Minsk, November 23, 2019

Lo-Fi Social club / (Kastrychnickaja 16/3)

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.

The purpose of the Congress — to discuss and draw attention to the legal status of the artists in the Belarusian and Swedish society, in order to direct the attention of state bodies to the legal aspects that require a change in the context of new forms of artistic production and precarious work.

STATUS is a collective research project that has been created by the joint coordination of Swedish and Belarusian partners: Konstepidemin in Gothenburg and KX Space gallery in Brest. The aim of the project is to bring together artists and cultural workers with a common goal to analyze the conditions of artistic practice and give visibility to the people who conduct it in today’s world. The  publication ‘Artistic Positions in Changing Society. Observations from Belarus and Sweden’ that contains texts and artworks documentation in terms of STATUS project will be presented at the event.

Organizers of the project: Konstepidemin (Sweden), KX Space gallery (Brest).

Project partners: The Swedish Institute, Swedish Union of Artists.

Idea and realisation: Aleksei Borisionok, Tania Arcimovich, Inha Lindarenka, Alina Dzeravianka, Mona Wallström, Denis Romanovski.

Artwork for the poster: Masha Svyatagor.

Poster design: Maria Kirilchik.

Art intervention into the space: Sergey Shabohin.

Partisipants: Almira Ousmanova, Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Aleksei Borisionok, Mona Wallstrom, Sofia de la Fuente, Stsiapan Stureika, Tania Arcimovich, Uladzimir Hramovich, Alena Aharelysheva, Volha Maslouskaya, Aliaxey Talstou, Linda Tedsdotter, Lizaveta Mikhalchuk, Mikhail Gulin, Olia Maslovskaya, Sergey Shabohin.

There will be simultaneous English/Russian translation during the congress.

PROGRAM

10:00 The opening of the Congress and the presentation of the publication ‘Artistic Positions in Changing Society. Observations from Belarus and Sweden”.

10:15 – 12:00  Post Work. A panel discussion on art and labour.

Partisipants: Almira Ousmanova (Belarus/Lithuania), Jonatan Habib Engqvist (Sweden).

Moderated by Aleksei Borisionok.

12:00 – 14:00  Legal Status of Artists. What is the future? Panel discussion.

Partisipants: Tania Arcimovich, Uladzimir Hramovich, Linda Tedsdotter.

Moderated by Aliaxey Talstou.

14:15 ‘A Social Role’, performance by Mikhail Gulin.

15:00 – 16:30 Artistic Unions: cases of Belarus and Sweden. Panel discussion.

Partisipants: Sofia de la Fuente (vice head of board of Swedish Art Association and also representative of Sweden for International Artist Association) and Gleb Otchyk, First Deputy Chairman of the Belarusian Union of Artists.

Moderated by Mona Wallstrom.

16:30 – 18:00 Art, gender and age: support structures and invisible work. Art-talk.

Moderated by Alena Aharelysheva.

18:30 – 20:00 Session of collective reading and discussion of the Codex of Culture.

Moderated by Stsiapan Stureika.

20:30 Perfomance by Olia Maslouskaya.

21:00-23.00 Music and drinks.

Post Work. A panel discussion on art and labour.

In 2012, the seminal book “WORK WORK WORK. A reader on Art and Labour” was published by IASPIS, The International Artists Studio Program in Stockholm. In his essay from this publication, theorist and curator Lars Bang Larsen registers the paradoxical relations of art and work. On the one hand, art has now more than ever been introduced into the socioeconomic sphere, and therefore could be recognised as work. On the other hand, artistic practice breaks the rhythm of working regime, being “a refusal to take part in the production and reproduction of that what exists”, in Bang Larsen’s words. What do we understand by cultural work today? How it is inserted into the market-driven economy and labor system, capitalist exploitation and bureaucratic control? How cultural workers address those issues, what are the ways of organising? What are the differences in Northern and Eastern Europe?

25 minute statements from a philosopher Almira Ousmanova and a curator Jonatan Habib Engqvist will be followed by moderated discussion and questions from the audience.

Partisipants: Almira Ousmanova (Belarus/Lithuania), Jonatan Habib Engqvist (Sweden).

Moderated by Aleksei Borisionok.

Legal Status of artists. What is the future? Panel discussion.

A widely known stereotype of hungry yet inspired artists manifests itself in the Belarusian reality through the uncertainty of their legal status among other things. The same applies to critics, curators, art managers, and other cultural workers. Being in rather precarious conditions, working from exhibition to exhibition, hoping for a sale or a minimal fee, agreeing to project work, taking part-time work and at the same time trying to build a career, people from this area are rarely confident in their future. But how to determine their current status? Who are they on the labor market? Private individuals, entrepreneurs, staff members on the contract? Or do they officially register as craftspersons? Is their professional affiliation confirmed by a certificate issued by the Ministry of Culture? Are they employed on another ‘official’ work? Or maybe they ‘parasite’ on state social policy? There are many questions. During the discussion, we will try to cover some of them.

Partisipants: Tania Arcimovich, Uladzimir Hramovich, Linda Tedsdotter.

Moderated by Aliaxey Talstou.

Artistic Unions: cases of Belarus and Sweden. Panel discussion.

We invite the representatives from artistic unions of Sweden and Belarus to speak about the urgent issues of its members, views towards cultural politics of their governments, problems and concerns regarding the legal status of artist and how the membership in the organisation can help artists to fight for their rights? How the artistic unions from Belarus and Sweden react to the new forms of creativity, new forms of employment and precarity?

Moderated by Mona Wallstrom.

Art, gender and age: support structures and invisible work. Art talk.

The talk will be dedicated to a position of artist-mother in the field of artistic production, economy, and precarious labor. Besides that, the talk will also address the questions related to the age and ageing, and discuss the importance of social welfare in artists’ lives.

Moderated by Alena Aharelyshava

Session of collective reading and discussion of the Codex of Culture.

Session of collective reading and discussion of the Codex of Culture will be based on the short presentations, readings and analysis of selected abstracts from the document. As a main legal document – Codex of Culture – was hardly discussed in details. Thus, the invited experts in different areas of knowledge – heritage, organisation of cultural events, gender, art unions, etc.

Moderated by Stsiapan Stureika.