Public presentation
Wednesday, November 17, 2021, 7 pm
Filodrammatica (Korzo 28/1, Rijeka) + ONLINE
Photo: Tanja Kanazir / Drugo more (Flickr gallery)
The promotion of the third issue of GSG Magazine for Contemporary Art and Social Issues will be held in Filodrammatica (Korzo 28/1, Rijeka) on Wednesday, 17 November, at 19:00 CET.
This thematic issue titled Othering (in)(of) the Periphery, published by From the Citizens to Their City (GSG) initiative, is edited by Iva Kovač and Sanja Horvatinčić. The issue features texts and artistic contributions by Catherine Baker, Inês Beleza Barreiros, Jasmina Cibic, Doplgenger artist duo, Rui Gomes Coelho, Ferenc Gróf, Minna Henriksson, Behzad Khosravi Noori, Patrícia Martins Marcos, Pedro Schacht Pereira and Ana Sladojević.
The event will begin with a screening of a video work by Doplgenger artist duo titled “Beneath a Starless Sky as Dark and Thick as Ink“, presented in the magazine in the form of cinema by other means. The promotion is intended as a continuation of the speech and a stimulus for public discussion on the topics featured in this issue. The discussion will also feature online participation of foreign authors and artists who contributed to the issue, including: Catherine Baker, Inês Beleza Barreiros, Doplgenger artist duo, Rui Gomes Coelho, Minna Henriksson, Behzad Khosravi Noori and Pedro Schacht Pereira.
The discussions will be held in English. You can follow and join the event live in Filodrammatica or via the Facebook event page.
From the editorial by Sanja Horvatinčić and Iva Kovač, titled “Toward a Horizontal Decolonization“:
„The third edition of GSG magazine was assembled for over a year, amid tempestuous political events, civil movements and protests. The increasing inability to establish a meaningful political resistance resulted in efforts to, at least, symbolically remove signifiers of centuries lasting imperialistic politics. If, during the earlier stages of capitalism, the problem of racism was perhaps geographically circumscribed, the contemporary dynamics of the global flow of capital, goods and labour make such efforts utterly pointless. (…) In the end, learned forms of behaviour upon encountering the ‘racial’ other, manifest themselves locally in the same manner as in historical centres of colonial expansion, where the presence of diverse populations throughout history had led to racial segregation and white supremacy. While these contexts have an acute and eerie everyday presence of colonial heritage, causing more engaging forms of raising awareness and opposing (the normalization of) such a heritage, at the edge of empires, – then as now – it is more difficult to differentiate, and as such easier to conceal, the mechanisms of double exploitation and specific modes of racialization. (…)
This work, along with others published in this issue, indicates, however, the fact that by simply removing racist speech from public communication, or by removing statues of racists and colonists, we cannot unburden ourselves of the past nor solve the problem of society’s contemporary racism. In this, as with every other struggle for social justice and equality, it is necessary to know and understand the reasons and mechanisms behind, its longevity at all levels of various societies worldwide, and its connection with material living conditions, in order to contribute to the new antiracist epistemological foundations.“
FROM THE CITIZENS TO THEIR CITY (GSG)
Art organization From the Citizens to Their City has been active in Rijeka since 2016 gathering through its programs the protagonists of art, culture and education. The name is taken from a wall plaque that bears the inscription From the Citizens to Their City / Rijeka 1983. This plaque, one of the many plaques of this kind in Rijeka, stands at the very beginning of Križanićeva Street. It speaks about the voluntary engagement of men and women who once lived here, and of men and women who live here today, in the creation of common good.
