[syndicate] Two Calls for interdisciplinary Workshops

[alexander nikolic]

Dear Friends, I’m happy to announce the cooperation with Noa  
Treister in the following Workshops: The Return of the Gastarbajter &  
Sex in Transition
(there are still few places availabe, deadline: 05.07.2008)

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
------------------------------------
The Return of the Gastarbajter:
22.7-10.8.2008

Location: Požarevac, Eastern Serbia

Media: all media

Organizers: KUD “Art Klub”, Kucevo
Partners: Serbian Ministry of Diaspora, Požarevac Cultural Center,  
Citizens of Europe, Berlin, Neocom, Vienna

Colloquium description:
The subject of the colloquium is returning guest workers from Europe  
to Eastern Serbia and their influence on the local economy, politics,  
culture and environment.
It will consist of:

     * 3-week field research by students of the anthropology  
department of the Philosophical faculty of Belgrade
       University
     * a week long seminar that will include lecture on the history  
of the area and its current situation, on the
     * subject of returning economical immigration and on engaged art  
and art in public space
     * a 2-week artist’s workshop in which will participate 20  
artists, 10 Serb and 10 international,
     * 3- week exhibition  in Požarevac
     * Seminar and presentation in Belgrade

The artists will work and exhibit in public spaces in order to allow  
maximum communication with the returning immigrants and the  
population that stayed behind. The documentation of interviews with  
returning immigrants and decision makers done as part of the pre- 
colloquia research, students’ research, the lectures given in the  
seminars and the artists work will be collected in catalogues and  
presented in Belgrade to create a reaction on a national level.

Concept:
The area of Eastern Serbia is a traditionally poor agricultural area  
and therefore had much immigration to different developed countries.  
Now many immigrants are returning with their interpretation of the  
experience they have got in the West which often deteriorates to  
corruption, nationalism, nouveau riche culture and lack of respect to  
the environment. Since the area is dependent on that income there is  
no public debate on the phenomenon and no directives, no regulations  
or laws regarding these issues.
The relation between the immigrants – host community distinctly  
affects the relation immigrants – home community but there is an  
agreement of silence between the home community and immigrants to  
keep these worlds apart. When in Serbia they very rarely talk about  
their experiences and difficulties abroad. In that way they maintain  
an illusion that they do not really work abroad and conceal their  
real status their and assert the powerful image of the patron and  
their status of power. Consequently, people in these areas talk about  
people who “have money” or “do not have money” but never about  
working for money. That money is either “given or not given” to  
them as reward or punishment for how they behave, again without any  
relation to work. To fulfill their side of the bargain the local  
community plays the role of an obedient, respectful, needy kin which  
makes them even more helpless and lacking initiative. This project  
will raise taboo in the public of discussing these issues and  
pressure public institution to create regulation concerning the  
disturbing aspects of the phenomenon.

Conditions: the artists will be provided with accommodations and food  
and will use local material. An additional sum of up to 75 Euro will  
be provided for materials.

For further details and registration please contact: noa.treister(at) 
gmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
----------------------------------------------------------------

Sex in Transition

15-31.8.2008

Location: Kucevo, Eastern Serbia

Media: all media

Organizers: KUD “Art Klub”, Kucevo
Partners: Serbian Ministry of Culture, Municipality of Kucevo, The  
Kattenbak Collective, Amsterdam, Citizens of Europe, Berlin,

Colloquium description:
The subject of the colloquium is returning guest workers from Europe  
to Eastern Serbia and their influence on the local economy, politics,  
culture and environment.
It will consist of:

     * 3-week field research by students of the anthropology  
department of the Philosophical faculty of Belgrade University
     * a week long seminar that will include lecture on the history  
of the area and its current situation, on the subject of returning  
economical immigration and on engaged art and art in public space
     * a 2-week artist’s workshop in which will participate 20  
artists, 10 Serb and 10 international,
     * 3- week exhibition  in Kucevo
     * Seminar and presentation in Belgrade

The artists will work and exhibit in public spaces in order to allow  
maximum communication with the returning immigrants and the  
population that stayed behind. The documentation of interviews with  
returning immigrants and decision makers done as part of the pre- 
colloquia research, students’ research, the lectures given in the  
seminars and the artists work will be collected in catalogues and  
presented in Belgrade to create a reaction on a national level.

Concept:
When we speak about communities or countries in transition, we  
usually refer to economical transition in this we underestimate the  
abyss that lays before the sides facing each other. The difference  
rests within the basic concepts (such as truth, time, security,  
privacy, intimacy, communication, etc.) on which each person builds  
his/her life. The main discrepancy lies in the grasp of a person as  
an individual, which is a modern concept, from which grow notions of  
love, happiness, accomplishment, freedom, etc. Marriage, in this  
community structure, is one of the institutions that insure its  
continuum in the same way. Both men and women fill preconditioned  
roles before and during their married life and in that pay their dues  
to the community and are held in check by the rumor economy and the  
threat of excommunication that would penetrate even their basic means  
of existence. What happens inside the marriage (form love to neglect  
or violence) is irrelevant to the surrounding as long as the  
institution is maintained and therefore is accepted by the partners  
themselves. As was perceived by one of the community members:

“When you ask men what they think about it, most of the would answer  
that about intimacy that have never heard but sexually they are very  
active, great lovers (a legend close to Greek mythology ϑ) and that  
they can seduce any women. On the other hand, most women would say,  
with allusive irony, that of intimacy they have long forgotten and  
that sex they accept as a duty, something they have to “execute”  
with their man, like preparing lunch, housekeeping or similar things.
[…] in a small town, in which are still performed many old, even  
pagan customs, in which there is still fear of occultism (Vlah magic)  
and in which people are still closely (and shallowly) connected with  
their families, land, past, life revolves around “practicalities”.  
Most people think: “if I sow the land, it will give birth, if I sow  
a woman she also will give birth ϑ” and everything will function  
well on a superficial level because I am a monkey and not a man! If I  
tough intimacy, it will touch me, which can be extremely fuck up, and  
I don’t wish to have a fucked up life!” (Davor Radulj)

No person or community is located in one end of this scale or  
another, we are all somewhere in the middle with our fears of losing  
our economical and emotional security, our standing in society, or  
our future continuity on the one hand and a wish to become and be  
loyal to the event of love on the other hand.
It is this diversity that our project aims to map and about which we  
wish to create a public debate.

Conditions: the artists will be provided with accommodations and food  
and will use local material. An additional sum of up to 75 Euro will  
be provided for materials.

For further details and registration, please contact: noa.treister(at) 
gmail.com

———————————————————————— 
———————