I had the pleasure of visiting Slovakia for the Kontaminácie / Telo vody -symposium organized by PLAST and enjoyed five warm days in Bratislava. During this hospitable visit, I had the opportunity to interview people involved in the Open Culture! -network. The interviews were developed into a review, or something between a civil rights report and art writing for Mustekala Saastumista ja siitä voimaantumista Slovakiassa. The text lists what the Open Culture! network and the culture strike initiatives are about. Like with previous writing this year, it is an archive too with ample resources on the topic.
It makes for a nice continuation of the previous work we did for the militarism-themed issue “Hard and soft power” (in Finnish) with our collegial editorial team. I hope to continue investigating organizing efforts in Prague, perhaps later in Poland too. I want to gain a better understanding to how countries, which identify themselves as being in a subordinate position in the European Union, understand their capabilities of influencing democratic development. To find allies, I hope to have the Finnish text translated into English, so that it would work as a contribution for establishing solidarity and responding to the rise of militarism. I hope to learn more about the Resist Now Together initiative (and the EU level work too).
In Bratislava I visited the city gallery for The Art of Interaction exhibition. Anna Kutera’s painting from 1973 is a solid reference point for feminist revolt and creation (more stable and articulated than the USA maintenance artists). Teresa Murak’s performance from 1989 was holy and enables me to continue with art. Vladimír Havlík’s piece at the exhibition will work well as a performance art teaching exercise, and Wojciech Bruszewski’s Language of Parallel felt like it came from the future. My absolute favorite of the exhibition was Ľubomír Ďurček’s “Mr. Vinclait Attacks Again” (not sure about the title) from 1990, in which the artist balances and moves using two office chairs.
I distributed our Tasting book -zine to the A4 bar, and visited Karl Marx Hof in Vienna during my return trip. It was bizarre to visit the architectural origin of my own Malminkartano suburb! Like visiting the future and the past at the same time. The exact same arches if the main entries of the complex are also present in a Pohjois-Malminkartano social housing project. The model of building an apartment complex like a village fortress is weirdly current. We used to play war games as kids in Malminkartano… And the architecture was well suited for urban war play, but only now I understand the architectural intent. The “oriental” lamp designs were shockingly brilliant. I also got into the corridors, exploring the details of the carpentry. The “Chinese” elements were a big surprise.