The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW Program: Week 2
The Kyiv International – ’68 NOW explores the political and cultural heritage of the revolt and struggle of 1968, considering the antinomies of this moment for the West and East of Europe fifty years onward. The event will take place through May 25 in Kyiv’s House of Cinema in the format of an international forum for art and knowledge.
Friday, May 18 at 19:00, the lecture “The Affects of Democracy” by political thinker Chantal Mouffe will take place in the Blue Hall at Kyiv’s House of Cinema. In this lecture, Chantal Mouffe will examine the crucial role played by what she calls ‘passions’ in politics to refer to the common affects at stake in the construction of collective identities. Taking her bearings from Spinoza, Freud, Wittgenstein, and also from the agonistic model of democracy that she has elaborated in her writings, Chantal Mouffe will scrutinize the role of artistic practices in creating the affects that can be mobilized in order to create a collective will able to give a new vigor to the democratic ideal.
The lecture will be held in English with simultaneous translation into Ukrainian.
Chantal Mouffe (Belgium, 1943) is a political philosopher and Professor of Political Theory at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in London. She is also a corresponding member of the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris and author of The Return of the Political (1993), The Democratic Paradox (2000), On the Political (2005), Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (2013) and with Inigo Errejon, Podemos: In the Name of the People (2016).
The event will be held in English.
Saturday, May 19 at 16:00, “Living Newspaper: The Legacy of the Prague Spring Today,” a symposium curated by Vít Havránek and Tereza Stejskalová (transit.cz, Czech Republic), will take place in the Blue Hall. Participants will discuss the most immediate question of the era – could the socialist model be reformed or not?
Participants:
Tomáš Hučko: translator, publicist, writer and editor-in-chief of the critical monthly journal Kapitál. He lives and works in Bratislava.
Zbyněk Baladrán: author, artist, curator and exhibition architect. In 2001 he co-founded Display, a space for contemporary art, transformed into Tranzitdisplay in 2007. He was also a member of the curatorial team Manifesta 8.
Alexey Klyuykov: artist, illustrator and founding member of the artistic group of Radical Realists. He lives and works in Prague.
Pavel Barša: Professor of Philosophy at Charles University and researcher of memory policy, orientalism, and emancipation movements.
Viola Ježková: documentary filmmaker and dramaturgist of radio broadcasts for Czech Radio Vltava.
Sunday, May 20 at 19:00, “Filmmakers of the World, Unite!” a screening and presentation by Tereza Stejskalová will take place in the Blue Hall at Kyiv’s House of Cinema. This screening of Black and White (1968) by Krishna Vishwanath and Fugue on the Black Keys (1965) by Drahomíra Vihanová will be followed by a presentation by Tereza Stejskalová on the amnesia of the cultural exchange related to the temporary stay of students from non-aligned countries in Czechoslovakia. She will focus on the encounter between Asian and African students of film and the Czechoslovak New Wave in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the paradox of racism under socialism.
The event will be held in English.
Tereza Stejskalová: curator, writer and researcher working for tranzit.cz. Together with Zbyněk Baladrán, she has recently curated the project Biafra of Spirit: Third World Students in Czechoslovakia at the National Gallery in Prague. She has also co-authored the books Who Is an Artist? (2015) and Filmmakers of the World, Unite! (2018).
Sunday, May 20 at 14:00, a presentation on the collective art project by Tokonoma (Germany) and 33 Soshenko (Ukraine) artists’ collectives will take place at the artists’ Studios on 33 Soshenko Street.
The event will be held in English.
Tokonoma is a platform for new art and club culture situated in Kassel. Tokonoma organizes and hosts talks, screenings, exhibitions and club nights and works on the principle of self-organization. In spring 2012, the Tokonoma collective renovated a former retail store in Kassel into a multifunctional space, known as the Tokonoma Apartment.
Soshenko 33 is an art studio of the National Academy of Fine Arts. While having permanent members, Soshenko 33 collective also acts as a situational artists’ group that includes members of other collectives. An important part of their practice is activism around the preservation and development of this particular space. Soshenko 33 collective participated in a residency within the framework of Documenta 14 at Tokonoma space in Kassel.
The full program of events can be found here: http://vcrc.org.ua/68-now/.
Admission to all events will be free of charge.
Organized by Visual Culture Research Center (Kyiv, Ukraine)
Emblem by Experimental Jetset, Amsterdam 2018
Institutional Partners: De Balie (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), European University Viadrina (Frankfurt (Oder), Germany), KrytykaPolityczna (Warsaw, Poland), Medusa Books (Kyiv, Ukraine), tranzit.cz (Prague, Czech Republic).
With the Support of Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Goethe-Institut Ukraine, Prince Claus Fund.