Mapping Solidarity at the CultureHub Belgrade Convening
The phrase mapping solidarity calls up many resonances. While a map might bring to mind an image of clearly marked borders, a symbol of geographic distance and difference, mapping turns this symbol back into a process. Mapping is an act of construction that can make a reality as much as reflect it. The second CultureHub Belgrade Convening, from September 1 to 3, 2023, emphasized mapping as an ongoing creative process, exploring new modes of creating solidarity and locating support outside of one’s immediate local context. The convening brought together 15 artists from ten countries and across disciplines. “The diversity of artist's backgrounds and experiences enriched our discussions and creative processes,” Marija Kovačina, one of the organizers, reflected, “expanding my horizons and inspiring me to think beyond my own local context.”
In another sense, mapping solidarity names the process of understanding solidarity itself, to understand how it emerges so that those forms can be re-followed in the future. CultureHub Artistic Director Billy Clark described how the second convening felt different than the first, because “repetition has meaning.” The work of building a community in an international network, he said, “felt more resounding the second time, because it was the second time.” Mapping is not just the process of making once, but creating a way to iterate into the future.
Željko Maksimović, one of the organizers from Eho animato, underscored the necessity of finding the resources to continue gathering, stressing that “my hope for the future is, of course, first that we manage to get funding (the most important thing in the world we live in) so that we can meet in person and do hybrid performances and collaborative works together. Of course, we can rehearse long-distance, but I think seeing each other, traveling together, and sharing our art, enthusiasm, knowledge, kindness, all the good stuff we achieved in the convening is our right, and art should be given the importance it deserves.”
This year’s convening made the design of the event more open and collaborative. All artists were invited to bring their own creative offering to the group, which took many forms—from workshops and exercises, a lecture-as-performance, to screenings, presentations, and collective speculative exercises. Structuring the convening around these creative offerings also created a space away from competition, and product-focused art making. Maksimović wrote that the second convening “was primarily important in terms of its structure and pace—it was a relaxed event, artists were not expected to produce a masterpiece, make results, justify their own practice or existence and compete with each other as they usually are on the market! This capitalist, market logic imposed on workers in culture and art was something we managed to avoid in the convening, thus opening a real space for the participants to relax, see and hear each other, share their struggles and thoughts, i.e. achieve solidarity.”
Creative Offerings:
Eho animato
Eho animato created an exercise in which each participant recalled a moment from their life when they had felt most supported. The participants then split into groups and made tableaus of that moment, creating connections around intimate personal memories. Their offering set the tone for the convening, which foregrounded support and care in artists’ relations with other artists.
“The Convening provided a safe and nurturing space for playing, learning, and openness for everyone involved. I found myself not only learning but also building lasting connections and friendships. The sense of mutual support was palpable and reminded me of the art’s potential to transcend differences and unite us in our common pursuit of solidarity.”
Nemanja Stojanović
Each participant designed a speculative project that would use a creative technology to address a particular social problem. Stojanović taught artists how to use various creative coding tools, and offered ideas for how to combine those tools with their existing artistic practice, which introduced a new way of working to many of the participants.
Markiza de Sada & Dekadenca
Drag performers Markiza de Sada and Dekadenca gave a lecture-as-performance in the personas of critics of their local drag scene, sharing video and photographic documentation of their work.
CultureHub & La MaMa
Participants collectively imagined a space for a speculative artistic community where art and creativity would flourish, based on a list of what they felt was missing in the world. This imagined space first became a physical one, using elements from the room. CultureHub Creative Technologist Sangmin Chae then used these ideas to create an immersive VR experience that all the participants were able to inhabit.
“There was a moment when we unpretentiously existed in a common space. It seemed to be taken out of time, like a collective imagined horizon. Although it was short, and even repeated in virtual reality, there was a potential for collective play, touch, and creation between different and unknown persons.”
Selma Selman
Selma Selman is a Romani artist that draws her own family stories and experiences into her performances and art practice. For her offering, Selma led the group in a participatory demonstration in which they destroyed old computers in an effort to salvage gold from the microprocessors. This act is both conceptual and practical, on one hand highlighting the inherent waste and ecological impact of discarded technologies while simultaneously mapping a process by which Romani youth can recycle used materials as a method for sustaining themselves.
Doplgenger
Doplgenger screened several of their audio/video pieces, exemplary of their larger practice that recontextualizes found footage from their region to allow the inherent political nature of visual media to emerge.
“Mapping Solidarity“ Public Video Art Piece
The final event of the convening was the projection of the video piece outside of UK Parobrod, which stitched together contributions from artists from across the Balkans, the convening participants, and live feed from the visitors. Some pieces were collected in advance, including from a few artists who attended the first convening, while others were made during the 2023 convening. The assembled piece also left space for public contribution, devoting one moment in the sequence to a live camera feed. Anyone could come into the venue, interact, write messages, or otherwise leave a mark that would become part of the projected video in the moment. The event was attended by approximately 80 people in total, including members of the broader CultureHub/La MaMa community. Kovačina said: “I love the way that the digital realm allows us to extend our reach very far and break down barriers that often hinder our cross-cultural communication.” The culminating public artwork, both in structure and presentation, reflected the spirit of Belgrade Convening: to create new structures of coming together to share and support artists’ work in as many forms as possible.
Blair Johnson is a teacher, writer, and poet based in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA in poetry from Washington University in St. Louis and is a PhD candidate in the Poetics Program at the University at Buffalo. Her obsessions include: unfaithful translations, the material specificity of paper and screens, code as a poetic language, and geologic time. Her work has been published in Diagram, Boston Review, Best American Experimental Writing, The Tusculum Review, and Quarantine Public Library. Since 2020, she has worked as the web and book designer for Essay Press.