[oberlist] CURATING EXCHANGE 3: CURATING A SOCIETY AND PRODUCTION OF POWER

[press to exit project space]

*CURATING EXCHANGE 3: *
*CURATING A SOCIETY AND PRODUCTION OF POWER*
*May 7-9, 2014, Skopje, Macedonia*


*CURATING EXCHANGE* is an annual symposium addressing local and regional
need for an insightful and qualitative exchange of experience and knowledge
in theoretical and artistic research, curatorial practice and education.

*CURATING EXCHANGE 3: CURATING A SOCIETY AND PRODUCTION OF POWER* is set to
reflect on the question of how theologically, politically and economically
driven discourse curates socially critical concepts today, or rather, and
how the discourse of the state, theology and politics intersect in current
cultural context. The program includes lectures by Prof. Gil Anidjar and
Prof. Sofija Grandakovska, as well as a exhibition by artist Hristina
Ivanoska and a discussion between the artist and cultural researcher Iskra
Geshoska . Curator of the program is Yane Calovski.

Initiated in 2012, this is the third edition of the program. This edition
is in part supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of
Macedonia, in partnership with GEM (Gragjani za Evropska Makedonija) and
SIA (Serious Interest Agency).

*PROGRAM*

*May 7th*
Opening of the exhibition
*Hristina Ivanoska: La Mystérique (The Path of Grace)*

Location: SEA Gallery, Skopje
Opening: May 7th, at 20:00h until 21:30h.

*Hristina Ivanoska* and* Iskra Geshoska* will stage a conversation at the
opening of the exhibition.

The exhibition features new works in diverse medium inspired by the written
work of Simone Weil, a Jewish-born French philosopher, Christian mystic,
and a political activist, and Luce Irigaray, Belgian-born French feminist,
philosopher, and cultural theorist.

The works reflect on the idea of doubt and purpose when faced with ones
political, social and spiritual self. Weil, a devoted Christian, questions
her faith in God as she no longer believes that baptizing will confirm her
sanity. The works of Luce Irigaray in a way explain the emotional and
inexplicable (love) relation with God. In her text “La Mystérique” from her
book Speculum de l’autre femme (1974), she reexamines the devotion that
woman have toward God, asking: How does one tickle these things, even if
one felt passionately about them, if there is no sense of vocation?

*May 8th *
Location GEM
Time 19:00h – 21:00h

*Whose Citizens Were the Jews Deported From Macedonia?*
Lecture *Sofija Grandakovska*
Lecture in Macedonian; followed by a discussion with guests and the
audience

Under the conditions of established anti-Semitic state-administrative
Bulgarian apparatus ever since the first days of the occupation of
Macedonia in April 1941 and the relegation of the Vardar portion of
Macedonia to the Kingdom of Bulgaria - the question of the treatment of
Macedonian Jews as non-Bulgarian citizens, is revealed as a distinctive
example underlying the singularity of the Holocaust event in Macedonia
compared with other Holocaust experiences in Europe. Macedonian Jews were
excluded from Bulgarian citizenship according the 1941 Law for Protection
of the Nation and at the very same time were relegated as Bulgarian
citizens in the Declarations for one-time taxation from 1941; were treated
as former Yugoslav citizens in Police registers from 1942, as individuals
that sojourn in Macedonia, as foreigners and finally they were deported as
res nullius in 1943. In that context, the question remains: Whose citizens
were the Jews deported from Macedonia by the Bulgarian politic elite, with
the help of the administration and police - and delivered to the German
authorities at the Malkinia station wherefrom they were taken to an instant
execution in the gas chambers in Treblinka II?

*May 9th*
Location: GEM
Time: 19:00 – 21:00

Promotional speech on the work of *Gil Anidjar *by *Sofija Grandakovska *

"Race, Nation, Religion" Lecture by *Gil Anidjar*

"Race, Nation, Religion" -- these three terms have defined collectives in
ways that are strangely compatible and incompatible, acceptable or
unacceptable, historical and ahistorical, relevant and irrelevant. Not so
long ago, Balibar and Wallerstein told us about "Race, Nation, and Class,"
for instance, and the interplay between them. By way of a genealogy of
sorts, and with the help of Freud, Prof. Gil Anidjar will focus on the
alleged difference between the three terms, on what they share and what
they conceal. To put it another way, he will interrogate the antiquity of
religion, the invention of the nation, and the making of race.

The lecture and promotion held in English; followed by a discussion with
the audience.

For more information please contact:
presstoexit at gmail.com; +389-(0)75-299-889 (Yane Calovski)

Short narrative biographies of the participants:

*Gil Anidjar* teaches in the Department of Religion and the Department of
Middle Easter, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University
(USA). He is the author of “Our place in Al-Andalus: ”Kabbalah, Philosophy,
Literature in Arab Jewish Letters” [2002]; “The Jew, the Arab - a history
of the enemy” [2003]; “Semites: race, religion, literature” [2008] and
“Blood: Critics of Christianity“ [2014]. He is currently visiting professor
at the Faculty for Media and Communication (FMK) in Belgrade.

*Sofija Grandakovska*, author of: “The Discourse of the Prayer” [Говорот на
молитвата](2008) and “The Portrait of the Image” [Портретот на
сликата](2010), is editor and co-author of the bilingual chrestomathy “The
Jews from Macedonia and the Holocaust: History, Theory, Culture” [Евреите
од Македонија и холокаустот: историја, теорија, култура] (2011) and
coeditor of the bilingual bookzine edition DOMA [HOME](2010). She is
co-curator of the multimedia exhibition “The Jews from Macedonia and the
Holocaust” (Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Skopje, 2011, and
Gallery of the Jewish Community Belgrade, Belgrade, 2013).

*Hristina Ivansoka* is a visual artist. She has graduated with a BA and MA
from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Skopje. She has exhibited in a number of
individual and group exhibitions and projects in Maceodnia and abroud. She
was awarded a reserach residence via Artslink at the Clivlend Institute of
the Arts (2004) and was an artist in residence at IASPIS, Sweden (2008).
With Yane Calovski works on collaborative projects since 2000; in 2004 they
eastblished Press to Exit Project Space, a platform for artistic reserach
and curatorial practices.

*Iskra Geshoska* is active in the independent cultural sector more then 20
years. She is a president of Kontrapunkt – association for the development
of critical thought, cultural polices and activism. In the period 2002-2010
she ran the independent Cultural Center Tocka. She is interested in
theories dealing with the political and esthetical interplay in the
socio-cultural context. She writes and publishes essays and criticism in
the sphere of performing and visual arts.

*Yane Calovski* is an artist, reseracher and a curator. He has realized a
number of international individual and group exhibitions, as well as
projects. Lives and works in Skopje where he is active in the independent
cultural sector since 2004. Cofounder of press to exit project space
together with Hristina Ivanoska.
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