College Dublin, the Academy of Performing Arts Sarajevo, and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering Sarajevo. As a collaborator and member of several local and several international art collectives, he has worked with all the relevant mainstream art and cultural institutions in Sarajevo and is also active in Sarajevo’s underground art scene. Aside from directing in film and theatre, and assistant directing, Filandra also works as a screenwriter, lecturer, producer, editor, musician, actor, promoter, event organizer, and photographer. As a member of the youngest generation of Bosnian directors his topics touch on the legacy of war in Bosnia, but through a more intimate view of living in contemporary times and the position of a small culture like Bosnia in a globalizing world. Currently, he is actively collaborating with the Experimental Film Society (based in Dublin, Ireland) and Outline (based in Amsterdam, Netherlands). Filandra completed two short films in 2018 and is currently working on two more short films, while also developing his first feature project, titled Shipbuilding. At the moment, Filandra is in the process of founding and starting the first full-time artist-in-residence program in Sarajevo. Martina Yordanova is a curator, writer, and researcher based in Sofia, Bulgaria. She graduated from the University of Vienna in Publicity and Communication Sciences in 2014. She went on to do her postgraduate studies in Cultural Management and Curatorial Practices at different European educational institutions, including the University of Arts Berlin, Goldsmiths University, Institute for Cultural Concepts Vienna, and The Cultural Academy in Salzburg. Currently, she works in Sofia where in 2016, together with architects Galya Krumova and exhibition designer Petya Krumova, she established a non-profit foundation for contemporary art and media. Since then, Yordanova has been initiating different art events and exhibitions with international and Bulgarian artists, mostly living abroad. She is also the founder and curator of “1m2 of Art”—a project based in Veliko Tarnovo wherein every month a different artist from the local art scene presents their work in a space no bigger than its name. < Participants Educational Program Programs >

< Back Disappeared – appeared: selo – BOR – grad village – BOR – city Jelica Jovanovic Previous Next

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?

Times Museum Guangdong Times Museum is a non-profit institution funded by private sectors, and Times China has been the core funder since the inauguration of the Museum. In 2003, Times Property (former name of Times China) and Guangdong Museum of Art (GDMA) co-founded the temporary pavilion as a branch of GDMA at Times Rose Garden in 2003. When Wang Huangsheng, the Former Director of GDMA and the curator Hou Hanru invited Rem Koolhaas and Alan Fouraux to conceptualize an architectural proposal in the D-Lab of the 2nd Guangzhou Triennial in 2005, the Museum was incubated as a hub for artistic experiments in the region of Pearl River Delta. After the completion of its facility, Guangdong Times Museum became independent and officially opened its door to the public in December 31, 2010. In November 2018, Guangdong Times Museum initiated Times Art Center Berlin as its parallel institution in Europe with the support of Times China. We program up to 4-6 exhibitions in our gallery space, introduce over a hundred artists and art works to the city of Guangzhou, and commission more than a dozen new works every year. We reach out to our audience through curated events on weekly basis. We engage with both the artists and the public to develop ideas, produce artworks and test receptions. We value our public role as a cultural institution, and endeavor to formulate conversations and document social changes. While supporting artists to present their critical ideas and to produce ambitious art works, we also attempt to indigenize the language of contemporary art. After a decade of robust programming, Guangdong Times Museum has become a cultural landmark of the city where people can discover art, connect with each other, feel inspired by unexpected learnings and worldly experiences. ArtCom ArtCom is a contemporary art and public engagement platform, established in 2015 as a non-profit community-based organization. Founded by independent curator, Aigerim Kapar, with support from the art community. Artcom aims to connect local contemporary art practices in urban, cultural and social milieux. In doing so, Artcom unites art practitioners, social scientists, philosophers, architects and urban planners, as well as students and the wider public, to exchange experiences and skills, engage in knowledge production, research local issues, and be involved with and create local art and interdisciplinary projects. Artcom is committed to creating and sustaining the best environment for contemporary art and culture in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Our mission is to support artists, curators and art professionals; and strengthen their communities, especially the young and emerging among them. Since 2017, we have run Art Collider, an informal school where art meets science and technology. Together with art practitioners and academics, we present a series of public lectures, discussions, and workshops in order to find a language to describe our postcolonial situation and decolonial future. MG+MSUM Moderna galerija is a national museum that works, in accordance with its mission, in the fields of modern and contemporary art. It was founded in 1947 as a museum of modern art. With Slovenia’s independence in 1991, Moderna galerija became the principal national institution of modern and contemporary art and an increasingly active link between the local and the international, in particular Central and Eastern European, contexts. During the transition following the downfall of the Communist regime, Moderna galerija suffered financial problems and personnel shortage. Today’s vision of Moderna galerija is based on its history from the founding to the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the downfall of Socialism, on the strong experience of the Balkan wars, the transition period and critical awareness of the increasing globalisation processes. The concept of museum advocated by Moderna galerija follows its own way and resists the existing hegemonic models. In the crucial period of the 1990’s, Moderna galerija refused to become a postmodern museum of sensations and intense experiences; on the threshold of the new millennium it fairly clearly developed the concept of an art museum that advocates the plurality of narratives and priorities of local spaces that intend to enter equal dialogues with other spaces only with their own symbolic capital. Since 2011, Moderna galerija has operated on two locations: in the original building of Moderna galerija (MG+) in the centre of Ljubljana and in the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (+MSUM) located on the renovated premises of former military barracks. The concept of Moderna galerija as a museum of modern and contemporary art was initiated in the early 1990’s, at the time of a strong need to allow more space for the previously neglected contemporary art and form closer links with the international space as well as with the national history and the historical moment then marked by the war and the new political geography of Europe. In contrast to the past decades, Moderna galerija began to show the interest in the present moment, which involved a different, but no less responsible addressing of the past. This initiated the processes that acquired their first tangible form in the Instrument of Constitution of Moderna galerija (2004) that defines the difference between the museum of modern art and museum of contemporary art as follows. As a museum of modern art it systematically explores, collects, and presents the art of Modernism and its traditions. It deals primarily with Slovenian 20th century art from the beginnings of Modernism around 1900, but also with contemporary artists who continue the tradition of Modernist trends. As a museum of contemporary art it covers contemporary practices in the field of the visual arts. It presents new contents in and new ways of expressing, exhibiting and interpreting contemporary art. By regularly purchasing works by Slovene artists, it is building a permanent collection of the 21st century art and adding to the international Arteast Collection 2000+ by purchasing works by foreign artists. The museum of modern art is defined as a museum devoted to the notion and tradition of Modernism as a historical style. Although established as a museum of contemporary art, the museum of modern art had gradually turned into a museum of the past that accumulated through time and eventually opened the door to the museum of contemporary art. But even if the art displayed in the museum of modern art is mostly from the previous century, the ways of addressing it are determined by the present time and its priorities. A museum of contemporary art does not necessarily differ from a museum of modern art in terms of historical period: in this respect, the two may even overlap as the tradition of Modernism is still alive while contemporary art draws from different art traditions. The programme of the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova thus reaches back to the new art practices of the 1960’s although its social and political contemporaneity begins especially with the crucial events from the early 1990’s. Moderna galerija addresses both the museum of modern art and the museum of contemporary art from the aspect of multi-temporality derived from the critique of linear time and its universal validity. Different activities of both museums point out antagonisms rather than cover them by different virtual pluralities. Moderna galerija attempts to develop a different model of museum based on the criticism and redefinition of democratic institution. Its priorities include the construction of a local context and dialogues with different localities that follow especially similar priorities and interests in developing different institutionality and new models of cultural production. Rockbund Art Museum Inaugurated in 2010, Rockbund Art Museum is a contemporary art museum located on the Bund in Shanghai. With a strong reputation for our innovative curatorial approach, we look to conceive different art projects from research to alternative learning programs, from exhibition-making to unexpected para-performative formats. By supporting bold contemporary art practices, we aim to continually remake local histories, whilst also responding to global art challenges and social mutations. We regard the role of exchange as an essential process required for a wider transformation to occur by building up a network of multi-regional, international and cross-disciplinary partnerships. Through this process, we aim to cultivate a diverse and deep-rooted connection to our audiences, communities, and also different social and cultural organizations. More on www.rockbundartmuseum.org As you go… the roads under your feet, towards a new future collaborates with Rockbund Art Museum through Curtain project initiated by museum director Larys Frogier and number of collaborators Mathieu Copeland, Biljana Ciric, Cosmin Costinas, Hsieh Feng-Rong, Billy Tang. Initiated in 2020, CURTAIN is a long term research project, which will be articulated through a series of exhibition formats, discursive platforms and cross-institutional collaborations spanning a three-year period. Seeking to go beyond the fixed definition of an exhibition, the project looks to expand the dialogue with artists through the gathering of critical thinkers and practitioners from other social and cultural fields. The Public Library Bor Library and information activity in Bor and its environs dates back to 1869 when the first public reading room was opened in the village of Zlot. Since then, many libraries and reading rooms of various types were opened and closed in the town and its schools, factories, organizations, and nearby villages, especially in the above-mentioned Zlot, where the first workers’ or so-called socialists’ reading room was also temporarily opened in 1909. The purpose of the workers’ reading room was not just the acquisition and distribution of the reading materials, but also agitation against and awareness-raising of capitalistic and political exploitation of human resources among the villagers-workers. During the Second World War, the town of Bor was a forced labour camp, due to the large and valuable copper mine, and there was no public library institution. Books and other reading materials were allowed to circulate only among the Nazi occupants. The Public Library Bor (‘the Library’) was founded in 1962, when several smaller suburban public libraries and reading rooms were combined. Since then, it has been the central library for the District of Bor. Since 1972, the Library has been located in the House of Culture, in a dedicated space across four floors. The Library has changed its organization several times, and today it consists of six departments: Department for the Acquisition and Cataloguing, Information Services Department, Children’s Department, Department for the Adults (with two sub-departments – Languages and Literature, and Non-fiction), Local History Department, and Special Collections and Periodicals with the reading room. There is also a special broad and well-equipped hall for exhibitions, projections, concerts and other programs on the first floor. The Library has four branches in the nearby villages, too. Right now, 18 librarians work in the Library and its branches, with six of them being senior librarians and one of them an advisor. The Library continually acquires, catalogues and lends various print and non-print materials and sources of information – books, periodicals, non-book materials such as photos, maps, movies and videos, multimedia etc. The collections are mostly available for self-service and the majority of materials are for use outside of the library. Membership is obligatory for those who want to take the materials home, but the fees are symbolic (1.5–3.5 euros per year) and many categories of citizens, such as pre-school children or the unemployed, can become members free of charge. The Library collections are regularly renewed, according to the analysis and evaluation by staff of the collections and their purposes, the publishing production, and the users’ needs and demands. The acquisition is selective but non-discriminatory, because the main goal of the Library is to provide access to the reading materials and a variety of reliable and checked sources of information to all citizens who need them in all possible formats. The other important aim of the Library is to promote reading interests, knowledge, valuable fiction and non-fiction works, sources of scientific information, and literacies of all kinds, including media and information and digital literacy. In order to do that, library staff organize various programs such as book talks, literary evenings with the authors, lectures, panel discussions, workshops for kids, young adults or librarians, and photo-exhibitions, especially those designed to present and promote the Local History Department Photography Collection and/or local photographers and other visual artists. In addition to the materials, the users have 6 PCs with internet access at their disposal. Recently, the Library acquired a VR headset, so that new materials – educative VR content – have become available. There is the possibility of interlibrary loans, too. The Library participates in the national and international Cooperative Online Bibliographic System and Services (COBISS), so that the information about collections (catalogue records) and a user’s own history of loans, reservations, search terms, and organized saved records are online and freely accessible, searchable and personally manageable for the user. Since 1999, the Library has published „Beležnica“ (The Notebook) – a journal dedicated both to library and information science activities, especially the activities of the Public Library Bor, as well as the local scene, history, literature and other issues of local significance. The publishing activity of the Library also includes several books (edited collections) as the final results of the various projects. < About Curatorial Inquiries Activities >

Past Programs 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2019 Program Archive Call for applications: “WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO?” curatorial course 2019 February 5, 2019

< Back A response to Bruno Latour’s Protective Measures Nathalie Encarnacion “What protective measures can you think of so we don’t go back to the pre-crisis production model?” The pandemic has affected both demand for and supply of commodities. Those effects are direct, resulting from shutdowns to mitigate the spread of the virus and disruptions to supply chains, and also indirect, as the global response slows growth and leads to what is anticipated to be the deepest global recession in decades. However, according to the Guardian, “Global carbon emissions from the fossil fuel industry could fall by a record 2.5bn tonnes this year, a reduction of 5%, as the coronavirus pandemic triggers the biggest drop in demand for fossil fuels on record.” For the first time in 50 years, we would be seeing the fossil fuel industry’s biggest drop in CO2 emissions. It is in everyone’s best interest to continue to cease consumption and the support of the consumer market, retail market, and marketplaces that support energy, industrial, industries fueling climate change. We have control. This is not a challenge. The world is telling us to slow down. Rethink your International transport, rethink your local transport, rethink your spending habits. This is the new normal. Continue restricting your flying to only critical, long-distance trips. Maritime and air shipping have an extreme effect on the climate, from clothes to groceries shipped from Chile and Australia to Europe. There are no perfect solutions to slow down or reverse climate change. However be mindful. We can see from our lifestyle changes we have the power. We must continue to support local and consume less. When we see our neighbor suffering, help them. This is our new reality. Systems of government are not in our favor, your neighbor is. Lend your neighbor a hand. Support your community. Trust in one another. We have demonstrated very clearly these past 7 weeks that we can come together, connect from afar, turn off pollution, curve co2 emissions. This does not have to be temporary. And we do not need to see people suffer. There is a light in this darkness. When the ban gets lifted continue to exercise your rights as citizens and consumers. Avoid investing your money into companies that fuel fossil industries and a capitalist system gridlocked in investing in high-emission industries and begin investing into the one’s beside you. This is a moment to embrace the road towards transition. We must continue to sacrifice. Build our own local economies. Embrace the DIY. Maintain strength. Discipline. Control. And do not fear. We must invest in renewable energy sources, our friends, and in ourselves. Think positively. Burn down a corrupt economic, capitalist system. Work with each other, not against. Create cooperatives. This isn’t a time of uncertainty or fear. This is the time of utmost certainty. We know what we should be doing. We are the solution. Continue to reflect. Continue to be mindful. Continue to disrupt supply chains and rattle the market. Continue to create meaningful new and cold connections. Stand 6 feet apart, with strength and care. This is no longer about about “me” it is about “us”. I ask WHAT DO WE TRULY NEED? HOW CAN WE FULFILL OURSELVES IN MEANINGFUL WAYS THAT GO BEYOND CONSUMPTION? WHAT IS WEALTH MEASURED BY? Nathalie Encarnacion (b. 1994, New York) is a conceptual researcher working within the realms of media, writing, discussion, exhibition and art making. Previous Next

(LAST) THINGS As a final gesture to wrap up the program we propose an online collective session. Its aim is to share some of the individual writing or exercises and receive feedback from tutors and colleagues, as well as to collectively create a poetic text based on the main topics and questions aroused during the course. The meeting is a recurring event with a limitation of 10 participants. Estimated duration: around 2 hrs. To take part subscribe for a proposed time in the table below. Form: Date/ Time (GMT)/ Number of places left/ (organizer provides nearest time/date options and limits the number of attendants) Empty text field: Enter an email to receive a zoom link for the meeting. (user receives a zoom link for a set time) If by any reason you decide to not take part in the online meeting, we can provide you with instructions for individual work. Empty text field: Enter an email to receive an individual task. Online session content: (LAST) THINGS TO BE SAID This session will be led by program initiator Biljana Ciric. Meeting duration: 1 hr. Please prepare and send your selected task from any Block of the program via email wcscd.online@gmail.com . It can be a pdf/word file or a link to video or any multimedia file. A folder with participant’s presentations will be sent to your email for preliminary review. During the session you will have 5 minutes to present and 5 minutes for collective feedback. (LAST) THINGS TO BE WRITTEN This session will be led by Anastasia Albokrinova. Meeting duration: 1 hr. This session will be dedicated to writing a collective poem in relation to educational practice. You don’t need any prior experience in poetry, but be ready to brainstorm and improvise. Please have your tasks done previously for the program nearby. They may be needed.

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Comradeship: Curating, Art, and Politics in Post-Socialist Europe by Zdenka Badovinac This is the third book in the PERSPECTIVES IN CURATING series, which offers timely reflections by curators, artists, critics, and art historians on emergent debates in curatorial practice around the world. Venue:Ostavinska , Kraljevica Marka 8, Belgrade Date: September 21st 2019 19:00 Comradeship is a collection of essays by Zdenka Badovinac, the forward-thinking Slovenian curator, museum director, and scholar. Badovinac has been an influential voice in international conversations rethinking the geopolitics of art after the fall of communism, a ferocious critic of unequal negotiations between East and West, and a historian of the avant-garde art that emerged in socialist and post-socialist countries in the last century. She has been, moreover, an advocate for radical institutional forms: museums responsive to the complexities of the past and commensurate to the demands of the present. Gathering writings from disparate and hard-to-find sources alongside new texts, this book offers an essential portrait of a major thinker, and a crucial handbook of alternative approaches to curating and institution-building in the 21st century. “Whip smart, politically astute, curatorially inventive:
Zdenka Badovinac is nothing less than the most progressive and intellectually rigorous female museum director in Europe. This anthology includes key essays accompanying her series of brilliant exhibitions in Ljubljana, and is essential reading for anyone interested in the differences between former east and former west. For anyone seeking curatorial alternatives to the neoliberal museum model of relentless expansion and dumbed- down blockbusters, Badovinac is a galvanizing inspiration.” —Claire Bishop, art historian and critic About the Speaker: Zdenka Badovinac is a curator and writer, who has served since 1993 as Director of the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana, comprised since 2011 of two locations: the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova. In her work, Badovinac highlights the difficult processes of redefining history alongside different avant-garde traditions within contemporary art. Badovinac’s first exhibition to address these issues was Body and the East—From the 1960s to the Present (1998). She also initiated the first Eastern European art collection, Arteast 2000+. One her most important recent projects is NSK from Kapital to Capital: Neue Slowenische Kunst – The Event of the Final Decade of Yugoslavia, Moderna galerija, 2015 (Traveled to Van Abbe Museum , Eindhoven, (2016), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2016) and the Museo Reina Sofía Madrid (2017)); NSK State Pavilion, 5tth Venice Biennale, 2017, co-curated with Charles Esche; The Heritage of 1989. Case Study: The Second Yugoslav Documents Exhibition, Modena galerija, Ljubljana, 2017, co-curated with Bojana Piškur; Sites of Sustainability Pavilions, Manifestos and Crypts, Hello World. Revising a Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin; Heavenly Beings: Neither Human nor Animal, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana, co-curated with Bojan Piškur, 2018; Her most recent book is Comradeship: Curating, Art, and Politics in Post-Socialist Europe (Independent Curators International (ICI), New York, 2019. Founding member of L’Internationale, a confederation of six modern and contemporary art institutions. Badovinac was Slovenian Commissioner at the Venice Biennale from 1993 to 1997 and 2005. and Austrian Commissioner at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 2002 and is the President of CIMAM, International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art, 2010–13. The event is free and open to the public. The WCSCD curatorial course and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. The lecture by Zdenka Badovinac is produced by WCSCD < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >