CURATORIAL TRANSLATION

Curatorial Translation
24-30 September, 2007, Skopje

Curatorial Translation project aims to investigate, contextualise and question various curatorial theories and practices. The ultimate objectives of Curatorial Translation are to imagine, propose and develop a platform for new models of curatorial discourses and practices that are equally informed of theoretical and art concepts. The project will address the question whether curatorial projects can be appropriate means for facilitating the processes of negotiation of cultural, ethnic and gender differences, and will attempt on activating the awareness for urgent need for social change and for overcoming of hegemonic curating. The potentials of the curatorial profession as a means for intercultural knowledge translation and production will be in focus throughout various programme events.

The project particularly focuses on curatorship in the Balkan region during the transitional period. Throughout various lectures, workshops, presentations, conferences and meetings the established curators, theorists, artists, critics, journalists and young professionals will address various specific professional issues:
· Translating theory into curating
· Intercultural curatorial translation
· Translational relations between curatorial concepts and art works


Format
The Centre for Visual and Cultural Research Centre in Skopje organises this project as one-week series of public events. The project is designed as a series of workshops, presentations, public conferences, dabates and lectures that will address the social and cultural contexts of curatorial theory and practice. The workshop sessions aim to produce a site for professional intercultural communication and discussion of the gaps between different artistic and curatorial practices deriving from various cultural and theoretical contexts.

The project's programme is aimed for regional and international curators, artists, researchers, theorists and artists turned curators that are either at the early stage of their careers or already gaining certain curatorial experience but however interested in questioning of the curatorial profession's position in both theoretical and cultural terms. The participants are expected to bring forward an attempt for different perception and presentation of contemporary visual arts while developing new curatorial discourses. In addition to the workshops the programme consists of several public lectures, conferences, debates and presentations for the general audience.

The workshops with limited access to public are conceived for 15 curators, theorists, researchers, cultural managers, or artists from the Balkans that together with the presenters, lecturers and leaders of the workshops will try to tackle the proposed themes and issues. In the morning the workshop sessions are reserved for the work of the three participants' groups. Series of informal meetings with artists as well as visits to art and cultural institutions are carefully planned for the afternoons. In the evenings there are additional events scheduled: conferences, presentations, performances, openings, etc. A reader compiling texts and drafts of the works in progress of the three groups is planned to be published until the end of 2007.

The Visual and Cultural Research Centre
The Curatorial Translation project is part of the first annual project of the Visual and Cultural Research Centre called Mobile Futures/Mobile Selves that was organised in partnership with the Ministry of Culture of Republic of Macedonia. Until now in the context of this project the VCRC realised one international conference about postcolonial critique and its influence on cultural policy that was titled Translating the Self (25-28 January 2007, Skopje), the Summer School "Integrating Cultures/Negotiating New Subjectivities" (25 June-08 July 2007, Ohrid) supported by Jean Monnet Foundation and the summer workshop for public administration: Creative Industries and Cultural Diversity: Who Needs Creative Industries? (26 August-9 September, Ohrid) supported by SEP of the Government of Republic of Macedonia.

Workshop in Second Life, 27.09. 5-8 pm

Workshop in Second Life

Ilias Marmaris

The futuristic dreams from the nineties and the myth of virtual reality become reality in the beginning of the 21st century. Interactive 3D worlds are not anymore product of fantasies of the hippie generations or techno promises driven by industry players. Fusion of Internet and 3D virtual reality brought powerful tool that these days penetrate more and more aspects of everyday life. The phenomena of virtual worlds are becoming new social and economical territories.

The online virtual worlds belong to a new form of information platforms that is called vectors. A vector is defined as any medium through which something is moved into space. Transportation vectors circulate objects and subjects as global commerce goods and the universal labour power.
What circulates in communication vectors is information.

The main characteristic of Second life as a vector is that its form and development is up to the users. Based on the open source software, it constitutes a social experiment of novelties production, both in the field of information hold and use and in the different forms of organising a global social space. At the same time, it is also a market that is based on soft –so far- rules, that are still however strict rules of the late capitalist reproduction.

It is a place where the users / prosumers* are actively using a 3D technologically mediated environment to foster the future potential of research and creation.
So, in a world where everything is created by the users, everything is already in one way or another cultural and has the potential to be art. Scripted sculptures and bots [objects that perform ­automatic actions] are great examples for questioning the agency or power of the art-object.

What this virtual world lacks still is the critical stance and an institutional presence that is not absorbed in the 3D world but can also react to it in creative terms. Although Europeans are the biggest group in Second Life (Europe 54%, North America 34 %), an institutional cultural critique and analysis of multiuser virtual environments seems to be still inexistent.

Consequently, some of the upcoming questions regarding art and cultural activities in the virtual environment of Second life could be the following:

-What will be considered art in these new situations?
-What is the role of art in these structural changes?
-How artists act or should act in the 3D world of Second Life?
-What they can offer?
-How they can involve the people?
-How institutions and galleries can use technology to create new experiences and
meanings, rather than to replicate their real life selves?

*prosumer: producer & consumer

Ilias Marmaris mb[at]hol.gr
Born in Athens, 1960. He completed his studies at the university Paris VIII in Urbanism (theorie critique de la question urbaine) and in Plastic Arts. His work as a painter focused on the origins of the visual and text based linguistic structures which formed the perception of painting as a common good, inside and outside of the institutional spaces. He has exhibited world wide, in galleries, museums, alternative spaces and his work is part of several private collections. He was member and co-fonder of international artistic groups in Paris, Milan, Eindhoven and Athens. He is the initiator and co-fonder of Personal Cinema group. Since 1993 he is working in numerous documentary films both commercial and experimental, for world wide production companies as PBS, NBC, BBC WORLD, ARTE, and WLIW, either as art director or associated producer. Since 1998 after the founding of Personal Cinema group, he starts working as a media artist mostly concerned with alternative video games and online 3D virtual environments. He uses several editing, composite and 3D programs. In 2002 he initiates the New media cultural/political project: "the making of Balkan Wars: The game" and its core video game project: ''the Balkan Mall''. He has written and published various papers regarding critics on aesthetics, politics and New Media, in European magazines, newspapers and web sites. Also, he designs and produces educational video-games as the recent "Resist", that focus on drug abuse prevention for adolescents. Together with the new media curator Daphne Dragona, he initiated the actual "Secondary Transludic Borders" project.

Translational Relations Between Curatorial Concepts and Art Works:

See my Concept (you may skip the show…).
Remarks on curatorial decadence

Luchezar Boyadjiev


The main problem to be discussed during this cycle of sessions will be the possibility and responsibility of translation between what I see and what I read or write about whenever contemporary art is concerned. Or in the form of enumeration of pairs that always need a certain level and effort of reciprocal translation, plus a level of communicating this translation to third parties, the problem is the possibility and responsibility of translation between: word and image; curatorial concept and art works; concept and show; show and audience; curator and artist and vice versa; curator and board or jury (of a museum, of a biennial, of a funding body, of a administrative authority, and so on); curator and audience; artist and audience; etc.

The main premise of the cycle of sessions is that there is a certain responsibility involved in the practice of art today (from all possible positions and professional functions) that is often neglected when it comes to communicating with the audience. For the purposes of this workshop I will concentrate on the responsibility of the curator and will try to communicate/debate the notion that one of the main problems of contemporary curatorship is the often found lack of correspondence (or adequate translation) between the concept of a show, the artworks in the show and the overall space-message of the show that is ultimately meant to be communicated to the audience. This lack of correspondence is something that even when detected by both professionals and audiences alike is not usually discussed. Furthermore, it is a sign of bad taste if questions about such correspondence are asked. However, I think that both the progressively more pronounced lack of correspondence between concept and show as well as the lack of debate about it is a major problem of contemporary art practice. In the worst cases, after one hears the concept of a curator, one has the feeling that there is actually no need to see the show, the artworks are there only to justify the curatorial concept, the funding mechanism, the money spent and so on.

All of this, if really valid, is a sign of curatorial decadence or in other words, of curatorship for curatorship’s sake…

24.09. 10:00-13:00
Next Documenta should be curated by Zinedine Zidane, or whoever happens to be in his shoes next time around!
(Well why not, these are clones anyways…)

Who is David Byrne? Why do you think would he write about contemporary art in his blog/online journal? What do you think of his writing on contemporary art as you find it on this URL?
David Byrne http://journal.davidbyrne.com/art_projects/index.html

Next Documenta should be curated by an artist!
http://www.e-flux.com/projects/next_doc/index.html
http://www.artbook.com/3937577416.html

Venice 1999/2001 vs. Venice 2007 (The Chinese Pavilion…), what is Venice to Istanbul and vice versa?

On curatorial decadence – d 10, 11, 12
The least funny show on earth – which one was it? Is Documenta just another biennial – if yes, (d 12 team says so) then why do they need 3 ½ years to do what other curators do for other biennials on 1 – 1 ½ years? Is it the money and the influence they are after; or is it just that they are more stupid then the others?

25.09. 10:00-13:00
Concept vs. show – why do curators need to have a concept?
Who and why needs a curatorial concept? How is that possible to communicate to the museum/biennial/jury/funding boards, the artists, the audience, etc. in none-verbal and/or visual ways? Why do some curators get carried away with theory rather then art?
Who is Mauricio Cattelan? Who is Massimiliano Gioni? Why you never hear a word of concept from Mauricio Cattelan? Why does a curator agree to be the “mouth-piece” of an artist (Gioni is the only one authorized to speak on behalf of Cattelan)?

http://www.contemporary-magazine.com/profile77_3.htm

The 6th Caribbean Biennial (1999) vs. the 4th Berlin Biennial (2006)

http://www.postmedia.net/cattelan/caraibi.htm
http://www.lespressesdureel.com/EN/ouvrage.php?menu=1&id=12
vs.
http://www.shift.jp.org/en/archives/2006/05/4th_berlin_biennale.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_9_94/ai_n16807596
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/exhibitionInfo/exhibition/44477

26.09. 10:00-13:00
Artist vs. audience – why does the audience never meet the artist?
If art works speak for themselves why do we need curators in the first place? If they do not, then why do curators talk not about art works in their shows but about their own concepts?

Who is Luchezar Boyadjiev?

Schadenfreude Guided Tours (2003)
http://www.fridericianum-kassel.de/ausst/balkan03/kuenstler/07.html#english
http://www.universes-in-universe.de/car/sharjah/2005/deu/expo-centre/img-27.htm
http://www.sharjahbiennial.org/artistpage.asp?id=22

Guiding Agents of Belief (2006)
http://universes-in-universe.de/car/singapore/eng/2006/tour/other/index.htm
http://www.beliefinsingapore.blogspot.com/
http://lastboy.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html

Artist(s) in Residence Program (2000)
http://www.manifesta.org/manifesta4/en/projects/artist873.html
http://www.salzburger-kunstverein.at/day14418.html

d 10 – Hybrid Workspace, Deep Europe (1997)
http://www.medialounge.net/lounge/workspace/deep_europe/DOCS/mail/0230.html
http://www.medialounge.net/lounge/workspace/credits/participants.html
http://www.art-research-communication.net/weblog/?p=82#more-82
http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors2/boyadjievtext2.html
http://www.leftcurve.org/LC24WebPages/GlobCulNatHungary.pdfhttp://www.thing.desk.nl/bilwet/Geert/Workspace/LUCHEZAR.INT
http://www.cfront.org/cf00book/en/luchezar-overlapping-en.html
http://www.v2.nl/~arns/Texts/toc-de.html
http://framework.v2.nl/archive/archive/node/event/default.py/nodenr-131812
http://framework.v2.nl/archive/archive/node/text/default.xslt/nodenr-131862
http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread=905&text=849#849
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9707/msg00107.html
http://www.bard.edu/hrp/resource_pdfs/lovink.meetspace.pdf
http://neoscenes.net/hyper-text/text/third/templab.html
http://mail.v2.nl/v2east/1997/first/0120.html
http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/4/3/89.pdf
http://isp2.srv.v2.nl/~andreas/texts/1997/internetinosteuropa.html

Small Talk (2001)
http://www.msuskopje.org.mk/?sid=450&lid=1

Red Riviera Revisited (2005)
http://www.projekt-relations.de/en/get/pressematerial/visual_seminar.php?menuopen=3&lang=en
http://www.projekt-relations.de/en/download/53vs_redriviera_en.doc
http://ica.cult.bg/visual-project.php?idd=5

NOTE:
Please, read also:
Boyadjiev, Luchezar. “Off the Record”, Manifesta Journal, # 2 / 2004, Amsterdam/Ljubljana

Luchezar Boyadjiev
Is an artist, writer and curator based in Bulgaria.
1957 - Born: October 12th in Sofia, Bulgaria

One Person Exhibitions:
2006 - “Crawling Carpets”, EAF, Adelaide, Australia
2003 - “Hot City Visual”, ICA-ATA Center, interventions in the city, Sofia
1998 - “Revolution for All”, Holden Gallery, MMU, Manchester, UK (ISEA’98)
1994 - "The Fountain of Europe", CCS-Museum, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, USA
1992 - "Festigung des Glaubens" - installations, IFA Galerie, Berlin, Germany

Group Exhibitions:
2007 - “Plus Two”, MKM - Museum Kueppersmuehle fuer Moderne Kunst, Duisburg, Germany
- “PragueBiennale 3. Glocal and Outsiders: Connecting Cultures in Central Europe”, Karlin Hall,
Prague
- “Footnotes: On Geopolitics, Markets and Amnesia”, 2nd Moscow Biennial, Moscow
2006 - “Belief”, 1st Singapore Biennale, Singapore
- “Periferic 7. Focusing Iasi. Social Processes”, Iasi, Romania
2005 - “Urban Realities: Focus Istanbul”, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin
- “Sus les ponts, le long de la rivière...”, Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg
- “Belonging”, 7th International Biennial, Sharjah, UAE
2004 - “Cosmopolis”, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessalonica, Greece
- “Privatizations. The Post-communist Condition”, Kunstwerke, Berlin
2003 - “In the Gorges of the Balkans”, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany
- “Blood & Honey / Future’s in the Balkans”, The Essl Collection, Klosterneuburg / Vienna, Austria
2002 - “In Search of Balkania”, Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria
- Manifesta 4, Frankfurt, Germany
- “The Collective Unconsciousness”, MIGROS Museum, Zurich
2001 - “Konverzacija”, MCA, Belgrade
- “Escape”, 1st Biennial, Tirana, Albania
2000 - “L’Autre moitie de l’Europe”, Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris
- “Worthless (Invaluable)”, Moderna Galerja, Ljubljana, Slovenia
1999 - “After the Wall”, Moderna Museet, Stockholm
- “TEMP-Balkania”, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki
1998 - “Money/Nations”, Shedhalle, Zurich, Switzerland
- “Revolution/Terror”, ISEA ’98, Manchester-Liverpool, UK
1997 - "Deep Europe", Hybrid Workspace, documenta X, Kassel, Germany
1995 - "Orient/ation", 4th Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey
- "Beyond the Borders", 1st Biennial, Kwangju, South Korea
- "Beyond Belief", MCA, Chicago, USA
1994 - 22nd Sao Paulo Biennial, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Intercultural Curatorial Translation:

Nat Muller, 24.09.2007, Skopje

Introduction to the Beginning of an Argument

Nat Muller

The title takes its cue from a work by Palestinian film maker Elia Suleiman and Lebanese-Canadian artist Jayce Salloum “Introduction to the End of an Argument” (1990), wherein they string together a collage of images and sounds from blockbuster films and news broadcasts to highlight the bias in presentation, and by corollary perception, towards images and media narratives of the first Palestinian Intifada. When thinking about navigating and translating concepts between “cultures” one is always upping the ante between expectation and perception, specificities and generalisms, sameness and difference, and of course the big debate between regionalism and internationalism, whilst often ignoring that which is simply untranslatable. Instead of viewing an act of “intercultural translation” (which still needs to be defined really) as a practice of conversion and decoding something to something else, or if you will adapting one fixature to another, can we view translation as something “talking back”, and arguing with us, making statements, and disagreeing the very premise of what we are translating (into what), how and for whom?

During these 3 days I would like to argue to view “cultures” beyond old skool geographies and national boundaries, and tease out the power dynamics and ideological tensions scripted into processes of translation. A first argument would be to do away with naievity, and come to terms with the fact that – no matter how critical our practices - we are dealing with “hip” factors, supply and demand ratios and markets, and an increasing climate of security hysteria and xenophobia: our subsequent translations and our curatorial lenses will always be tainted by the latter. In the process of introducing and sculpting our arguments I will draw extensively on my own experiences, and trial and errors as a curator working pre-dominantly in-between Europe and the Middle East, and in-between different types of analogue and digital media.

Nat Muller and Suzana Milevska


24.09. 10:00 -13:00
Intro to Argument1: Can the Curatorial Translate? The “inter” between Cultures
In lieu of all the debates about internationalism in the arts, let us by way of introduction argue about the meaning of concepts and (material) conditions such as context, home, the exilic, the diasporic, the (inter)national, locality, and how they translate into curatorial practices. Eye and other candy will be provided.

Texts:
• “Anywhere in the World”. Who Cares. Ed. Creative Time. New York: Creative Time Books, 2006. p. 23-59.
• Høxbroe, Stine. “The New Curator.” Peripheral Insider: Perspectives on Contemporary Internationalism in Visual Culture. Ed. Khaled D. Ramadan. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2007. p.57-68.

25.09. 10:00-13:00
Intro to Argument2: The Mobility of Culture: A Tale of Two (and more) Markets
Following the trends and fads, but also the necessities and urgencies within contemporary art, let us argue about to whom we are catering, how, what for, and at which price. Let’s break down the chain of supply and demand, and see what we are left with.

Texts:
• Zolghadr, Tirdad. “Ethnic Marketing.” Ethnic Marketing. Ed. Tirdad Zolghadr. Zürich: jrp/ringier, 2006. p. 11-15.
• Zolghadr, Tirdad. “Ethnic Marketing in Eight Easy Steps.” Ethnic Marketing. Ed. Tirdad Zolghadr. Zürich: jrp/ringier, 2006. p.92-101.
• Haq, Nav. “Pashmina Power: Class Struggle in International Arts Funding Infrastructure.” URL: http://www.takingplace.dk/index.php?mid=2&content_id=1&lang=1

26.09. 10:00-13:00
Intro to Argument3: New Dictionary Entries: Audiences?
In an ideal world curating is a public act, in the most generous sense of the word. How do we make things public, and how do we involve, engage and cultivate audience(s) across different spectra….that is, if we want to do that at all? Are we bold enough to make an argument that some audiences are more equal than others, and that this is a good thing?

Texts:
• Sheikh, Simon. “Representation, Contestation and Power: The Artist as Public Intellectual.” (cfr. pdf)
• Laidi-Hanieh, Adila. “Paradigm Shift: Building Inclusive Cultural Practices” (cfr, pdf)

Nat Muller (NL) nat[at]xs4all.nl
Is an independent curator and critic based in Rotterdam. She has held positions as staff curator at V2_, Institute for Unstable Media (Rotterdam) and De Balie, Centre for Culture and Politics (Amsterdam). Her main interests include: the intersections of aesthetics, media and politics; (new) media and art in the Middle East. She has published articles in off- and online media; is a regular contributor for Springerin, and has given presentations on the subject of (new) media art (inter)nationally. Her latest projects include The Trans_European Picnic - The Art and Media of Accession (Novi Sad, 2004), DEAF_04: Affective Turbulence: The Art of Open Systems (Rotterdam, 2004); INFRA_ctures (Rotterdam, 2005), Xeno_Sonic: a series of experimental sound performances from the Middle East (Amsterdam, 2005), DEAF07 (Rotterdam, 2007), the workshop "Between a Rock and a Hard Place? Negotiating Artistic Practice, Audiences, Representation and Collaboration within Local and International Frameworks" (Amman, 2007). She has curated video screenings for projects and festivals in a.o. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin, New York, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Grimstad, and Beirut. Together with Pierre Sarraf she initiated the Né à Beyrouth Film Fund (2006) which extends modest production grants to young Lebanese film makers. She recently co-edited the Mag.net Reader2: Between Paper and Pixel with Alessandro Ludovico (2007), is co-initiator of the Upgrade! Amsterdam, and has taught at the Willem de Kooning Academy (NL) and at the Lebanese American University in Beirut (LB). This year, she serves on the international jury of the Berlin-based Transmediale Festival, with as theme "Conspire".

Curator as a Translator of Theory into Practice:

The Event of Curatorial Translation

Suzana Milevska

The main aim of this three-session workshop is to address the urgency of an epistemological debate about the positioning of contemporary curating in theoretical and academic contexts in parallel to debates surrounding curatorial practice. The usage of the term “translation” (rather than “application”) stands for the awareness of the confinements that appear whenever theoretical concepts are used as justification for curatorial choices of models, strategies and attitudes towards art, rather than as starting points for self-assessment and for pondering of our selection of art and curatorial models.

On the one hand curating is a cross-disciplinary profession that often “translates” different theoretical concepts uncritically into exhibitions or other curatorial projects and events, thus overrating theory and treating it as “prolepsis”. On the other hand cultural theories are informed and enriched by different curatorial practices without necessarily admitting this. Yet, what is that can make the curating based on scholarly concepts so different from curating that draws on various art projects that engage with socio-political issues and events? Are there any potential ways of reconciliation of these two models? On the first sight curating based on theoretical and historical research brings dilemmas not so much different from the ethical dilemmas of science. However, throughout the three working sessions we will be concerned with the points of differences, reciprocal influences, entanglements and confluences between theoretically/academically and artistically informed curatorial practices.

Contemporary curatorial practices have internalised many translational strategies when dealing with various theoretical, artistic, or cultural concepts but inevitably, some nuances and subtleties are lost in this process. Mediating, a concept often claimed by many curators in order to distance themselves from theory, is never pure distant and neutral intervention because it is “always already” contaminated by inhabited and internalised preconceptions about different arts, cultures and the world in general. Because of the inevitable loss of the idealised intricacy that takes place throughout the process of translating of theory into practice, or through “mediating” of these different fields, it is important to address the following questions:
-whether one of the roles of contemporary art curators, to address culturally complex and socially relevant questions, produces more versatile and contextually sensitive truth exactly because of that loss that happens throughout the process of reciprocal translation between theory and practice of curating
- how the processes of translation of various theoretical, cultural, and artistic concepts into specific projects embrace and promote (or betray) the pedagogical and epistemological responsibility.

24.09. 10:00-13:00
Real and Truth in the Event of Curatorial Translation
Archives as supposed venues for storing truth can be disappointingly “empty” confirming the old philosophical concern about truth being always already somewhere else. We will be looking at couple of projects and texts that, while dealing with archives, truth, and real as different from reality attempt on methodology that significantly differs from scientific. If we were going to use the concept of real in order to designate the space of existing but unsymbolizable reality that can only be thought retroactively through the truth procedures, what would then be truth of curating? While truth as a procedure is required to access the real, the real serves as an external obstacle on the possibility of its production and keeping fidelity to truth. Can then curatorial projects claim that they produce knowledge and truth or the curators are to be self-aware that they always already contribute to ever more constructivist concept of truth? Simultaneously it inflicts questioning of the concepts of accumulation and production of universal knowledge and relativisation of their effects. The translational performance of the curatorial “event” resides between these two different ends of knowledge: the epistemological and the critical.
Assignment (12:00-13:00):
the curators will try to think of projects’ models that would successfully negotiate the both: knowledge and critical thinking.

Texts:

• Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever. Trans. by Eric Prenowitz. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. 1-23, 91-95.
• Badiou, Alain. Fifteen Theses on Contemporary Art. 10 June 2007 <http://www.lacan.com/frameXXIII7.htm>.
• Milevska, Suzana. EVENTfulness: Family Archives as Events/Folds/Veils, conference paper, Exposed Memories: Family Pictures in Private and Public Memory, AICA Conference, Budapest 10-11 November, 2006.

25.09. 10:00-13:00
Curating Gender Difference
Curating projects dealing with gender issues pressures curators to position themselves in the context of local feminist and post-feminist debates. Is global feminism possible at all or this is an impossible construct because it inevitably neglects and undermines gender specificity in cultural terms? What is at stake when the political and activist role of the curator conflates with theoretical concepts that are to be translated in curatorial practice? We will be looking at curatorial projects that question traditional gender roles, asymmetry of desires, identitarian politics, regimes of representation, pornography, etc.
Assignment (12:00-13:00)
Proposals of new models and strategies to overcome and subvert the known difficulties with curating of women artists’ projects that are split between feminist critique of gender stereotypes and miming of old models of representation that reinforce the very same stereotypes.

Texts:

• Butler, Judith. The Psychic Life of Power. Theories in Subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1997, 106-131
• Milevska, Suzana. “The portrait of an artist as a young ‘strategic essentialist.” Tanja Ostojić - Strategies of Success / Curators Series 2001-2003, La Box, Bourges and SKC, Belgrade, 2004, 33-43.

26.09. 10:00-13:00
Participatory Projects as a Curatorial Challenge
When new communities are formed they are not necessarily based on common identity and belonging but on participating and involvement. The new art tendency towards projects that invite the participation of the members of audience as active agents of the art process is both a response to philosophical texts re-defining of the concept of community and the communitarian, and a follow-up to the demand to make visible marginalised groups that have been excluded from public cultural life. What is there for curators and how are curators positioned within art projects with participatory objectives? If resistance is the retort to the omnipresent ideological call for participation are the ethical dilemmas in the framework of participatory art necessarily in opposition to the aesthetical ones.
Assignment (12:00-13:00)
The group will try to put together a proposal for an ideal participatory project.

Texts:

• Lind, Maria. Actualization of Space: The Case of Oda Projesi, 10 July 2006 <http://www.republicart.net/disc/aap/lind01_en.pdf>.
• Rogoff, Irit. We - Collectivities, Mutualities, Participations, 12 June 2006 <http://theater.kein.org/node/95>.
• Milevska, Suzana. Participatory Art: A Paradigm shift from objects to subjects, 15 December 2006 <http://eurozine.com/pdf/2006-06-02-milevska-en.pdf>.

Suzana Milevska (MK) suzanamilevska[at]yahoo.com http://www.gender-wise.blogspot.com/
Is a visual culture theorist and curator and is the director of the Visual and Cultural Research Centre / “Euro Balkan” Institute in Skopje. She received her PhD in Visual Culture from the Visual Culture Department at Goldsmiths College in London. In 2004 she was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at Library of Congress and she also received P. Getty Curatorial Research Fellowship (2001) and ArtsLink Grant (1999). Since 1992 she curated over 70 art projects in Skopje, Istanbul, Stockholm, Berlin, Bonn, Stuttgart, Leipzig, etc. She was one of the curators of the Cosmopolis Balkan Biennial in Thessaloniki (2004) and of the International Biennale of Contemporary Art 2005 – National Gallery in Prague. Her publications include “From a Bat's Point of View” in Eduardo Kac, edited by Peter Tomaz Dobrila and Aleksandra Kostić (Maribor, 2000), 47-58; Capital and Gender, edited by Suzana Milevska (Skopje, 2001); “The Readymade and the Question of Fabrication of Objects and Subjects” in Primary Documents - A Sourcebook for Eastern and Central European Art since the 1950s (New York, 2002), 182-191; “The portrait of an artist as a young ‘strategic essentialist’” in Tanja Ostojić - Strategies of Success / Curators Series 2001-2003, (Belgrade, 2004), 33-43; “Curatorial Labyrinths in Macedonia”, Men in Black – Handbook of Curatorial Practice, Ed. Christoph Tannert/Ute Tischchler, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin/Revolver: Archiv für actuelle Kunst (Frankfurt am Main, 2004). “Hesitations, or About Political and Cultural Territories” in Cultural Territories, edited by Barbara Steiner, Julia Schäfer and Ilina Koralova (Köln, 2005), 31-43; “Is Balkan Art History Global” in Is Art History Global, edited by James Elkins, (New York, 2006), “Resistance that Cannot Be Recognised as Such – interview with Gayatri C. Spivak” in Conversations With Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Swapan Chakravorty; Suzana Milevska; Tani E. Barlow Palgrave Macmillan, 2007 (London, in print) and in New Feminism: worlds of feminism, queer and networking conditions, Löcker Verlag (Vienna, in print).

Programme: Curatorial Translation

CURATORIAL TRANSLATION
24-30 September, 2007, Skopje

23.09. (Sunday)
Arrival of the participants
19:30 Dinner

24. 09. (Monday)

10:00-13:00 Curatorial Translation Lab *

Welcoming of the participants and introductory workshop session led by the workshop leaders:
Suzana Milevska, Nat Muller and Luchezar Boyadjiev.
Workshop leaders introduce the themes, the structure and the objectives of the workshops.
Participants will be divided in three different groups:
-Translating theory into curatorial practice (leader: Suzana Milevska)
- Intercultural curatorial translation (leader: Nat Muller)
--Translational relations between curatorial concepts and art works (leader: Luchezar Boyadjiev)
Visual and Cultural Research Centre (address: Partizanski odredi 63)
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break

Afternoon session
14:00-16:00 Visits to local art and cultural institutions *
Informal meetings with curators working in local institutions who will introduce the history and programmes, as well as the problems of the visited museums, galleries and cultural centres exhibiting local and international artists.
National Gallery "Daut Pasha Amam" (address: Old Skopje Bazaar) and National Gallery "Cifte Amam" (address: Bitpazarska Street, Old Skopje Bazaar)
16:00-17:00 Tea Break in Gallery 7 *
A tea break in Gallery 7 - a tea shop in the Old Skopje Bazaar that used to be an important alternative hangout of artists and intellectuals in Skopje that hosted some public art events during the 80s and 90s.
17:30 –19:00 Meetings with artists *
- studio visits and research interviews with artists.
The participants of each of the three groups meet different local artists.
I group: Liljana Gjuzelova
http://www.presstoexit.org.mk/NPP/LiljanaGuzelova.html
II group: Zaneta Vangeli
http://www.scca.org.mk/artists/vangeli/index.htm
III group: Yane Calovski
http://www.presstoexit.org.mk/NPP/HTML_NPP_2007/Kronica.html

19:30-21:30 Reception at press to exit project space *
Yane Calovski, artist and Artistic Director of press to exit project space will introduce the programme of press to exit project space and the exhibition: "Oskar Hansen’s Museum of Modern Art” (Hristina Ivanoska and Yane Calovski)
press to exit project space (address: Maksim Gorki, 19) http://www.presstoexit.org.mk/NPP/HTML_NPP_2007/Kronica.html

25.09. (Tuesday)

10:00-13:00 Curatorial Translation Labs *

Workshops devoted to the three major topics. Participants are divided in three different groups in three spaces:
-Translating theory into curatorial practice
(workshop leader: Suzana Milevska, venue: Visual and Cultural Research Centre, address: Partizanski odredi 63)
- Intercultural curatorial translation
(workshop leader: Nat Muller, venue: press to exit project space, address: Maksim Gorki 19)
--Translational relations between curatorial concepts and art works (workshop leader: Luchezar Boyadjiev, venue: Cultural Centre “Tocka”, Kliment Ohridski 15)
13:00-14:00 Lunch Break

Afternoon session
14:00-17:30 Visits to local art and cultural institutions *
informal meetings with curators working in local institutions:
Museum of Contemporary Art (address: Samoilova bb) and Cultural Centre "Mala Stanica" (address: Zeleznicka 18)
17:30 – 19:30 Meetings with artists *
- studio visits and research interviews with artists
The participants of each of the three groups meet different local artists:
I group: Aleksandar Stankoski (18:00-19:30)
http://www.presstoexit.org.mk/NPP/AleksandarStankovski.html
II group: Tihomir Topuzovski (17:30-19:00)
III group: (tba) (17:30-19:00)

19.30 Dinner

26. 09. (Wednesday)
10:00-13:00 Curatorial Translation Labs *
Workshops devoted to the three major topics and groups:
-Translating theory into curatorial practice
(workshop leader: Suzana Milevska, venue: Visual and Cultural Research Centre, address: Partizanski odredi 63)
- Intercultural curatorial translation
(workshop leader: Nat Muller, venue: press to exit project space, venue: address: Maksim Gorki, 19)
-Translating artistic practice into curatorial projects
(workshop leader: Luchezar Boyadjiev, venue: Cultural Centre: “Tocka,” address: Kliment Ohridski 15)
13:00-15:00 Lunch Break

Afternoon session
15:00-16:00 Visits to local art and cultural institutions *
Cultural Centre: “Tocka”
16:00 – 18:00 Curatorship and Media *
Katerina Bogoeva, "Utrinski vesnik" - daily newspaper, Aleksandra Bubevska, A1 TV, Ivana Tasev "TEA" - weekly magazine
A panel discussion with journalists from art and culture departments in local media. Curators often claim that they mediate the artistic concepts to the audience. This workshop will address the problems of mediating curatorial concepts to the audience through public media. Some of the questions to be tackled are: how to publicise and communicate curatorial projects to the press, what are the expectations of curators from different media, and how the journalists respond to these expectations? What is there for the art audience?
Cultural Centre: “Tocka”
19:00 Dinner

27.09. (Thursday)
10:00 – 13:00 Preparation of the public presentations *
This is when the three groups work on their own, without the leaders of the workshops. The participants try to self-organise, delegate a leader among themselves and/or delegate the work (research on internet, writing, make a ppt) among themselves. This session is to start putting together the public presentations (15 min each group) in order to complete the task given by the leaders (summarise the group work, come up with an idea for a new model and strategy of cross-cultural curating or new model of an institution).
13:00-14:00
Lunch Break

Afternoon session
14:00 – 16:00 Preparation of the public presentations *
17:00 – 20:00 Workshop in Second Life - led by Ilias Marmaris *
Introduction to Second Life and its potentialities for art and curatorial projects. The workshop is going to be led by the Greek artist Ilias Marmaris who will discuss the potentialities and downfalls of Second Life and will offer the new arguments of the debate on SL. The participants will hear more on the advantages of creating an avatar, meeting the avatars of the other participants and “flying” in the Second Life's virtual space.
Visual and Cultural Research Centre (address: Partizanski odredi 63)
20:00 Dinner
21:00 Ballettikka Internettikka - guerrilla net ballet *
Presentation of Igor Stromajer
organised by CAC-Skopje in partnership with press to exit project space
press to exit project space (optional programme)

28.09. (Friday)

11:00-13:30 Curatorial Line-Up (individual presentations) *
All participants get together and introduce their previous individual ideas/projects (audience: free-lance curators, journalists, cultural managers, artists and curators from local institutions, by invitation only).

Multimedia Cultural Centre "Mala Stanica"
13:30-14:30 Lunch Break

14:30-15:30 Curatorial Line-Up (group presentations) *

Presentations of the work in groups. Each group’s presentation lasts up to 15 min followed by a short discussion at the end.

15:30-16:00 Break

Barbara Borcic

16:00-18:00 Curatorial Translation in Theory, Culture and Art *
A conference challenging curatorial translation as a discursive concept of curating and questioning the ways in which curating intervenes into contemporary socio-political processes through translation of various theoretical, cultural or artistic concepts into exhibitions, public art projects and other events.

- Aspects of Curating: Barbara Borcic, art critic and curator, Director of SCCA - Ljubljana
- Working with Others: The Cases of Moderna Museet Projekt
and Totally Motivated - A Sociocultural Maneouver: Maria Lind, curator and Director of IASPIS, Stockholm
- Introduction to the Beginning of an Argument: Nat Muller, free lance curator, Rotterdam
- Periphery and Contemporary Curatorial Practices: Louisa Avgita, free lance curator, Thessaloniki

18:00-18:30 Break

18:30- 20:00 Curatorial Black *
A panel discussion dealing with various models of curatorial theories and practices and their institutional and non-institutional representations.
Moderator: Suzana Milevska, curator and Director of the Visual and Cultural Research Centre
Participants: Louisa Avgita, Barbara Borcic, Ilias Marmaris, (free lance artist, Athens), Maria Lind, Nat Muller

20:00 Entangled Fragments: ABC of Curatorial Black *
A project by Nikola Eftimov, featuring Iskra Sukarova
Curator: Suzana Milevska
Multimedia Cultural Centre "Mala Stanica" (address: Zeleznicka 18)
20:30 Dinner

29.09. (Saturday)
10:00-18:00 Optional visit to Matka/Nerezi (Lunch) *
18:00-19:30 Taking Part: Participating Singularities - Ontological Communities *
A public lecture by Prof. Dr. Irit Rogoff
Multimedia Cultural Centre "Mala Stanica" (address: Zeleznicka 18)
20:00 Dinner

30.09.
Departure

Stars' description:
* public event
* participants only, divided in groups
* all participants, no audience
* all participants, audience by invitation
* optional event

Curator: Dr. Suzana Milevska
Director, Visual and Cultural Research Centre

Assitent Curator: Biljana Tanurovska
Younger Research Assistant, Visual and Cultural Research Centre

Curatorial Translation Participants:

Louisa Avgita, Ivana Bago, Gulsen Bal, Katerina Bogoeva, Barbara Borčić, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Aleksandra Bubevska, Yane Calovski, Slavčo Dimitrov, Nikola Eftimov, Liljana Gjuzelova, Nora Halimi, Hristina Ivanoska, Vladimir Jančevski, Petra Kapš, Vida Knezević, Svetlana Kuymdjieva, Suzana Milevska, Maria Lind, Tevz Logar, Ilias Marmaris, Vladiya Michaylova, Nat Muller, Irit Rogoff, Aleksandar Stankoski, Iskra Šukarova, Biljana Tanurovska, Ivana Tasev, Tihomir Topuzovski, Žaneta Vangeli, Ivana Vaseva, Elena Veljanovska, Jelena Vesić, Maja Vuković, Velimir Žernovski

Address:
Visual and Cultural Research Centre
"Euro-Balkan" Institute
Partizanski odredi 63
Skopje 1000
Macedonia
Tel./Fax: +38923075570
E-mail: visualculturalresearchcentre@gmail.com
blog: www.curatorialtranslation.blogspot.com

Partners:
SCCA-Ljubljana, press to exit project space, EXIT - Peja, Belgrade Circle,
Minsitry of Culture of the Republic Macedonia
Venue partners:
press to exit project space
National Gallery, Multimedia Cultural Centre "Mala Stanica"
Cultural Centre "Tocka"

The project is supported by European Cultural Foundation
and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia