HOW TO DO THINGS WITH CONTEXT?

 

The multiplier conference is a part of “Curating in Context” Erasmus+ project co-organized by two NGOs (Tanzfabrik Berlin and Lokomotiva Skopje), and two Higher Education Institutions (Stockholm University of the Arts and Academy of Dramatic Art University of Zagreb). The project aims to create knowledge, rethink curatorial and educational practices and valorisation of art, their socio-political and economic contexts, their relation to activism, social movements and self-organization, and in general impact of the cultural and civic sectors on society.

 

For registration please write to:
tena.bosnjakovic@adu.hr

 

22. 10. 2021

15-15.45

1. POGON – Zagreb Centre for Independent Culture and Youth between past and future

Pogon is located next to Staro Trnje, working class neighbourhood with a rich history of failed urban planning. On the other hand, it represents “Zagreb as it used to be” in the eyes of older citizens. Talking you on a walk around Pogon and nearby streets, we will introduce you to this surprising micro-location which surrounds it, its history and its potential. The walk will be guided by architect Antun Sevšek.

 

16-16.30 Coffee and cookies

 

16.30 – 18.00

2. Participatory governance in Croatia – praxis and potential

This lecture and presentation will take us to the history of founding and development of Pogon – the first institution in Croatia organised on the basis of civil-public partnership between the City of Zagreb and Operation City, a coalition of organizations in the field of independent culture and youth. This marks the beginning of a long story of similar initiatives in Croatia working on development of models of participatory governance in culture, as well as intersectional integration of different social agents such as platform Upgrade and work on the development of Intercultural Social Centre. Mirela Travar, the president of Operation City and Janja Sesar, the director of Pogon will introduce us to these issues.

 

19.00

Giullia Paladini
The materiality of learning: on translation, radical indiscipline and epistemological care (lecture)
In this lecture I shall propose a reflection on the materiality of teaching and learning, in and around contemporary globalised academia. I shall interrogate the practice of translation, and its intrinsic ethical impossibility, asking what political capacities and processes of subjectivation students and educators can craft to clog the system of epistemological thinking on which white, Western academia is founded, and that seemingly pre-determine the shape of our own contribution to knowledge and artistic production.

 

23. 10.

10.00 – 12.00
Presentation of the project outputs
- course „Curatorial practice and context„
- Summer School Program
- MA program „Performance in Context”

- with Kristine Slettevold, Biljana Tanurovska, Nikolina Pristaš and Una Bauer
- Curating in Context project which hosts this conference has been going on for two years. Curating in Context has been co-organized by two NGOs (Tanzfabrik Berlin and Lokomotiva Skopje), and two Higher Education Institutions (Stockholm University of the Arts and Academy of Dramatic Art University of Zagreb). The project aims to create knowledge, rethink curatorial and educational practices and valorisation of art, their socio-political and economic contexts, their relation to activism, social movements and self-organization, and in general impact of the cultural and civic sectors on society. The presentation will introduce you to the ideas, experiences, discussions, outcomes and outline of the future MA program, course and summer school program created and developed within the framework of the project.

 

12.00 – 14.00
What Institutions should do?
with Silvia Bottiroli and Florian Malzacher
moderated by Silke Bake

Art institutions are capable to quickly reorient themselves towards the nominal integration of new artistic powers and, unconsciously replicating postfordist principles of production, invite artists over for an intervention and production of new collaborations. The institutions are capable of co-opting even the most progressive formats of political thinking, but how do they reflect or refract the changes of the context in which they operate? And what are the horizons of their responsibility?

 

15.00 – 17.00
Dramaturgy and Post-Yugoslav Context
with Bojana Kunst, Ana Vujanović, Janez Janša, Aldo Milohnić, Ivana Ivković and Goran Sergej Pristaš
moderated by Mila Pavićević

This panel aims to take a closer look at the specificity of the practice of dramaturgy that emerged from the context of former Yugoslavia, as a practice that later on travelled to the contemporary dance scenes of Western Europe. It reflects on its contribution on the articulation of Western contemporary dance and the critical thinking about dance since the 2000s. How did the conditions and the experiences of former Yugoslavia influence the thinking about dance? What has the West learned from the East and vice versa?

 

17.00 – 19.00
- Queer/Curating in Context
with Slavčo Dimitrov, Iva Kovač, Marko Gutić Mižimakov
moderated by Jasna Jasna Žmak

Dealing with the concept of queerating in the field of performing and visual arts in three ex-Yugoslavia countries (Slovenia, North Macedonia, Croatia), this round table will tackle different challenges that both artists and curators working in this field are facing. On the one hand, from the perspective of the mainstream cultural field, queer art practices function as an almost invisible margin of an already marginalised territory, on the other they are faced with constant developments of queer concepts. Having almost none historical precedents, queer curating and art in ex-Yugoslavia have had the chance to define themselves from scratch, creating a
completely new language, opening up space for a completely new practice.

 

The multiplier conference is a part of “Curating in Context” Erasmus+ project co-organized by two NGOs (Tanzfabrik Berlin and Lokomotiva Skopje), and two Higher Education Institutions (Stockholm University of the Arts and Academy of Dramatic Art University of Zagreb). The project aims to create knowledge, rethink curatorial practices and valorisation of art, its socio-political and economic contexts, its relation to activism, social movements and self-organization, and in general impact of the cultural and civic sectors on society.

 

 

Participants:

 

Silke Bake lives in Berlin, and works as curator, dramaturge and mentor. She has worked for diverse institutions (including TAT Frankfurt, Hebbel-Theater Berlin, Tanzquartier Wien) and realised programs for the House of World Cultures, the Academy of the Arts Berlin, Kanuti Gildi Saal Tallinn, Theaterformen Hannover/ Braunschweig, Tanzfabrik Berlin. She worked as the dramaturg and project manager for the performing arts festival IN TRANIST in 2008 & 2009, she was the co-curator of the biennial NU Performance Festival On Hospitality on the occasion of the cultural capital program of Tallinn 2011, and of performance platform. body affects at Sophiensaele Berlin 2012, and the artistic director of the biennial programm Tanznacht Berlin in 2016 (companions) & 2018 (Out of the Echo Chamber). In 2018 she was guest professor at the MA program SODA / HZT Berlin. Together with colleagues she is continuously working on formats for discussion and discourse. She is part of the collective neue häute, and currently general & artistic manager of the European network apap – Feminist Futures.

 

Una Bauer is a theatre scholar and writer based in Croatia. She holds a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. She is assistant professor at the Academy of Dramatic Art (Zagreb). Her first book on theatre and everything else, including tea cosies and bicycles, Priđite bliže: o kazalištu i drugim radostima (Come Closer: on Theatre and other Joys) was published in 2015. Her second book BADco.: Vježbanje nemogućeg (BADco.: Practicing the Impossible), a series of in-depth interviews with BADco. members was published in 2021. She was one of the researchers on Narrating fear project initiated by Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, which resulted in publication of two edited collections, Encountering Fear (2021) and Narrating Fear (2019), co-edited with Natka Badurina, Renata Jambrešić Kirin and Jelena Marković.

 

Silvia Bottiroli, PhD, is an independent curator, researcher, organizer and educator in the field of performing arts, interested in the intersections between theoretical research, curatorial practices and education, and in the politics of performativity and spectatorship.
She was the artistic director of DAS Theatre in Amsterdam (2018-2021) and of Santarcangelo Festival (2012-2016). She curated the program The May Events for KunstenFestivalDesArts in Brussels and Vooruit in Ghent (2018) and co-curated various artistic, discursive, and educational platforms, collaborating among others with Homo Novus Festival in Riga and School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem. Since 2011 she has been teaching Methodology, Critique, and Research in the Arts at Bocconi University in Milan and since 2019 she is co-curating together with Kee Hong Low and a new performative platform for Freespace in Hong Kong.

 

Slavcho Dimitrov is a researcher, queer and gender theorists, curator and activist from North Macedonia. He had his bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature at the St. Cyril and Methodius University. He got his first master’s degree in Gender Studies and Philosophy at the Euro-Balkan Institute in Skopje, and his second master’s degree in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies at Cambridge University. Currently he is a PhD student at the Faculty of Media and Communications, Belgrade. He has worked as a teaching assistant at FON University, Euro-Balkan University, and FMC, Belgrade. He is the founder of the international Summer School for Sexualities, Cultures and Politics in Belgrade, and is one of founders of IPAK.Center. He has curated several art and cultural projects, and many conferences in North Macedonia, including the Skopje Pride Weekend – queer arts, culture and theory festival. In 2020 he was awarded the Igor Zabel Award grant, and in 2019 the award of AICA Macedonia.

 

Marko Gutić Mižimakov is a visual artist working in performance, animation and text, often collaboratively. Throughout his practice he assesses the capacity of digital images and physical objects to catalyse affective transmission between subjects. In recent outings, as Anne Ampersand, he is looking into the ontological connection between machine learning and drag performance. Taking an active role in the local independent scene, he works and lives in Zagreb where he founded the project Čvorište (The Hub). His works have been shown, exhibited and performed at Gallery Nova Zagreb, Ostrale Biennale 2021 Dresden, Konak Beograd, The Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, V2 Institute for Unstable Media Rotterdam, The Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje, D2 Kunstraum Leipzig, etc. In 2020 he was a resident at PACT Zollverein Essen, Germany. He is affiliated with QueerANarchive, Kik Melone and DISCOllective, Nika Pećarina and Sonja Pregrad.

 

Ivana Ivković is a dramaturg whose interests lay on the intersections of theater, contemporary dance, new media technologies, sound art, and radiophony. In collaboration with other artists and as a member of Zagreb-based performance collective BADco. she has co-authored a series of artistic projects for the stage, gallery, screen, radio waves and page since 2004 that have been presented internationally, including at the Steirischer Herbst Festival, Berlin’s Volksbühne and the Venice Biennale. A former editor-in-chief of Frakcija Journal for Performing Arts (2008-2012), she has also published in other publications (Maska, The Drama Review, TkH, Jungle Juice Magazine…). She is a recipient of several fellowships (Akademie Schloss Solitude, CEC ArtsLink), teaches at the Alma Mater Europaea Dance Academy MA program, regularly holds workshops and presents at international festivals, symposia and conferences.

 

Janez Janša is contemporary performance artist who in his performance, conceptual and interdisciplinary art works focus on the relation between art and the social and political context surrounding it. He was the director of Maska (1998-2021), an institute for publishing, artistic production and education, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia and edited several books on contemporary dance and theatre. He was editor-in-chief of Maska, performing arts journal (1999-2006). He is author of the book on early works by Jan Fabre (La discipline du chaos, le chaos de la discipline, 1994). He is a co-founder and the first president of the Association of the NGO and freelance artists (“Asociacija”) in Slovenia. As a performer, he collaborated with choreographers Meg Stuart, Boris Charmatz and Iztok Kovač a.o. He is the head of the MA program Solo/Dance/Authorship at the Inter-University Centre for Dance (HZT) Berlin. He is a member of editorial boards of the journals Performance Research and Maska. In 2007 together with two other Slovenian artists he changed his previous name into the name of the conservative, three times prime-minister of Slovenia. Together with Janez Janša and Janez Janša he is the owner of the Janez Janša® registered trade mark.

 

Iva Kovač works as a program director of the City of Women since 2021. She has been a visual artist at Fokus Grupa since 2012. She was the curator at PM Gallery in Zagreb from 2010 to 2012 and at SIZ Gallery in Rijeka from 2013 to 2015. From 2017 to 2021 she was the curator at GSG in Rijeka where she initiated and (co)edited the first three issues of GSG magazine for Contemporary Art and Social Question. As Fokus Grupa she received the Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen Scholarship while developing a seminar on how architecture shapes communities and reproduces gendered spaces and heteronormative relations at the Innsbruck Institute for Architectural Theory. Within the recent research, which looks at the colonial history of the European periphery, Fokus Grupa published an article titled A Room with a Landscape in ARTMargins journal.

 

Bojana Kunst is a philosopher, dramaturg and theoretician of contemporary performing arts. She is a professor at the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies at the University Justus Liebig in Gießen, where she has been heading the international MA programme Choreography and Performance since 2012. After finishing her PhD in philosophy at the University of Ljubljana and her post-doctoral studies at the University in Antwerp and the University of Ljubljana, she was a guest professor at several European art academies and universities, led dramaturgy workshops and worked as a dramaturg, advisor and lecturer. She is the author of several books and editor of many monographs, including: Višnje v čokoladi (Sour Cherries in Chocolate, 1995), Nemogoče telo (The Impossible Body, 1997), Nevarne povezave (Dangerous Connections, 2004), Umetnik na delu. Bližina umetnosti in kapitalizma (2013), translated as Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism (2015), The Life of Art, Transversal Lines of Care, Maska, Ljubljana 2021 (upcoming).

 

Florian Malzacher is an independent performing arts curator, dramaturge and writer. He was artistic director of Impulse Theater Festival in Cologne, Dusseldorf and Mulheim/Ruhr (2013-2017), and co-curator of the multidisciplinary arts festival steirischer herbst in Graz/Austria (2006-2012). Currently he is working on projects like Training for the Future (together with Jonas Staal) and The Art of Assembly, an online-series of lectures and talks on the potential of human gatherings. Among his publications are Truth is concrete. A Handbook for Artistic Strategies in Real Politics“ (2014, with steirischer herbst), Not Just a Mirror. Looking for the Political Theatre of Today (2015), Empty Stages, Crowded Flats. Performativity as Curatorial Strategy (2017, with Joanna Warsza), and Gesellschaftsspiele. Politisches Theater heute (2020). https://florianmalzacher.tumblr.com

 

Aldo Milohnić is Associate Professor of the History of Theatre at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television and the head of the Theatre and Film Studies Centre. He is the author of Theories of Contemporary Theatre and Performance (2009), Art in Times of the Rule of Law and Capital (2016) and Theatre of Resistance (2021). He is a member of the editorial boards of performing arts journals Amfiteater and European Journal of Theatre and Performance, a member of the Association of Theatre Critics and Researchers of Slovenia and International Federation for Theatre Research as well as a board member of the Slovenian Theatre Institute and the European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance.

 

Giulia Palladini is a researcher and critical theorist. Her work moves between different languages, and fields of knowledge, exploring the politics and erotics of artistic production, as well as social and cultural history from a Marxist and feminist perspective. She currently works in the School of Arts at the University of Roehampton, London, and has previously worked in Germany as Alexander von Humboldt fellow, and at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee. She is Visiting Professor in the Maestría interdisciplinar en Teatro y Artes Vivas in the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, has lectured in various international universities, and collaborated as theorist in a number of critical and artistic projects in Europe and Latin America. She is the author of The Scene of Foreplay: Theater, Labor and Leisure in 1960s New York (2017) and co-editor (with Marco Pustianaz) of Lexicon for an Affective Archive (2017). In 2021, she led the international research cluster ‘Feminismos Antipatriarcales and Poetic Disobedience’, part of the collaborative project ‘Queer Feminist Currents’.

 

Mila Pavićević, born in Dubrovnik, Croatia, is a dramaturge, writer and producer working mainly in the context of the independent dance scene in Berlin, Germany. She collaborates with choreographers Sergiu Matis, Sheena McGrandles and Sebastian Matthias. She is a part of the PSR Collective that curates in the newly renovated Heizhaus in Wedding, Berlin, with a strong focus on connecting different communities of artists and non-artists through artistic research and sharing practices. She finished Dramaturgy, at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb (MA,) and Greek and Comparative literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb (BA). She is employed as a researcher and teacher in the department of Dance Studies at the Free University Berlin. Her writing has been published and translated in many languages, ranging from Brazilian to Japanese.

 

Goran Pavlić is assistant professor at Dramaturgy Department, Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. His research interests include political economy of arts, performance theory, political theory, theory of ideology, Marxism. He co-edited two collections with Sibila Petlevski: Spaces of Identity in the Performing Sphere (2011), and Theatrum Mundi. Interdisciplinary Perspectives (2015). In 2019, he published a book The Glembays: Dual Reading. He writes theatre reviews, essays, and political commentaries for Croatian journals and web-magazines

 

Nikolina Pristaš is a dancer, a choreographer, co-founder of the performing arts collective BADco. (2000 -) and Assistant Professor at the Dance Department of the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb (2015 -). She graduated from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb (English Language and Literature and Comparative Literature), finished the eight-year program of the dance school Ane Maletić in Zagreb. Since 2000 she has been realizing her artistic interests through cooperation with members of the BADco. The specificity of artistic insights and knowledge produced in BADco, through a series of theater-dance performances, video installations, thematic symposia, art workshops and a few printed publications, resulted in her being invited to some of the prestigious art academies in Europe to attend as a lecturer and realize art projects in teaching practice. (Justus Liebig University – Giessen, P.A.R.T.S. – Brussels, The Danish National School for Performing Arts – Kopenhagen…).
At the Dance Department of the Academy of Dramatic Art she teaches courses of improvisational dance performance and contemporary choreography.

 

Goran Sergej Pristaš, dramaturge, co-founder and member of BADco. (www.badco.hr), performing arts collective. Professor of Dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, University of Zagreb. Researcher and curator in Centre for Drama Art (CDU) from 1995 till 2007. One of the initiators of the project Zagreb – Cultural Kapital of Europe 3000. With his projects and collaborations (BADco., Frakcija) participated at Venice Biennale 2011 and 2016, Documenta 12, ARCO and numerous festivals and conferences. Mentoring and teaching at Uniarts (Stockholm), JLU (Giessen), Statens Scenekunstskole (Copenhagen), P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels), KHiO Oslo etc.
Teaching courses in performance dramaturgy, writing for performance, analytical writing, dramaturgy and choreography, collaborative practices etc. First editor-in-chief (1996-2007) of Frakcija, a magazine for the performing arts. His latest book is Exploded Gaze (Multimedia Institute, Zagreb 2018).

 

Janja Sesar has been the Director of Pogon since 2017. She graduated in Croatian and German Language and Literature and earned a Master’s Degree in Cultural and Media Management from the Freie Universität in Berlin. She worked as a Coordinator at Alliance Operation City, was the Editor and Manager of Kulturpunkt.hr and has participated in the organization of various national and international cultural projects.

Antun Sevšek is an architect, researcher, and long-time activist dealing with the intersections of evolving urban planning strategies and their disruptions in contact with the social and material reality of the city.

 

Kristine N. Slettevold works as dancer, teacher/educator and dance maker. She is Norwegian, educated at the School for Contemporary dance in Oslo and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts and has been working in the field since 2001. Kristine has been seen as a dancer collaborating with choreographers in the freelance scene in Sweden and abroad, amongst others Impure Company/Hooman Sharifi, Eva Cecilie Richardsen, Ccap/Cristina Caprioli, Örjan Andersson, Helena Franzén, Malin Hellkvist Sellen, Gunilla Heilborn & Jefta Van Dinther. As a dance maker she has created the solo “duality of content” and the group piece pfft/a forced exhalation of air. She has been working as an assistant professor in dance at SKH; Stockholms konstnärliga högskola since 2010. From 2010-2020 Kristine was Head of program for the Ba program in dance performance and in April 2020 she was appointed Head of the Dance Department at SKH.

 

Biljana Tanurovska – Kjulavkovski is cultural producer, researcher and a curator. She is co-founder of Lokomotiva, Nomad Dance Academy (NDA) and Kino Kultura (KK) – project space for contemporary performing arts and culture in Skopje among other initiatives. Some of her latest programs and projects include program Art, Politics, Institution, Body, Curating in Context project and International Summer School, program Critical Practice (Made in Yugoslavia), research and development of Archive of performing arts in North Macedonia (contemporary dance, performance and theatre) as part of NDA project Non Aliened Movements, researcher and co-curator of the exhibition “REALIZE! RESIST! REACT! Performance and Politics in the 1990s in the Post-Yugoslav Context” in the Museum of Contemporary Arts Metelkova in Ljubljana, and publishing of her book “Modeling art and cultural institutions”. She is visiting lecturer on diverse academic programs, writes and publish articles dealing with cultural policy, art/cultural governance and curating.

 

Mirela Travar is an established activist, cultural and youth worker, trainer and facilitator. She has more than 15 years of experience in civil society where she worked on issues ranging from youth and human rights and human rights education, to independent culture and public goods. Internationally, she has worked with OSCE and the Council of Europe, while domestically, in her home country of Croatia, she worked with dozens of different organizations and institutions. She is currently working as president and coordinator of Operation City (full time, professionally) and is president of the Network of Socio-Cultural Centers: DKC-HR.

 

Ana Vujanović (Berlin / Belgrade) is a cultural worker focused on bringing together critical theory and contemporary art. She holds Ph.D. in Humanities (Theatre Studies) and post-graduate diploma in Culture and Gender Studies.
She has lectured at various universities and was a visiting professor at the Performance Studies Dpt. of the University Hamburg. Since 2016 she is a team member and mentor at SNDO – School for New Dance Development, Academy of Theatre and Dance Amsterdam. She was a member of the editorial collective of TkH [Walking Theory], a Belgrade-based theoretical-artistic platform, and editor-in-chief of the TkH Journal for Performing Arts Theory (2001-17). She participates in artworks (performance, theatre, dance, and video/film), as a dramaturge and co-author, most recently documentary film Landscapes of Resistance dir. by M. Popivoda. She has published a number of articles in journals and collections and authored and edited several books, most recently A Live Gathering: Performance and Politics in Contemporary Europe, ed. with L. Piazza (Berlin: b_books, 2019). Her new book Toward a Transindividual Self, A study in social dramaturgy, with B. Cvejic is in press by Archive Books, Berlin.

 

Jasna Jasna Žmak is a dramaturg and writer based in Zagreb, Croatia, and working in the fields of performance, dance, literature and film. She is assistant professor at the Department of Dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, where she previously graduated. She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the University of Zagreb. Her research interests include different shades of performance dramaturgy, reflections of feminist perspectives and questions of queer possibilities. She has published several books, including “Lecture as performance, performance as lecture – on the production of knowledge in the arts” (Leykam International, 2019) and “Dirty words – essays on female sexuality” (Fraktura, 2020).