Curating in Context Summer School

Struga, North Macedonia

August 29 – September 5, 2022  

“Con-texts: the curatorial, the lake, the writing bodies and bodies of water”

Few notes from Struga Summer School / a collective diary of sharing thoughts 

Anka Herbut, Elena Novakovits, Jette Buchsenschutz, Kasia Wolinska, Maeve Johnson, Masa Radi Buh

Where is your body now? How does it feel? 

Cause my body, for instance, is trying to recall and tune in to the feeling it experienced when the above questions were introduced at the very beginning of the Summer School in Struga. We were sitting on a sunny terrace in a circle, facing each other, trying to return to our bodies in order to feel what we’re coming with, what we could bring into the collective process that was just about to begin, what we were ready (or not) to share. My body came to Struga quite overwhelmed by holidays which actually were not so holidayish, but instead they were rich in deadlines, taking care for others and no-time-to-loose-tasks. So my body was somewhere in between tightening muscles there on the nape of my neck, and a relief dissolving my tension thanks to the fresh waters of the primeval Ohrid Lake – a slowing-down teaser promising to experience something here.

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Critical practice (Made in Yugoslavia)

Beyond Present Future Feminisms, text by

Anka Herbut, Jette Buchsenschutz, Kasia Wolinska, Masa Radi Buh, Maeve Johnson, Elena Novakovits

June 20, 2022

In a cruel twist of fate, I fear that the movement for women’s liberation has become entangled in a dangerous liaison with neoliberal efforts to build a free-market society. That would explain how it came to pass that feminist ideas that once formed part of a radical worldview are increasingly expressed in individualist terms. (…) A movement that once prioritised social solidarity now celebrates female entrepreneurs. A perspective that once valorised ‘care’ and interdependence now encourages individual advancement and meritocracy. ^[1]

This text stems from the need to enter into a dialog with the Feminist Futures Festival that was held in Amiens and Lisbon in January this year. As one of five twin or tripled festivals happening between 2021 and 2024, each festival takes place in similar versions, one after the other in two different cities. Initiated by the apap – advancing performing arts project, the festivals are a part of the larger EU-funded programm apap – FEMINIST FUTURES with the high aim of – in its own words – “initiate powerful social changes through art”.

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/македонски подолу/

Critical practice (Made in Yugoslavia) 

Feminist Futures Festival in Amiens and Lisbon

April 19, 2022

La Maison de la Culture d’Amiens and Teatro Nacional D. Maria II have teamed up in an exceptional way to organize the Feminist Futures Festival, a unique venture shared between Lisbon and Amiens from January 17 to 29, 2022. This festival is part of the Feminist Futures project by the apap network.

The participants of the Critical Practice programme attended the programmes co-curated by the two institutions in both cities from 20 to 27 January and participated to several open and internal debates that questioned the issues of feminist curating, feminist festival and institutional model, critical reflection of decolonization in performing arts, feminist dance and performance practices etc.

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The initial seminar of the new cycle of the Critical Practice (Made in YU) program will focus on recent critical discourses in performing arts and culture, coming from the cultural space of Yugoslavia. We will combine different formats of work: discussions of assigned readings, interviews with invited authors, and internal group work meetings / talks.
The seminar is followed with a reading list proposed by Ana Vujanović; the texts selected to be discussed or talked about with invited authors are to be read in advance.
The seminar is supposed to result in a new reading list, composed of the texts proposed by the participants. Further seminar-like situations will be self-organized.

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