20 april Workshop at Södertörn University, held by the project group “Distrusting Monuments” in collaboration with CBEES
Struggling with the authoritarianisms: New art, new histories.
The recent rise of rightwing populism, authoritarianism and even fascism has come to place foucs on the relations between the scene of contemporary art, memorial culture and politics. There is a global tendency, encompassing Eastern Europe, to contend the new forms of politicization of the writing of history in the spheres of cultural representation, memory and heritage. Crossing the distinction between regional and transnational, artistic practices can dispute simplified notions of nationalism and heroism, as well as the symbolisms of identification and belonging that are often the proponents of rightwing populism, authoritarianism and fascism.
Today, the issue of history writing engages a transnational community of contemporary art and critical theory overall. The question of what we are to remember, and how, involves a wide array of agents, materials and forms of expressions. This workshop engages artistic and philosophical perspectives into the politics of aesthetic historicizations, with a special focus on former Yugoslavia and other countries in former Eastern Europe. What does it mean to remember, what does it mean to forget? What are the tools used by nationalist memorial cultures? What are the methods and aesthetic expressions counteracting rightwing populisms? What is the space for official memory and for counter-memory?
Speakers include Mladen Dolar, Rebecka Katz thor, Gal Kirn. Tora Lane, Marcia Cavalcante Schuback, Johanna Mannergren Selimovic, Cecilia Sjöholm.