Rockbund Art Museum

Main Symposium Presenters:
What Could Should Curating Do (www.wcscd.com)
Moderna galerija, Ljubljana (http://www.mg-lj.si/)

Organized by Biljana Ciric

DATES: March 22nd – 31st 2021
TIME: 11am Ljubljana time / 9pm Melbourne time/ 1pm Addis Ababa / 6pm Shanghai, Guangzhou / 4pm Astana

Participants: Zdenka Badovinac (curator, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana); Robel Temesgen ( artist, Addis Ababa); Larys Frogier (director, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai ); Sinkneh Eshetu (writer,Addis Ababa); Marija Glavas (sociologist, Ljubljana); Berhanu (anthropologist, Canberra); Aigerim Kapar (interdependent curator, Astana); Jelica Jovanovic (architect, Belgrade); Hu Yun (artist, Melbourne); Jasphy Zheng (artist, Xia Men); Dragan Stojmenovic (Public Library, Bor); Nikita Choi (chief curator, Times Museum, Guangzhou); Robert Bobnic and Kaja Kraner (researchers, lecturers Ljubljana); Aziza Abdulfetah Busser (architect and academic, Addis Ababa); Alex Ulko (artist and researcher, Tashkent); Brett Neilson (professor Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University); Yabebal Fantaye (Astrophysicist and a data scientist, co-founder of the 10 Academy initiative, Addis Ababa), Salem Makuria (independent writer, producer, director, videographer, and professor in the Art Department at Wellesley College), Biljana Ciric (interdependent curator and founder of WCSCD)

Main Symposium Presenters:
What Could Should Curating Do (www.wcscd.com)
Moderna galerija, Ljubljana (http://www.mg-lj.si/)

Organized by Biljana Ciric

DATES: March 22nd – 31st 2021
TIME: 11am Ljubljana time / 9pm Melbourne time/ 1pm Addis Ababa / 6pm Shanghai, Guangzhou / 4pm Astana

Participants: Zdenka Badovinac (curator, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana); Robel Temesgen ( artist, Addis Ababa); Larys Frogier (director, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai ); Sinkneh Eshetu (writer,Addis Ababa); Marija Glavas (sociologist, Ljubljana); Berhanu (anthropologist, Canberra); Aigerim Kapar (interdependent curator, Astana); Jelica Jovanovic (architect, Belgrade); Hu Yun (artist, Melbourne); Jasphy Zheng (artist, Xia Men); Dragan Stojmenovic (Public Library, Bor); Nikita Choi (chief curator, Times Museum, Guangzhou); Robert Bobnic and Kaja Kraner (researchers, lecturers Ljubljana); Aziza Abdulfetah Busser (architect and academic, Addis Ababa); Alex Ulko (artist and researcher, Tashkent); Brett Neilson (professor Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University); Yabebal Fantaye (Astrophysicist and a data scientist, co-founder of the 10 Academy initiative, Addis Ababa), Salem Makuria (independent writer, producer, director, videographer, and professor in the Art Department at Wellesley College), Biljana Ciric (interdependent curator and founder of WCSCD)

INTRODUCTION

As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future symposium is the first public moment of sharing not only our research, but also our mode of working based on relationality and interdependence that we bring with us as we move forward.

As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future is a long-term project and research centres around the unheard voices and raising awareness to the shared problems underlying different contexts, ranging from China to Balkan, from Ethiopia to Central Asia. Through building a collective knowledge platform organized around the principals of ‘organic cells’ of the research — the collaborations with span from individuals and small-scale organizations to state-run and private museums — which together will form a close-knit atmosphere to engage in an entirely novel form of collaboration.

Many of these localities involved in the project situated on the margins of the global economy re-gained a momentum of visibility through geo-political conflicts. Could a new visibility and set of geo-politics create alternatives to our existence, or will it uphold the extractivist capital logic done for so many years by Western European modernity are some of the questions that we try to unpack through research case studies.

The project started in February 2020 just before the pandemic was announced, and since then, we have continued to work, learning how to co-exist under our new living conditions. The current conditions transformed the project into much more than the original plan. It became an examination of our own existence, the way we walk with in the world, how we practice inter-dependence, and stretch existing institutional structures through which we as practitioners navigate.
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INTRODUCTION

As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future symposium is the first public moment of sharing not only our research, but also our mode of working based on relationality and interdependence that we bring with us as we move forward.

As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future is a long-term project and research centres around the unheard voices and raising awareness to the shared problems underlying different contexts, ranging from China to Balkan, from Ethiopia to Central Asia. Through building a collective knowledge platform organized around the principals of ‘organic cells’ of the research — the collaborations with span from individuals and small-scale organizations to state-run and private museums — which together will form a close-knit atmosphere to engage in an entirely novel form of collaboration.

Many of these localities involved in the project situated on the margins of the global economy re-gained a momentum of visibility through geo-political conflicts. Could a new visibility and set of geo-politics create alternatives to our existence, or will it uphold the extractivist capital logic done for so many years by Western European modernity are some of the questions that we try to unpack through research case studies.

The project started in February 2020 just before the pandemic was announced, and since then, we have continued to work, learning how to co-exist under our new living conditions. The current conditions transformed the project into much more than the original plan. It became an examination of our own existence, the way we walk with in the world, how we practice inter-dependence, and stretch existing institutional structures through which we as practitioners navigate.

Throughout the year we have made the research happening through our online journal which follows works and research in progress. This journal has served as a tool in responding to crises within the contexts we are caring with.

Since April 2020 due to pandemic we have employed strategy dig where you stand and we have working with fifteen researchers across Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ethiopia, Serbia, Slovenia, and China. The research inquiry has been developed trying to listen local urgencies and learn from them.

They are writers, anthropologists, artists, architects, and activists, and we will continue to work into this year as well. Acknowledging and reflecting on our previous way of working, we have employed a dig where you stand strategy, where a number of case studies had been formulated and from here, local research has been conducted.

This symposium will share thinking with and walking with or partners cells, as well as researchers through six days symposium that will be available through live stream.

A tool kit created together with researchers and cells that would allow for deep listening with all five senses, challenging visual aspects and presence through Zoom.

Researchers and cells were invited to provide tools for listening, seeing, smelling, touching, and tasting that could overcome our physical distance. Pls experience tool kit through: http://wcscd.com/. Tool Kit should allow us to grasp physicality of places we will be sharing research from.

PROGRAM

March 22nd
11am – 13:30 pm CET

Introduction - an introduction to the project and its mode of working during the pandemic as a proposition towards interdependence by Biljana Ciric and Zdenka Badovinac

Screening of the film Awra Amba E(UTOPIA) by Salem Mekuria

About seventy years ago, Zumra Nuru was born into a traditional agrarian Muslim family in a remote village in Northern Ethiopia, near Awra Amba. He never went to school. As a child he started questioning why things were as unequal and unjust as he observed life in his village to be.  He dreamt of a society where people could live in peace and full equality regardless of who they were. Fifty years ago, that dream materialized into what is now known as Awra Amba, a community based on true equality in all aspects of life and where religion is a private affair. This story introduces a revolutionary society thriving in the heart of a very conservative Ethiopia. With interviews and compelling scenes of the village and its people, Awra Amba’s (E)utopia will give us a glimpse into their unique lifestyle.

Presentations:

Robel Temesgen
The Addis Newspaper

Marija Glavas
THE CULTURAL INTERWEAVING OF CHINA AND THE BALKANS

March 23rd
11am – 13:00 pm CET
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