Photojournalist and visual artist Maxim Sarychau reflects on financial insecurity and exploitation in the field of art and photojournalism. Are we free fuel? Or did we learn how to say no? “It seems that no state union or existing independent organization can defend our rights today. We all found ourselves in a crystal clear situation: self-organize or die.”
Curator and researcher Tania Arcimovich presents the final version of the essay, based on a collection of personal reflections from the everyday life of cultural workers from Belarus. She questions why non-public and non-visible lives full of anxieties and affects hardly could be found in artistic bios and CVs.
November 23, 2019 in Minsk will host the Congress-performance of cultural workers initiated by the members and participants of the project “STATUS: The role of artists in changing society” (Belarus and Sweden). During the one-day event, there will be discussions and conversations, workshops and performances, as well as presentations of the artworks related to the issues of working conditions and legal status of artists in Belarus and Sweden, defending rights, equality, gender and age. Congress invites professionals from the field of culture and arts, as well as anyone interested in the stated topics.
In the form of a research group Heritagization, Chiara Valli in collaboration with Alina Dzeravianka and Elina Vidarsson analyze the ways in which artistic and activist practices contribute to or challenge the production of cultural heritage. Using a theoretical frame and case studies from Belarus and Sweden, researchers share their perspectives on the following questions: How can art challenge and refute authoritative methods of heritage making? How can art make more plural, inclusive, democratic present and futures, by working with history and the past?
Researcher and curator Tania Arcimovich presents an essay on the social and economic status of Belarusian artists. In the frame of her mini-research, she compares local experiences within the art field with transformations happening in the global sphere of culture.
Linda Tedsdotter invites artists to take part in her ongoing piece “Apocalypse Insurance”, in which she would present vacuum packaged art books for survivors of the future, when this world finally will go underwater.
In “The collective writings”, artists Nils Claesson, Olia Sosnovskaya, Nicolay Spesivtsev, Dzina Zhuk discuss the notion of ‘work’ and ‘non-work’ in the context of Contemporary Art and Economics. Questioning the work-centered future, they investigate political potentiality of laziness, procrastination and non-productivity, alternative models of pleasures and affective labor.
In the frame of the research project Heritagization – a term that refers to the process of manifestation of cultural heritage – researchers Alina Dzeravianka, Chiara Valli, and Elina Vidarsson have collected a number of research cases of grassroot artistic and activist initiatives from Belarus and Sweden, which question the authorized forms of the production of heritage.
Artist Ingrid Falk outlines her preparatory experience of work on the collective performance. Working with and through a questionnaire, which she uses to gather audience reflections on the issue of heritagization and the role of cultural workers, she takes on the role of the research rabbit and cockroach-parasite.