Testing Ground: Reparative Practices for New Cultural Ecosystem
The project develops "reparative methods" - creative forms of research that, through a combination of theoretical/scientific and artistic/cultural tools, examine and build on the potential of culture for social recovery.
The project coordinator is the association Kurziv, with partners Krytyka Polityzna from Poland and Maska from Slovenia, while Pogon is an associated partner. The project is implemented from 2022 to 2024.
‘Repair’, which we also choose as a shorter name for our project, is framed following the notion of ‘reparative critique’, which is a term coined by theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and used in humanities for modes of thinking and reacting that are manifested through rejecting predetermined methods and already existing frameworks. The reparative approach engages an empathetic view, thinking together with their object or topic instead of analyzing it from a distance – enabling different nurturing and supportive responses, susceptible to the unexpected. The project will build on this understanding of ‘reparative’, expanding it by developing more radical possibilities of reparative cultural practices and methodologies, bridging divides inside the cultural field, as well as researching and testing new forms of creating and mediating. We believe that reparative approaches are essential for rethinking what cultural and artistic tools are and what they can do in a crisis situation marked by erosion of public trust and growing social divisions.
Reparative methods will be tested and developed in response to various areas marked by friction: growing gender inequality, ecological crisis in urban environment, and structural obstacles that stand in the way of artistic and cultural creation.
Through the project, we will initiate interdisciplinary processes that include artists, curators/producers and other organizers, scientists, writers, researchers and theorists, blurring the boundaries between artistic and discursively introducing artistic methods into the research process (and vice versa).
During the following two years, the partners will organize and produce a series of public talks and seminars, lectures, performances and lecture-performances, experimental media formats, exhibitions and artistic research retreats that will serve as a testing ground for development of reparative methods.
Within the scope of the project Pogon hosted following public program:
Ana Kuzmanić: Space without a name - voulnerable ositions and systems
Happy Hour of Renouncing Ambition
More on the link.
